News in brief:
British Airways extends car transfers for late connections
British Airways has announced an extension of its chauffeur driven executive car connection service at Heathrow.
Passengers travelling in First, Club World or Club Europe, plus British Airways Gold and Silver Executive Club members who are at risk of missing their connection, will be driven to their next flight. Apparently an initial trial has proved successful and more vehicles are being added to the airline’s fleet.
Other current initiatives to improve the Heathrow connection experience are in-air rebooking with your new flight details sent to the crew and a boarding pass waiting for you at the plane door, the allocation of planes with large numbers of connecting passengers to a gate in the same part of T5 and self-service boarding pass printers in the Flight Connections Centre.
Emirates offering A380 business class to Bangkok for €1546
Emirates is offering an aggressive €1546 return fare in Business Class from Amsterdam to Bangkok.
You need to book by 20th September and fly between mid December (90 days advance booking is required) and 31st March. A five-day stay is required. You can also have a free stopover in Dubai if you wish.
There are two flights per day out of Amsterdam on an A380, and a less attractive Boeing 777 option.
Of course, you can’t earn Avios on these tickets as they are on the Emirates flight code. (You DO earn Avios and BA tier points on Emirates flights if they are booked under the Qantas flight code.) Emirates is not in a major alliance so you will probably end up crediting to their own Skywards programme, albeit you can top these up with American Express Membership Rewards points.
You can book via the Emirates website here.
British Airways is actually cheaper than Emirates on some dates – I saw €1451 return available for Amsterdam to Bangkok via London – so this deal is really for someone who wants to give Emirates A380 Business Class a try and is less bothered about the miles or status points.
More on Virgin redemption options to Auckland
Yesterday I wrote about the attractive Virgin Flying Club redemption on Air New Zealand from Tokyo to Auckland. That article is here.
At just 40,000 Virgin Atlantic miles one-way in Business Class – and virtually no taxes – this is a great way to get to New Zealand. You can, after all, get to Tokyo relatively easily on Avios or, via their partner ANA, Virgin Atlantic.
Reader David dropped me a note to say that there is an identical option available from Hong Kong. This is still on Air New Zealand and with the same pricing. Hong Kong is even easier to reach from the UK with either Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles.
You can use the United Airlines website to check Air New Zealand availability between Hong Kong and Auckland. It seems OK for November, February and March but – like Tokyo – they have yet to open up anything later. Singapore and Shanghai are other possible starting points in Asia served by Air New Zealand although you are at the mercy of their erratic reward seat availability.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
OT: Ryanair: Book a 3 night stay and only pay 2 nights! Your discounted night is already deducted in the package price.
Just got this through, might see if it’s worthwhile, but rarely do city breaks longer than the weekend in Europe!