Save on new luxury hotels in Asia with Mastercard and Be The First

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• David says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:30

  Would this also work on EDI-HEL-AGP-HEL-EDI ?

  • Rob says:

    29 Oct29 October 09:08

    Not sure if EDI-HEL is 80 tier points each-way? You’d need to check the BA tier point calculator.

    From my experiments yesterday you need 2 separate tickets as Finnair does not file a price for LON-AGP.

• Mark says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:37

  Apologies this has been asked before but I cant find the answer…is there a special link for getting a bonus when adding a supp card to a Gold credit card account or do you need to do it through the chat/phone? Thanks

  • Rob says:

    29 Oct29 October 09:06

    You can do it online – if there is currently a bonus it will trigger.

• funkypigeon says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:38

  OT: Transferred SPG points to BA over two weeks ago and they still haven’t shown up. Contacted customer services a week ago and haven’t heard back either. Anyone in a similar position?

  • xcalx says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:52

    I did a SPG to Alaskan last month it took just shy of 4 weeks to transfer.

    • funkypigeon says:

      29 Oct29 October 09:23

      Strange – it said in the confirmation email that it would take 24 hours!

    • xcalx says:

      29 Oct29 October 17:06

      This was a first time transfer to Alaskan.

  • Tom Cook says:

    29 Oct29 October 13:02

    I did two conversions a couple of weeks ago, it took 3 – 4 days for them to land but thankfully they did in the end.

• moktar says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:54

  OT: Tier point related – Is it possible to get a quote from BA or a 3rd party TA for a (K, L, M, N, S, V) fare? Flight I am interested is selling for fare class O atm and fully flexible option gives a Y fare.

  • John says:

    29 Oct29 October 09:30

    Yes it should be possible on the phone with BA, or using a TA in person (so you feel more confident that they sell you what you want, but email or phone might also work). Maybe ask someone with expertflyer to price something up first

• John says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:55

  Hi BJ, I think you were asking about the Hilton Sukhumvit. I stayed 1 night for 27K points (cheapest I’ve ever seen, usually 30K or more) and 1 night at the DT which is almost always available for 20K points.

  Hilton said only smoking suites were available, so I was only upgraded to a slightly better room. Despite this, my wife was more impressed than some suite upgrades we have received in European Hiltons, especially the bathroom with rain shower. I got a bad room at the DT this time which had little light because it was in the shadow of the Hilton. (However previously the DT gave me a nice suite overlooking Soi 26 also for 20K points, and I then moved to the Conrad for 26K points – which was asking for 40K this visit, so occupancy levels were probably higher everywhere)

  Hilton’s pool faces north so is in the shade most of the day, water was a bit salty. DT’s pool faces east so is sunny in the morning, and after sunset DT’s pool has happy hour with free local beers for Diamonds.

  Hilton lounge has excellent staff, evening service is 1730-1930 with loads of food (pizza, noodles, dumplings, sushi, fruits) and all sorts of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Didn’t attend teatime at 1400-1600.

  DT breakfast has an extremely wide range of buffet items, but the Hilton restaurant’s food quality and service are slightly better quality.

  So I think the Hilton was worth it for 7000 extra points, and would pay maybe an extra 800 baht (base rate). Next visit I want to do stuff by the river so probably choose the Millenium.

  • BJ says:

    29 Oct29 October 12:15

    Thanks John, excellent mini review.

• RTS says:

  29 Oct29 October 09:21

  OT – Marriott TPs. Mine is still showing as Cat 1 – 5. Have TPs been mapped across yet?

  • Scallder says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:26

    You need to get it converted into the new categories. However when doing so should give you a year from that date for the validity. Have a look at the flyertalk thread on it – very helpful and explains the codes for the conversions.

    • MarkH says:

      29 Oct29 October 15:29

      Interesting that they will give another year from the date of converting the package – might leave it for a bit then as nothing in mind yet for where to redeem it.

      • Scallder says:

        30 Oct30 October 08:10

        I bought mine in July before they changed to get another 120k Alaska miles. Hoping to use it for September for a Westin so waiting for Westin to be migrated across to the Marriott platform and then use it.

• Jimbob says:

  29 Oct29 October 09:25

  OT as a family of 5 who could only travel in school holidays, are there any long haul destinations that regularly have 5 business class seats open up for reward availability?

  • Polly says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:25

    Ask Anna!

    • Anna says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:35

      Lol! fortunately we only need 3 but I’ve sometimes seen as many as 7 available on some of the US East Coast routes. We don’t fly east much these days so don’t know about availability that way. Your best bet would be to book CW seats to New York (best availability)/Boston/Chicago/Philadelphia/Washington DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia with a few nights in the city then if you want a beach holiday get connecting flights onto the southern US, Caribbean or Mexico. Cash prices are not exactly cheap but you would get avios and tier points if you used AA or another OneWorld airline. Redemption seats can also come up on AA but are somewhat hit and miss and can come and go quickly. If you can get them though, taxes within the US are ridiculously cheap (e.g. $4 pp MIA to BOS).

      Hope this is useful!

    • Anna says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:39

      Or another option I quite fancy one summer is fly to NYC then drive to the Hamptons area for some beach time. I know it’s famously expensive but there are a few Hilton chain hotels in that area which aren’t extortionate.

  • Simon says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:35

    Dubai / Abu Dhabi….. or New York then connect to most of USA

  • Scallder says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:40

    Jimbob – Try using the BA app. If you put the number of tickets in you can do a reward flight search across countries or ‘continents’ (BA carves them slightly differently), but you’ll very quickly be able to see the number of dates you could get 5 tickets for by each city.

    I do think this is by far the best functionality of the BA app, and one thing that BA has done very well.

    • Jimbob says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:44

      Thanks all for the helpful tips!

    • Mark2 says:

      29 Oct29 October 13:23

      Also try West Coast: Seattle, Vancouver, but of course it depends where you want to go!

      • Memesweeper says:

        29 Oct29 October 18:51

        BKK has good availability

  • Tracy says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:48

    I booked for Cancun for summer 2019 and for the dates I wanted there were 7 business class seats available when I booked.

  • ChrisC says:

    29 Oct29 October 11:14

    don’t forget that BA only commits to releasing 2 CW award seats on every flight. Yes it does often release more but that depends on how well cash fares are selling and they prefer to sell seats for cash rather than miles.

    VS is a bit more variable with now many seats it releases

    Problem you have is there will be lots of people looking for reward seats at half term.

    So you might need to be flexible and split your party of 5 into one of 3 and one of 2 and fly on different flights. or have a mix of cash / miles seats and even a mix of cabins.

    • Anna says:

      29 Oct29 October 12:07

      Jimbob hasn’t specifically mentioned half term. If he has a bit of flexibility over Easter or the summer, there are often more reward seats available on weekdays than at weekends.

  • TescoTease says:

    29 Oct29 October 12:23

    Mexico City has good availability. 5 in F also often available.

  • Tom Cook says:

    29 Oct29 October 13:04

    We like Anna are a family of three, and so Dubai / New York is your best bet. That said we have just booked 5 F seats with a couple of friends who have also started the points game back from NYC this xmas.

• Mark E says:

  29 Oct29 October 09:54

  OT – I have self referred myself from my AMEX plat to get a Nectar AMEX card. The card has arrived , do I have to carry out the £2000 spending target in 3 months to get the 18,000 rewards points on my AMEX , or is that target just there to get the Nectar bonus that the Nectar card has?

  • Genghis says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:15

    Latter

    • Mark E says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:18

      Thank you very much Genghis , this bit of knowledge has just changed my entire self-referring strategy . So presumably (subject to my credit rating surviving) I can find another AMEX product to self refer to and get another 18,000 rewards points?

      • Polly says:

        29 Oct29 October 10:24

        Yes, and if you can make the 10k spend, self refer for the bapp. You get 18k plus 26k…and get pro rata refund if you drop down to free card, or cancel…

      • Genghis says:

        29 Oct29 October 10:27

        Even if you can’t make £10k spend…

      • Matt says:

        29 Oct29 October 10:29

        Yes, but remember you won’t get sign up bonuses for other cards offering membership rewards (gold, ARCC). Also limited to 5 referral bonuses (90k membership rewards) a year.

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