News in brief:
Get £100 off £500 of Hilton USA spending
A new American Express offer has been launched with Hilton. You may find this in the ‘Offers’ section of one, all or none of your cards on the online statement page. I have it on my BA Amex but not my Platinum card.
If you have it, this is the deal:
Receive £100 statement credit when spending £500 at Hilton properties in the US
Valid until 31st October
Only valid when you pay at the hotel (“excludes online payments”)
There is NO list of participating hotels. This is a problem. Historically, Hilton offers have applied across all brands – Waldorf Astoria, Hampton, DoubleTree etc.
It doesn’t say that here. All references to hotels just say ‘Hilton’ or ‘Hilton properties’ or ‘participating Hilton hotels’ – not ‘Hilton family’, ‘Hilton owned’, ‘Hilton group’ etc. It is perfectly possible that you won’t get it at a DoubleTree or, say, the highly acclaimed Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills pictured below.
Remember that you will be hit by a 3% foreign exchange fee when paying on an American Express card in the US. This reduces the value of the cashback if you would otherwise have paid on a 0% FX fees card.
Norwegian drops London Gatwick to Las Vegas
Business Traveller reports that Norwegian has dropped its route from London Gatwick to Las Vegas. It was due to return in October for the Winter season. There is no mention of what arrangements, if any, will be made for affected passengers although flights from Gatwick to LA and San Francisco continue.
This is apparently part of Norwegian’s move “from growth to profitability”, which effectively means closing all routes which don’t make money and using the aircraft elsewhere.
Norwegian had already been forced to scrap plans to run the Las Vegas route all year round. As USA Today explains, Norwegian carries so many passengers on its Boeing 787 aircraft compared to other airlines that they could occasionally not take off. Apparently a Norwegian Boeing 787 cannot depart if the ground temperature is above 40 degrees as the air is too thin to achieve the required lift given the number of passengers on board ……
EU approves Virgin’s acquisition of Flybe following slot commitments
The European Commission has finally approved the acquisition of Flybe by the Virgin Atlantic-led Connect Airways consortium.
It was not entirely pain free, with the airline required to surrender five daily slot pairs at Amsterdam Schiphol and three daily slot pairs at Paris Charles de Gaulle.
These must be made available to any airline which wants to fly to Birmingham. The European Commission decided that Air France KLM’s 31% shareholding in Virgin Atlantic meant that there would otherwise be no substantial competition on these routes.
To date, staff at Flybe have not even been allowed to meet their counterparts at Virgin Atlantic, yet alone start jointly working up a new strategy. A rebranding is certain, as is the integration of Flybe into Virgin Flying Club.
There is a lot of work to do, however. This article, entitled ‘Toxic Flybe Brand Needs To Be Addressed’, gives you an idea of the challenge ahead.
About Head for Points
OT – I have a BA 241 voucher expiring Feb 2020. Fairly flexible in terms of destination and when to travel. Obviously not that long left to look considering availability is difficult. Ideally would like a new plane with new First cabin. Would welcome any recommendations.
https://rewardflightfinder.com
didn’t know Tim was covering Virgin as well, how’s that going, Tim?
Has been for a while, and seems to be working as well as the BA one does – I.e. very well. At the start, you could create alerts, but couldn’t see them – but that has been fixed.
Already got a HKG-LHR for later in the year.
Yes, I see the Martin lewis advert too. On the right hand side of the page just under where it says ‘new to head for points’. Fairly sure it’s not a pop up but an embedded advert?
I’ve got No1 Lounges!
OT. May not be news to you but it was news to me.
Just called BA to book an Avios flight. When the agent was trying to flog me a hotel stay he mentioned that if you book your hotel with BA “BY PHONE” as opposed to doing it online, you get awarded 15 Avios per £1 spent.
I know BA hotel prices can be a bit more expensive that elsewhere sometimes, but if you also use a BA Amex the points could well justify the price.
Anyway, as I say, was news to me, sorry if it is common knowledge…
Do they still charge more for booking via phone though, unless it’s something that can’t be done online?
Anna – its really unfortunate that whenever i need to make a phone booking the website is “crashing” causing a server error. So the charge always gets removed.
😉
Upon solicitation over the phone, I went with this for a night at the Hyatt Centric in Tokyo earlier this year, stacking it with 2 reward nights. I went for free cancellation to preserve flexibility, price was comparable to directly booking with Hyatt.com. No booking fee from recollection.
It is possible to book the 15 Avios per £ offer online too, via the BA website.
I’m rather stunned. One of the pop up adverts on this page is by Caezarsdigital claiming to be endorsed by Martin Lewis. It’s selling something called Bitcoin Trader and is very believable. It is a Scam!!!
Is there no vetting on these things?
Just install an AdBlocker. Problem solved.
We don’t have pop up ads. Anything that pops up is from a virus on your PC.
If you mean an ad in the sidebar, Google is meant to block them at source. We can block them when we see them.
Literally below this comment I got a variation advert about Martin Lewis recommending a stocks and shares website.
Martin Lewis won £3m for anti scam charity from Facebook for this kind of scam ad
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2019/01/martin-lewis-drops-lawsuit-as-facebook-agreed-to-donate-p3m-to-a/
OT: Morning Harry, I’ve just applied for the Halifax Clarity CC as I’ve cancelled my LLoyds Avios CC’s now.
I have the Curve card which I still use but I wanted another back up card.
Do I remember you mentioning that it’s possible to have the Halifax card in credit so that when withdrawing from an ATM abroad there’s no charge?
Excuse me if I’m wrong.
yep, they don’t actually like that (pre-funding) so you might be better off funding the card as soon as you spend/ withdraw
ISTR you get until midnight on the same day and you’ll avoid all interest
we forgot to fund £300 ATM withdrawal (well, more exactly, my wife withdrew £300 & didn’t tell me) – and the interest was only a couple of £££s, 6 weeks later – so nothing to fret about anyway
You can just payoff the CC by online faster payments every week. Usually interest is pennies. Having said that i have pre-funded cards for 20 years and never had an issue (touch wood).
OT – any thoughts on the best Hilton hotel in Berlin for a short break as a couple? We’re Hilton gold members and will be flying into TXL.
On our dates we can get:
East Side Gallery at 30k pts per night
Alexanderplatz 36k pts
Hampton West 40k pts
Hilton Berlin 48k pts
Waldorf Astoria Berlin 52k pts
We’ve got enough points for any of those but would only go for the more expensive ones if there was a good reason!
Thanks in advance.
So much of the answer is what you like and care about. Hard to compare a WA with a Hampton, personally I’d take the Hampton but I don’t care for the luxury hotel as such. Of much greater importance is location, although Berlin easy to get around. The old West is not that interesting, all the good sites and stuff is in what was East. I’d be looking for the Mitte district. East Side Gallery is in area that was very rundown, a lot of development has taken place, and it’s in the crossover gentrification stage, lot of clubs, but also being squeezed by new money, the Mercedes Arena is there. I’d take the Hampton East Side Gallery on those points values. S, U Bahns and Trams get you around really easily, and let you see as you go.
Berlin is also very cheap for cash, of course, so points not always the best option especially if you don’t have status and would be paying for breakfast (Hampton is free of course).
Agree with Doug M, if you don’t really care which one then cheapest is fine.
I have to say the WA and Hilton rarely have paid rates only 1.5x those of the Hamptons, so possibly you have not picked the cheapest time to go. The Hamptons can be under 20K on Sunday nights but 40K is really high
Thanks for the advice Doug, Rob and John
We stayed in the Hilton Berlin in 2016. Was diamond at the time so the lounge access was a bonus but nothing special. Breakfast was excellent though and has a stunning view over the cathedral. Hotel location is great, ubahn station is a few steps away although we walked to most places in the old east – Alexanderplatz and Checkpoint Charlie were both an easy walk IIRC
I stay at the Hilton Berlin regularly for work – location is excellent, really in the city centre overlooking Gendarmenmarkt, lots of nice restaurants and concerts in the summer. Some of the rooms may be a little tired but it is still a nice hotel overall.
PS: the chocolate shop Rausch next door is well worth a visit too…
Thanks Harry.
OT – if you have status, can you choose a seat for free when flying HBO with BA?
Also – a couple of days ago I asked about QF deals to AKL and was told £2000 would be the best I can get. I forgot about mentioning we’re looking to go in February. Since that’s peak date over there, is £2000 still realistic?
Thanks
“if you have status, can you choose a seat for free when flying HBO with BA?”
– Yes.
HBO – no (online) – you can still ask nicely at the check in desk – or go to airport & go to self check in machines to choose your seat, I think this also works with HBO
you can check in online T-24 same as usual, just don’t print your BP or save as pdf
when we book 4x RFS Avios + 1x HBO, the check in agent has always been perfectly happy to move the HBO fare up closer to/ near the other 4
Err, are you sure you have flown to Spain with BA in the past 25 months?
why’s that?
not that I have status
Without status… you can pay to select seats online in advance, or presumably at online checkin. We’ve tended to go for exit row seats in advance where available. In theory at least if you don’t want to pay you have to accept whatever you’re given.
With status, you should be able to select seats for free as BA reversed their original position on this.
Thanks @Row9 and @Shoestring
Last year China Eastern was still selling Sydney for Christmas week in early December for under £2000 (ex Amsterdam) so it should be possible.
Thanks, will keep an eye out.
I’ve just spoken to Hilton Customer Service who confirmed that the offer does apply to all Hilton group hotels, and cumulative spend counts.
So, it should be a good one for our trip to the US in September…
The Ts&Cs on my offer indicate it is valid for checkout spend only. Presumably prepaid rates thus don’t qualify. This is somewhat counterintuitive, if they are trying to drive business to Hilton. Wouldn’t it be better to lock customers in to the prepaidcrate, rather than risk a later cancellation?
Got 2x spare tickets for tomorrow evening’s HfP Summer Party as I can no longer attend due to work. Happy to let them go at face value to a good home. Drop me an email at [email protected] if anyone wants them.
Done it. Got a £1 car rental for next Saturday up to LHR.
Hertz or Europcar?
Hertz One
Which reminds me…. has anyone else used the ‘Driive’ app ? (Yes, double ‘i’).
Seems to aggregate the hertz and Europcar £1 journeys.
Can also set alerts.
Never used it to book, but seems to be quicker than the websites.
At Gatwick south. First time every refused lounged access on a Amex priority pass
Absolutely disgusting
Nonsense excuse of many flight delays
Grain Store?
Nick
I did suggest tou reserve tour entry for £5 pp just in case being a Sat. But hope you used grain store, many times over!
OT – BAPP (£195) *renewal* fee… It’s just appeared on my card (dated 6th July), but the app confirms I have until 8th September 2019 to earn my companion voucher (£100 spend to go!)… same day & month as last year
Does that seem right – I thought I’d be charged the renewal in September (but it appears I paid it in July last year too having looked at statements)
If you’ve ever downgraded to free then upgraded again later it moves your renewal fee date; the date to earn your voucher stays the same.
That’ll be it! Cheers Anna! 👍🏻
Only done it once or twice but recently I’ve stuck with BAPP as since the interchange fees (and now the way Amex is going), the card is bound to get enhanced at some point! 😬