We have our Etihad competition winner

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• Nick says:

  17 Sep17 September 04:18

  First comment of the day… yay! And it’s OT (as bits)
  I recently got some Hilton points from the Lyft promo, which I’d forgotten about so was a pleasant surprise. Am I right in thinking this will keep my (sadly not huge) Hilton balance alive?

  • Nick says:

    17 Sep17 September 06:58

    You should be fine. The T&C state:

    “To keep accumulated Hilton Honors Points, the Member must take one of the following actions within a 12 consecutive month period:
    – stay at a hotel within the Hilton Portfolio pursuant to the terms herein;
    – earn Hilton Honors Points through any third party source of Hilton Honors Point accumulation, including a Hilton co-branded credit card, pursuant to its terms;
    – purchase Hilton Honors Points; or,
    – donate Points through The Hilton Honors Giving Back Program.”

• Jenny says:

  17 Sep17 September 07:24

  Just tried to use the 100sale code for a 3 night trip to New York, but received the message that the code was accepted but ‘I was already benefiting from the best price available so the price remained unchanged. Virgin are SO bad for this kind of empty offer. Are there some further terms and conditions such as the 100sale offer is only available on a Monday with a full moon in a hurricane? I wouldn’t be surprised!

  • Andrew says:

    17 Sep17 September 08:21

    Is it the best price available though?

    Don’t forget to check both Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic Flight & Hotel deals (powered by Virgin Holidays) as the identical trip can be priced differently and have the different validity for offers across the brands (eg Virgin Red or public sector discounts). Last Orlando trip was topline £100 cheaper pp booking via flight & hotel deal rather than Holiday, then we got an extra £70 or so off pp because one of the party worked for the Scottish Government.

    Also split up the holiday, depending on who you are employed by you might have a 12% Virgin Atlantic offer at the moment and various hotel offers. If you haven’t used it yet there’s money return offers on Hilton in the US on Amex and worldwide offers on IHG through Visa.

• n_g says:

  17 Sep17 September 07:57

  I had never used Flight + Hotel packages prior to last year when I booked my Honeymoon to the Maldives via Emirates and got what seemed like a fantastic deal. They are currently sending me emails and glossy magazines advertising this years winter sale and they look tempting as well.

  Does anyone find good value in these Emirates/Virgin/BA deals?

  • Rob says:

    17 Sep17 September 08:27

    With BA, a low-star hotel and flight is often cheaper than the flight alone, so a no-brainer. Obviously you stay elsewhere ….

  • Andrew says:

    17 Sep17 September 08:44

    I’ve had some great deals on Virgin, BA & with Expedia.

    All depends on how you calculate the saving though.

    Can I truly claim to have saved £1,350 when the best priced last minute individual flight booking and hotel booking for 5 nights from Heathrow to DC in August would cost us £1,800 each, but by careful research I found an Expedia flight & hotel deal (in a far better hotel) from Edinburgh to DC cost me £450?

    For many people, it’s not a like for like for like comparison. But I have family living just 30 minutes from EDI.

• Chas says:

  17 Sep17 September 08:03

  OT – delayed response to Don (and Munch) re their query yesterday on VS’s rules for using miles from multiple accounts for redemption bookings.

  You can pool miles from another account (of someone flying on the same redemption obviously) in multiples of the lowest miles for a single sector. So if you were flying outbound peak which needed 25,000 miles and inbound off-peak at 20,000 miles, you can utilise either 20k, 40k, 60k from the other accounts to make the booking, but no other amounts. It does mean that you can technically have enough miles in total between your group to make the booking, but you can’t utilise them if the right values are not in the right place.

• Brian says:

  17 Sep17 September 08:41

  ‘These cards are due to launch today…’ – presumably should be ‘codes’?

  • Rob says:

    17 Sep17 September 08:54

    Fixed! Had something else on my mind 🙂

    • Peter K says:

      17 Sep17 September 09:01

      Oooh, you tease, Rob!

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      17 Sep17 September 14:12

      Please be Hilton, please be Hilton, please be Hilton…..

• Voltron says:

  17 Sep17 September 12:22

  Anyone who got rejected for a Virgin Atlantic card have any luck appealing or re-applying and being accepted? Appealed and still got rejected even though got good credit report and recently acepted for more AMEX cards. Told need to wait 6 motnsh before can apply again

  • Andrew says:

    17 Sep17 September 15:27

    How are you defining what a “good” credit report is? The number allocated by Experian, Equifax or Clearscore are simply their interpretation of the entries to your credit report. They also don’t cover everything. My First Direct accounts don’t appear on any Credit Report, neither do my Bank of Scotland accounts or Barclaycard. So that’s £12,000 of invisible credit card limits (unutilised) and £1,000 of invisible overdraft (unutilised) that neither count for or against me.

    If you’ve applied for and been rejected for a CYBG card, then gone and applied for further Amex cards, that’s 3 applications for credit in a very short space of time – it’s not surprising you’ve been rejected.

    Have a clear out of cards you don’t use, repay any hard core debt, and wait 13 months.

    • John says:

      20 Sep20 September 09:48

      On a related note, does anyone know what the maximum number of Barclaycard Cads they will let you hold at any time?

  • Harry T says:

    17 Sep17 September 18:43

    As Rob suggested, I sent a letter to Virgin Atlantic credit cards HQ expressing my disappointment and emphasising my income, enthusiasm for VS miles collecting and informing them of my Amex Platinum card etc. They approved me for the Rewards + about a month after I sent the letter. At the time, my credit score was suboptimal due to some Amex churning, but the letter worked.

• Ant says:

  17 Sep17 September 12:22

  OT: apologies but never really use Virgin but have a few miles to use. Can all Economy be upgraded to UC or only the Economy Delight?

  • Travel Strong says:

    17 Sep17 September 12:31

    Classic, Delight, or Premium can all be upgraded (everything except Economy Light). This page has all the information, if you select the ‘Cabin Upgrades’ panel halfway down the page: https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/miles/spend-miles/reward-flights.html

    • Kiran says:

      17 Sep17 September 13:06

      Not quite true as some Premium Eco tickets can’t be upgraded with miles.

      • Travel Strong says:

        17 Sep17 September 14:08

        True, one exception exists – ‘K’ fares. But that’s listed on the virgin page, so follow their own site, and speak to the virgin phone agents, and you won’t go far wrong.

• Simonbr says:

  17 Sep17 September 13:18

  Regarding the IHG Stay in the Moment deal, the “travel your way” blurb implies a free early check-in with this deal. The IC in Doha want to charge me over £100 for an early (7am) check-in, so I’m wondering if I should dispute this..

  • TGLoyalty says:

    17 Sep17 September 17:38

    Sign up for ambassador early checkin at 10 am is guaranteed and so is an upgrade.

    Beach or city?

    • BJ says:

      17 Sep17 September 17:55

      Plus the added benefits of the new promotion.

    • Simonbr says:

      17 Sep17 September 21:58

      Beach. I am already spire ambassador. They are now saying subject to availability and no mention of 10am guaranteed so I’m escalating.

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