Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Black Friday: £25 off Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic deals, Qatar Airways deals, Opodo

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I am planning to run one, and possibly two, additional Black Friday articles during Friday.  These will be emailed out on Saturday morning, but our email readers may want to pop back to the website during Friday to make sure that they don’t miss out.

For now:

Save £25 on a Lufthansa short-haul flight – with a catch

Lufthansa has a £25 promotional code for short-haul bookings made by Monday night.

It is valid for travel between 6th January and 29th May 2020.

The offer has the weirdest rule I have seen in a long time – it is ONLY valid if you are travelling with a child aged 2-11!  One adult? Tough.  Two adults?  Tough.  Your child just hit 12?  Tough.

What is even weirder is that the email Lufthansa sent to HfP about this failed to mention this condition.  I only saw it when I went into the terms and conditions.

You can find the promo code and the full rules on the Lufthansa site here.

In case you missed it, take a look at our recent article on 10 good reasons why you may want to apply for the UK Miles & More Diners Club and Mastercard credit card.

Lufthansa £25 discount code

More Virgin Atlantic deals added

Virgin Atlantic has added three new deals on top of the ones we listed yesterday:

Save 10% on Premium (ie premium economy) tickets to Tel Aviv – travel between 10th January and 29th February

Save up to £100 on Johannesburg tickets (Premium and all Economy ticket types) – travel between 15th January and 26th March

Save up to £100 off US West Coast (Premium and all Economy ticket types) 

Deals run until Monday night.  You can book here.

Virgin Atlantic Black Friday deals

Qatar Airways Black Friday offers

Qatar Airways has some decent offers from the UK.  Here are the headline Business Class deals:

Manchester to Hong Kong – £1,750

Manchester to Singapore – £1,750

Birmingham to Singapore – £1,999

Cardiff to Bangkok – £2,099

Full details of the UK Qatar Airways offers can be found on this special page of the website.

These tickets need to be booked by Wednesday, for travel until October 2020.  Remember that Qatar Airways routes from the UK to Asia earn 560 British Airways tier points in Business Class due to the change of plane in Doha (140 tier points x 4 legs on a return flight).

You can read our recent multi-part Qatar Airways review series, featuring the Qsuite business class seat, here.

And finally, Opodo ….

For Friday ONLY, Opodo is offering the following discounts with promo code BLACKFRIDAY19:

£20 off Flight bookings (minimum spend £400)

£82 off Flight + Hotel bookings (minimum spend £980)

You need to book via this page of the Opodo website.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (51)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Peter K says:

    RE Lufthansa:
    The code is no good on under 2yr olds either:

    Voucher codes cannot be used for flight bookings with infants/babies (up to 2 years old).

    • riku2 says:

      iI’s a bizarre rule because most European countries get 30e off without needing the 2-11 year old. The UK and Belgium need the 2-11 year old to get the discount

    • Pangolin says:

      I was able to use one of the 30 Euro vouchers just by booking via the German site (for a flight from BHX). I have a Lufthansa ID so maybe that helps.

  • BJ says:

    OT: The Hilton Black Friday deal is out and it’s 30% off – the same as the EMEA winter sale! Just checked hotels I have been tracking by going via the Black Friday page and the prices are – identical! The question is will we see something better soon? Flash sales in SE Asia finished recently and Japan etc ends today – will Europe be next?

    • BJ says:

      Had another look and just noticed that clicking on the ‘book now’ button in Hilton’s Black Friday email simply takes us to the EMEA winter sale page!

    • Pangolin says:

      There were some great deals in Japan and Korea though. Paying just 130000 KRW (£85) per night for a King Deluxe in Millennium Seoul during cherry blossom season is a steal.

  • BJ says:

    OT Small Luxury Hotels: 50% off suites at selected hotels, minimum two night stay, book within next 4 days. Their website is generating a security warning for me this morning so I have not posted a link here.

  • Doogie says:

    OT – Monese back again with £100 gift card for £70. Topped up, bought and cashed out to Amazon account within mins! 🙂 GIFT100 promo code.

    • Shoestring says:

      damnit! never bothered to sign up and that’s 2 great deals now (£50 giftcard for £35 2 days ago)

      • Shoestring says:

        [You can use GIFT50 and GIFT100 for a total of £150 in gift cards for £105]

        • Shoestring says:

          just installing it!…

        • Neil Donoghue says:

          I also got both vouchers this morning! Probably the best offer I have found all week and the process took 4 minutes. I bet Curve dreams about being like Monese when it grows up! Ha

    • BJ says:

      Cheers Doogie x2 🙂

    • Harry T says:

      @Doogie – thanks, didn’t get an email about GIFT100

    • Lawro says:

      Amazon not showing as a redemption option for me…

      • Peter K says:

        I got a push notification of the offer and once you do the e-topup onto curve Amazon is definitely a redemption partner for this.

        • Lawro says:

          Didn’t get an email of the offer but have succesfully used the GIFT100 code and received email to redeem Giftcard. Amazon isn’t showing on the WeGift site as a redemption option.

          • Peter K says:

            I’m not sure if Rob has a Monese referral code but if not, and you’ve not signed up yet, then my referral code is PETER161. You get a bonus when you first top-up and use your card, plus another bonus after hitting a spend target.
            If you do have a referral code/link Rob then please delete mine and place yours!

        • Peter K says:

          Not curve, Monese 🙄

        • Lawro says:

          Must be missing something – “e-top up onto Curve”?

    • Lawro says:

      @Doogie how did you manage to redeem to Amazon?

    • stevenhp1987 says:

      Got the notification… “Sorry, this promotion code has expired!.

  • Shoestring says:

    Everybody using the offer/s is an active user of Monese…
    …no need to make up numbers…
    …as opposed to…

  • rams1981 says:

    Code expired it says for GIFT100, annoying.

    • Peter K says:

      Did you have £70 already topped up in your account to use the code?

      • rams1981 says:

        Yep. £700 in there. Not sure if it’s because I’ve used the £50 one already.

        • Rob says:

          Same here, I can’t get it to work. Done £50 already.

          • Axel says:

            Same here

          • rams1981 says:

            My wife hadn’t done any and GIFT100 said expired for her as well.

          • Peter K says:

            I managed both £50 and £100 ones, though did the £100 early this morning.

          • Shoestring says:

            just did £100 & £50 – got an email about the £50 so was easy to get my £50 Amazon card but the £100 redeemed successfully and no email!

            anybody can help me find out where my £100 has gone? I successfully used GIFT100 and now it’s hidden somewhere

          • Shoestring says:

            it’s OK my £100 email arrived (late, as it was the first one I processed) & the £100 is also sitting in my Amazon credit 🙂

          • Flying Misfit says:

            Rob… was also getting expired message until the moment I topped up to have minimum 70 in there… also found amazon back in stock

  • Doug M says:

    Did the Monese people fall behind Curve in the race to burn investor cash?

  • APPL says:

    GIFT100 seems to be working again, and Amazon gift cards are back in stock

    • Grant says:

      I wasn’t a Monese user but in the space of 10 mins I’ve managed to download the app, open an account, top up £105 and use GIFT50 and GIFT100 to get £150 of Amazon vouchers, both of which are now in my Amazon account.

    • Nick M says:

      Came here to say this… I’m sure Tesco was an option when I looked after getting the £50 yesterday. I’ve been making use of my 10% back at Morissons so have plenty of Amazon credit at the moment!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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