News: British Airways adds flights to San Diego, Accor relaxes its points expiry rules

News in brief:

British Airways resumes flights to San Diego

British Airways has announced a date for restarting flights to San Diego.

A thrice-weekly service (Wednesday, Friday, Sunday) will begin on 13th October, increasing to daily from December. It is, apparently, the first European service to resume flying to the city.

From an Avios point of view, San Diego was always a fall-back for anyone planning a California holiday who was struggling to get seats to San Francisco or Los Angeles. Pre-covid, BA also ran flights to San Jose and – when Norwegian was also flying the route – Oakland.

Accor formalises its points expiry policy

Accor Live Limitless did not cover itself in glory during covid, expiring the points of many members who were unable to stay in its hotels.

The official line on points expiry was that you needed a stay every 12 months to keep your points alive. In reality, this was not correct. Any earning did the job, although as Accor has few partners your options were still not huge. That said, if people had known that it was possible to extend their points this way I’m sure more would have done it.

Accor has now formalised this policy in an email sent to members this week. Any sort of points earning activity is now enough to stop expiry.

With restaurants and bars now open, it is possible to pick up points at participating hotels near you without a stay. You could also make a purchase via the Accor shopping portal (although these could make months to post) or transfer in some miles from a participating airline.

One option would be to move 3,500 American Express Membership Rewards points to Finnair Plus and then convert them into 500 Accor Live Limitless points. You are losing some value but it does the job in terms of keeping your existing points balance alive.

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Accor Live Limitless update – April 2024:

Earn bonus Accor points: Accor is not currently running a global promotion

New to Accor Live Limitless?  Read our review of Accor Live Limitless here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our analysis of what Accor Live Limitless points are worth is here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Accor and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.