Tuesday 25th February 2020
Contents
Deals Diary
See these pages on TSTW for all the hotel promos, and lounges cars & parking promos or buy points deals
Deals ending soon:
- IHG 75% buy points promo ends 27th February
- Iberia 50% bonus buying Avios until 28th February
- Plaza Premium 20% discount ends 29th February
- Hyatt 25% buy points discount ends 29th February
- Up to 20% extra Etihad Guest miles until 29th February
- Up to 3000 Avios or Accor ALL points on a car rental with Europcar ends 1st March
- Up to 6000 bonus Accor points from 3x 2 night stays ends 6th March
Coming soon:
- Marriott Bonvoy category changes starts 4th March
- World of Hyatt category changes 22nd March
- Royal Air Maroc joins oneworld on 1st April
- Last chance to redeem Avios on LATAM before they leave on 30th April
New Marriott Bonvoy MegaBonus 2020 promo coming soon
Marriott Bonvoy are about to announce a new promo. The main feature will be 2000 bonus points per stay starting from your second stay, for stays until June. It’s possible that there will be additional incentives for longer stays.
Full details will be announced here when released.
Turkey abolishes visas for UK visitors from 2nd March
Save £27 when you next travel to Turkey from 2nd March. British passport holding tourists will be allowed visa-free entry for up to 90 days out of 180.
You will still need 6 months validity and two blank pages for passport stamps.
With Turkey being one of this year’s cheapest holiday destinations, maybe it’s time to take a look?
45% Discount at Melia London Kensington Until Tuesday 25th
Really don’t see the point of a flash sale on a single hotel with just two days to book, but that seems to be a favourite for Melia. I wonder how many extra bookings they get from promos like this.
10% to 20% bonus buying Etihad miles
Buy Etihad Guest miles until 29th February for a bonus up to 20%.
Buy 6 to 20k miles for a 10% bonus
Buy 21k to 40K for a 15% bonus
Buy 41k or more for a 20% bonus
41k miles + 8200 bonus miles will cost $820, around £633.
That’s almost 1.3p per mile. Not great, but if you need to top off your account for a redemption like the amazing Etihad Apartment first class or the business class Studio, then why not.
In fact, you could buy the 88k miles needed to fly the Apartment from Abu Dhabi to London for £1142. Add the £180 of tax and that’s £1322 for a bucket list tick that is certainly extravagant but a lot cheaper than cash.
Get a luggage tag made from the first A380 to be retired
AviationTag, one of our favourite gifts for keen travellers, are making tags from a Singapore Airlines A380, which was the first A380 to be retired.
The first batch has sold out, but you can pre-order the next one. Anyway, an A380 is a lot bigger than a luggage tag, so it won’t belong before they come up for sale on Amazon, where you currently buy tags made fro aircraft like the DC3 or the Antonov.
Virgin Atlantic scraps free Upper class chauffeur service
Another one falls. Cost cutting (can’t see it makes a noticeable difference to their bottom line) and the ease of booking a decent car with Blacklane or Uber, means that chauffeur services are dying out.
Shame though, because when the car turns up with the airline logo on the side, it’s a nice feeling. Probably not as big a deal for regular paying passengers as it is for over-excited travel bloggers who spent a couple of quid and some miles from a credit card sign up.
A much more enjoyable target for your points collecting plans is to be driven to the aircraft by an airline chauffeur.
Triple Club Eurostar points
A potentially very lucrative offer for up to triple Club Eurostar points for travel on all routes during March. Book by 29th February and get:
- Double points in Standard
- Triple points in Standard Premier
Full Club Eurostar Guide including analysis of how and when to redeem points to get the best value.
Manchester Airport PremiAir VIP lounge adds Flybe
Now you can enjoy the PremiAir lounge before your Flybe flight and be driven across the airfield to the gate when it’s time to board.
Don’t forget you can get 25% off Manchester PremiAir until 31st August using code PREMIAIRLI.
See our Lounges, Cars and the rest page for all current lounge deals.
BA adds extra flights for Seattle and Miami for April and May
Adding to the extra flights for Cape Town, Cancun, and St Lucia, BA expands services to Seattle and Miami, making use of aircraft no longer for Asian destinations hit by Coronavirus.
Officially, the reason is that BA “know that these destinations are highly sought after”.
Should be extra Avios availability on these routes for the next week or so.
In July, BA will add new flights to Kosovo and Monte Negro, two countries well worth a visit (although, of course, the best way to visit Kosovo and Monte Negro is by motorcycle).
Blue passports coming soon
UK: Awesome, we can have blue passports now we’re out of the EU.
EU: You always could have had blue ones. Like Croatia. We weren’t stopping you.
UK: Yeah, but now we can make them in England instead of Europe.
EU: You always could. And by the way, you’ve chosen to have them made in Poland by a Franco-Dutch company.
UK: Yeah, but look, it’s symbolic. Just like the Home Secretary, I can’t wait to travel on my new blue passport.
EU: Well good for you! And just think how much time you’ll have to admire your new passport as you stand in line at the immigration desk waiting to buy a visa.
New JW Marriott in Muscat
Oman’s capital gets a new JW Marriott which will cost you 35,000 Bonvoy points per night versus cash rates of around £200.
IHG City Lights 15% discount promo
City Lights is a limited promo offering 15% off the best flexible rate for stays at participating hotels until 30th April, booked by 29th February.
The list of participating hotels is on this page.
