Hmm… Etihad Guest upgraded my status to Silver without telling me
The severity and the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly caught the airline industry by surprise, and we have seen a lot of airlines changing their ticketing and frequent flyer programme policies in a somewhat panicked manner. And we have seen some stop-gap measures that were introduced back in March being extended as the pandemic continues.
And I only found out yesterday that due to one of these changes introduced by Etihad, my Etihad Guest membership status has been quietly upgraded from Bronze to Silver… I searched through my email inbox and could not find any communication from them about it.
What is Etihad Guest?
Etihad Guest is Etihad Airways ’ frequent flyer programme, and not a very useful one in that regard - since Etihad is not in a major airline alliance, getting status (e.g., being a gold member) gets you virtually no benefits when travelling on other airlines. The programme has 4 tiers (with the amount of flying within a year required to reach the tier next to it):
Bronze: it is the basic level, you are Bronze the moment you join
Silver: 20 segments (i.e., flights) / 25,000 tier miles
Gold: 40 segments / 50,000 tier miles
Platinum: 60 segments / 125,000 tier miles
Once you reach a tier, the tier is valid for 15 months (unless you reach a higher tier during that period).
I have not flown with Etihad for over 6 months
I only joined Etihad Guest in November last year as I had a project in the Middle East, so I found myself having to fly with them 6 times within a 4-week period. And since they do not have many airline partners, I decided the best thing to do would be to credit all the flights to Etihad Guest and try to accumulate some miles. There are some decent sweetspots in the programme, e.g., A one-way business class flight from Prague to Seoul on Czech Airlines only costs 25,600 miles!
By the end of the project, I collected around 21,000 tier miles, which is almost, but not quite enough for Etihad Silver, so I remained as a Bronze member. I have not flown with Etihad since December 2019
Surprise! You have been upgraded to Silver
I have not paid much attention to my Etihad membership since, and I only logged into my account a few days ago. And to my surprise, I found out my membership tier has been upgrade to Silver, even though I have not flown with the airline since December. Checking through the records, I realised I have been upgraded since April, but I did not receive any email communication about it, which is what ANY other airline would have done…
(And I know I gave them the right email, as I have been receiving other information from them through email…)
Turns out it is all due to COVID-19...
So it turns out Etihad Guest introduced some COVID-19 policies back in March, in which all members would get a monthly tier miles bonus based on their membership tier:
Bronze: 1,000
Silver: 1,500
Gold: 3,000
Platinum: 6,000
Thus, I received a 1,000 tier mile bonus in both March and April, which brought my total tier miles in the past 12 months to 23,000 miles, which was still 2,000 short of the qualification requirement for the Silver tier. However, I got upgraded to Silver in April, as I have been receiving a 1,500 tier mile bonus every month since May 2020.
How useful is Etihad Guest Silver?
Not THAT useful, to be honest.
It enables me to use priority check-in and gives me an extra 10kg of check-in luggage allowance when I fly with Etihad. It also comes with lounge access only in Abu Dhabi, inflight Wi-Fi discounts and 25% bonus guest miles, so I can collect more miles when flying with them.
However, since Etihad does not have many partners, the benefits of being a Silver member is very limited when you are not flying with Etihad. This is very different to my Gold membership with Aegean Airlines, which is a member of Star Alliance. My Aegean Gold membership provides me with access to priority check-in, airport lounges and extra luggage allowance across all Star Alliance members, including SWISS, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, United, TAP etc.
Bottom line
Whilst it is not a particularly useful airline status, it is still nice to know that I have been upgraded to Silver tier in Etihad Guest - although it would be far better had the airline notified me proactively, rather than leaving it as a surprise.
It also shows that there can be unexpected outcomes when airlines introduce interim policies due to COVID-19. Typically these outcomes are good for customers, but sometimes the airlines only realise they are being over-generous after implementing the new policies, which leads to yet another policy change and further confusion for the customers and their own staff…
Till we travel again.
![[Flight review] What is flying long-haul economy during this COVID era like? LX139 HKG-ZRH in SWISS Economy Class](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec0e49488e81651845d1dbb/1595201846170-FR49G5GDAF2RBRV29N8G/SWISS%2BA340.jpg)
![[Fares Skyscanner has never told you about] Japan has discounted DOMESTIC flight tickets for foreign tourists!](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec0e49488e81651845d1dbb/1591111594320-F9CNSBU4999LKOXVHRZ0/DSC_0372+%281%29.JPG)
![[Part 2] Thinking of a staycation? You might save up to 60% at these UK Marriott / IHG hotels by buying and paying with points!
Link in Bio.
#staycation #uk #unitedkingdom #marriott #courtyard #ihg #holidayinn #theedition #london #oxford #holiday #va](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec0e49488e81651845d1dbb/1590565409140-V5BYYN9MO1O8KTLGT16V/image-asset.jpeg)
[Flight review] What is flying long-haul economy during this COVID era like? LX139 HKG-ZRH in SWISS Economy Class
A lot of us have been stuck at home for quite some time, and while short European breaks sound kind of feasible in the near term, taking a long haul flight to another continent for a holiday is still very much off the table…
I recently took a flight from Hong Kong to Zurich - I did not do it for fun though, just to be clear, and I do not encourage unnecessary travel at this stage. I have a perfectly good reason to do it. Anyhow I am just hoping to show you what the whole travel experience is like, to give you a sense of what you might have to go through once you decide to embark on a long-distance journey again!
List of content
Context: I cannot spend too many days outside the UK
OMG: the flight was so bloody FULL
The airport was very quiet though - most lounges and shops were closed
Boarding time - masks are mandatory
Alterations to inflight services - I actually prefer it
Quick review: seat and entertainment system
Don’t forget to bring a pen! - you have paperwork to fill in
Luckily, something never change...
Bottom line
Context: I cannot spend too many days outside the UK
I returned to Hong Kong in mid-March from London to “escape” from the pandemic, and I was very lucky that I found a £400 return flight on SWISS only 3 days before departure. I booked my return flight in April initially - how was I to know the pandemic would last this long? And as we all know, the pandemic just got a lot worse over April and May and most flights were cancelled due to the lockdown measures across different countries. Fortunately, this also means the return portion of my ticket has become an open ticket, meaning I can rebook it at anytime I want before the end of 2020 and not having to pay any fare difference.
I have UK work visa since I am employed there, and I cannot spend over 180 days outside the UK on a 12-month rolling basis if I would like to get citizenship eventually. After taking into account the business trips and personal holidays that I have taken in the second half of 2019, (including the SQ Suite flight that I took), I realise I am going to exceed that limit by late July. Given the pandemic appeared to have settled in the UK, I decided to return to the UK in early July.
Rebooking my ticket was very easy - I looked up the flights I would like to take on the SWISS website first before calling them. I quoted my booking reference, told the agent the dates and the flights I would like to take and my ticket was rebooked within 10 minutes. Considering the circumstances, I would say it was extremely efficient
OMG: the flight was so bloody FULL!
I expected the passenger load to be very light, considering there is a sentiment against long-haul travel at the moment. This was the main reason I turned down the offer to upgrade to business class for £540, thinking there was going to be so few passengers that I can easily social distance myself from everyone.
Oh boy, how wrong was I?
I was shocked to see more than half of the seats in economy were taken when I checked-in online. When I looked at the seat map a few hours later, even more seats were occupied. I began to worry a little bit, but at least I got myself a bulkhead window seat, so there won’t be anyone in front, or to the right of me…
The airport was very quiet though - most lounges and shops were closed
Flight details
Flight number: LX 139
Date: 05 July 2020
Airline: Swiss International Air Lines
Aircraft: Airbus A340-300 (HB-JMA)
Departure time: 23:45
Arrival time: 06:10
Flight time: 12 hours 25 minutes
Seat: 23K (Window, bulkhead)
Check-in counter
I arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight and the first thing I realised was how quiet and empty the airport was - I have been to the Hong Kong Airport so many times, during high and low seasons, and I have never seen the airport this quiet.
Since I can use the first class check-in counter (thanks to my Star Alliance Gold Status), I checked in my luggage in no time - however the check-in lady told me all Star Alliance lounges are closed, and the flight is 90% full in economy.
90%, seriously?!
Anyway, since there is no lounge access, I decided to walk around the airport and realised most of the restaurants and luxury shops were closed. The only ones that remained open were convenience stores and fast-food restaurants. In fact the airport had taken this opportunity to do some maintenance work, as there was a lot of scaffolding around…
Boarding time - masks are mandatory
Given how everything is closed in the airport, most people gathered around the boarding gate very early. I remained away from that crowd until boarding was announced - and at that point I realised a lot of the passengers did not originate from Hong Kong: quite a few of them were holding boarding passes from Air New Zealand or Cathay Pacific, meaning they were likely to be connecting passengers from New Zealand / Australia. I even overheard some passengers speaking in Vietnamese.
I had priority boarding so I was one of the first passengers to get on the plane; At the door of the plane, each passenger was given a disinfectant wipe. I did NOT notice a cut in amenities: you still get a pillow, a blanket and earphones at your seat. SWISS has also made face coverings mandatory for all passengers on its flights, except during meal time. However, I later encountered a passenger who didn’t have a mask during transit, and found out SWISS does not offer free masks to those who don’t have them.
Anyway, boarding was quite smooth and we left on time. I wiped down my seat with my own cleaning wipes from Dettol just to be safe...
Alterations to inflight services - I actually prefer it
The biggest change compared to my SWISS flight back in March was that flight attendants were wearing masks. Meal services also became more consolidated - your meals and drinks are now served at the same time, rather than in separate rounds.
I did not notice any reduction in choices or the content of the entree though, fortunately. You still have your starter, main course, dessert, bread roll etc. In fact I would say I prefer this new service arrangement more because it is much more efficient than the multiple-round service before and I can maximise my sleeping time.
Quick review: seat and entertainment system
I found myself on the SWISS A340 this time, and the seats in bright green in the seat map are much better than the other seats in the cabin: there is extra legroom and most importantly, a proper retractable leg rest, which made sleeping a lot more comfortable. Whilst pre-selecting it would cost an extra CHF 60, you can select these seats for free during online check-in.
The entertainment system was not too bad either - the sit-coms content were quite updated, and the system was very responsive. I spent most of my flight sleeping anyway so I did not spend too much time playing around with the system.
Don’t forget to bring a pen! - you have paperwork to fill in
Most countries these days require incoming passengers to complete a passenger locator form, and Switzerland is no exception. The only difference for Switzerland is, you have to fill it in even if you are only in transit (i.e. not entering the country / Schengen zone). I would highly recommend bringing your own pen - whilst it is possible to borrow a pen from the flight attendants, the pen would have been used by many other passengers…
Luckily, something never change...
One of the key features of SWISS flights is their pre-landing chocolate - it is still being served. Overall the flight was very smooth and we landed in Zurich at 6am on a very sunny Monday. However, disembarking in small groups was no longer enforced. And the transit area was a bit of a zoo… which will be covered in my next post.
Bottom line
I am not encouraging non-essential travel here, just to be clear. However, people do find themselves in situations in which they have no other choice, but to fly. Flying, particularly in long-haul, is perceived to be stressful these days with all the extra rules, but I don’t think it is that bad from my experience with SWISS - as long as people follow the face covering rules and pay attention to hygiene.
Storytime: My SUITE-est flight Part II - Singapore Airlines’ HIDDEN waitlisting rules and my STANDBY FIRST CLASS boarding pass
Last time I went through my story of sort-of-panic booking process of my Singapore Airlines Suite flight from London to Singapore (with a connection to Hong Kong afterwards, on SQ’s first class on the Boeing 777-300ER). However, there were two first-world problems with the booking:
There was only a one-hour connection between the fights, meaning I will not get to have a full experience at The Private Room at Changi, exclusive to SQ’s own first class / Suites passengers
The flight from London to Singapore is operated with the old Suites, which I imagine would still be amazing, but given a flight on the new Suites cost the same amount of miles, I would prefer being on the new one…
Let the story begin…
List of content
I found a waitlist option for the new Suites, but from Zurich
LOSING HOPE: the waitlist was still not cleared 14 days before departure
HIDDEN RULE: my waitlist was still live AFTER 14 days before departure
DELIGHT: my flight on the new Suites was confirmed!
I still ended up with a STANDBY FIRST CLASS BOARDING PASS
Bottom line
I found a waitlist option for the new Suites, but from Zurich
In November, I noticed that an itinerary on the same date as my flight date was available for waitlisting:
Zurich to Singapore on the A380 with NEW suites, followed by,
an EARLIER flight from Singapore to Hong Kong on the Boeing 777-300ER, featuring the standard first class seat
The itinerary, if confirmed, would put me on the new Singapore Suite between Zurich and Singapore, and let me spend over 6 hours at The Private Room.
Unfortunately, you cannot add a waitlisted booking to a confirmed booking online, and I did not have enough miles in my account to make a separate waitlisted booking. (And you shouldn’t, you will find out why later.) So I had to call Singapore Airlines and ask them to add it.
Fortunately I had a very experienced phone agent dealing with my request so it was sorted very quickly, and I received a new e-ticket clearly listing my waitlisted flight along with my confirmed flights through e-mail.
LOSING HOPE: the waitlist was still not cleared 14 days before departure
Nothing really changed since then, the new flights remain in my booking as waitlisted, and I cannot get on the new flights unless they become confirmed.
Singapore Airlines has a ‘14-day rule’ when it comes to waitlisted redemption bookings:
Your waitlisted bookings are live until 14 days before departure, unless the Airline opens up more availability for redemption bookings and confirms your booking before that.
If your waitlisted bookings are not confirmed 14 days before departures, they will be automatically cancelled.
What the rules mean is, if your waitlisted booking is not confirmed 14 days before departure, you would basically have no chance to get on the waitlisted flights (unless you have otherwise booked a ticket with cash)
And my waitlist had not been cleared 14 days before departure, but…
A typical email one would receive from SQ when their waitlisted booking gets cancelled 14 days before departure
HIDDEN RULE: my waitlist was still live AFTER 14 days before departure
For some reason, my waitlisted flights still showed up in my booking after 14 days before departure, and I was pretty sure that my waitlisted booking had not been cancelled:
The fact that it is still showing up on my booking is pretty good evidence, and
I did not receive an email or SMS telling me the booking was cancelled, which happened to my other waitlisted bookings when they were cancelled
In order to get some clarification (and to potentially get the new flights CONFIRMED), I gave the airline a call so that I can get an immediate response. I didn’t quite get it though - the agent only promised to send a chaser to the relevant departments to see if they can clear the waitlist.
(I deliberately avoided mentioning the 14-day rule, just in case the phone agent went ‘Ah! Maybe your waitlist should be cancelled then…’)
DELIGHT: my flight on the new Suites was confirmed!
To my delight, I received an email informing me I can confirm my flight from Zurich to Singapore for the booking a few days later!
Due to SQ’s fairly disappointing IT system, the confirmation cannot be done online or at a local SQ office either (I was in the middle east at the time). Eventually I had to speak directly with the call centre in Singapore to get the flight ticketed.
I still ended up with a STANDBY FIRST CLASS BOARDING PASS
So at this point, I still have a waitlisted flight between Singapore and Hong Kong.
And it remains waitlisted until the day of departure.
I tried to get this flight confirmed when I was checking in at Zurich. The agent was super helpful but still there was not much she could do. I was eventually given a STANDBY (SBY) boarding pass, for FIRST CLASS!
I only managed to get the second flight confirmed AFTER completing my first flight at Singapore, 6 hours before the flight. I took my ‘SBY’ boarding pass to the transit desk and the lady had to make several calls before giving me a boarding pass with a seat number. It was a VERY strange experience, but I am glad it worked out... eventually!
Bottom line
Having a full-time job means that unlike other bloggers who can easily go on last-minute adventures, I have to plan my travel quite far in advance. And sometimes it means I have very limited options when I book my tickets, especially when it comes to prestigious cabins like the Singapore Airlines Suites. Fortunately, the waitlisting function was extremely useful in my experience and ended up putting me on the new Singapore Airlines Suites, with a double bed!
Storytime: My SUITE-est flight - how I booked my flight on the Singapore Airlines (SQ) Suite with miles (Part 1)
This journey is perhaps the main reason I have started this website, as you can see from the background on the front page. Looking back it is still the best flight I have ever had so far, with both a swirling chair AND a double bed. Hence today I am going to share my years-long journey to redeeming a 12-hour flight on one of the best first class products in the world.
List of content
Context: You can only redeem Singapore Airlines Suite through Krisflyer
The TRIGGER: Singapore Airlines was going to inflate the redemption prices!
TOP UP: buying AMEX points and transferring Hilton Honors points
PULLING THE TRIGGER: Waitlisting and booking
SIDE STORY: My home WiFi didn’t work and I booked my ticket at McDonalds
Bottom line
I knew from the beginning that I either have to win a lottery, or collect enough Krisflyer miles to be able to fly on the SQ Suites. A one-way ticket from Zurich to Singapore costs £5,000 and I know I can never afford that. (Even if I do, I probably won’t pay for it…)
When it comes to redeeming a Suite ticket with air miles, you can only redeem a ticket on SQ Suite using Krisflyer miles. Krisflyer is Singapore Airlines’ own frequent flyer programme, similar to British Airways’ Executive Club.
Unlike how you may redeem Finnair or Japan Airlines business class flights using Avios, Singapore Airlines does not release long-haul first class seats to its Star Alliance partners for redemption, so you cannot redeem your, say, Lufthansa or United miles, for a Singapore Airlines Suite ticket. You have to collect Krisflyer miles and redeem the first class ticket through the Programme.
I did not have a credit card until 2019, so before that my main source of Krisflyer miles was flying. To collect Krisflyer miles through flying, you can fly with:
any other members of Star Alliance
other airlines partners of Singapore Airlines, such as JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic.
I made sure most of my flying is on these airlines, so that I can collect as many Krisflyer miles as possible. I used the earning chart of Krisflyer to work out the number of miles I can earn on the flights BEFORE booking them.
By January 2019, I had just more than 118,000 miles in my account, still 20k short of my target.
In mid-January 2019, Singapore Airlines announced that they were going to raise the number of miles required to redeem flights on the Krisflyer programme. And for the flights that I would like to redeem, the redemption price would increase from 130k miles to 143k. With my reduced amount of travel (hence less miles will be collected going forward), I had a feeling that I would basically be fighting a losing game, so I decided that I needed to make the redemption BEFORE the airline raises the prices.
A simple calculation would tell you that I was still 12,000 points short at the time…
LESSON LEARNT HERE: Air miles is a ‘currency’ to some extent, so prices do INFLATE over time, especially it is becoming easier to get points through everyday spending. So don’t expect the number of points required to book a flight would stay the same for more than 3 years.
I only received my first American Express card in the first week of January, so I did not manage to collect 12,000 points through transactions by the end of January. However, I discovered that we can actually BUY up to 10,000 AMEX points for £150 every year. The process was rather simple - I just had to call AMEX and tell the agent I would like to buy points. The whole process only took 15 minutes and the points appeared in my account 1 day later.
(To be fair though, I am aware that there are STILL SOME AMEX PHONE AGENTS who do not know cardholders can buy Amex points…)
I was still 2,000 points short at this stage, so I converted 16,000 Hilton points to 2,000 Krisflyer miles.
Normally I DO NOT recommend transferring hotel points to air miles, or vice versa, since the points lose a lot of value in each transfer - but that was my only option at the time.
Whilst there was an award ticket that I could IMMEDIATELY confirm, it is not the ideal itinerary for me since the flight would be on the old suite. Hence I had to put myself in the waitlist for other flights, and I needed to do that when my account still had sufficient miles for the award. I ended up waitlisting for over 20 flights to maximise my chances to fly on the new Singapore Airlines Suite.
After that I went back to the two flights that I could immediately confirm, and spent 130,000 miles on them. The process took a minute and I could reserve my seats immediately afterwards. The miles were also deducted immediately from my account and I only had around 300 miles left.
This has nothing to do with points and miles, but it is quite funny. For some complicated reasons, I had no WiFi at home after the first week of January. So in order to do all the point transfers and flight booking via the internet, I went to a local McDonalds so that I could use their WiFi. So yes, I was enjoying an Oreo McFlurry whilst booking my flights on the suite!
Flying on the Singapore Airline Suite was not a spontaneous decision at all for me - it came with years of planning. Of course things did not completely go my way, such as how the Airline was going to raise redemption prices in a very short notice. I ended up not flying on the flights I booked though - I shall discuss why this happened in the next post!
for YOUNG PEOPLE: Cheap air fares Skyscanner has never told you about
‘Is there a student discount?’
This is the line I, and probably everyone else, used in every shop when we were still at school. And when it comes to booking flights, it turns out there are also a bunch of youth discounts lying around.
Some airlines offer youth tickets for people under a certain age and they are either a lot cheaper than normal tickets, or at the same price as normal tickets, but with extra perks (e.g, extra baggage allowance). Some examples are listed below:
SAS: Youth ticket available for people aged 16-25
Croatia airlines: Youth ticket available for people aged 16-24
Finnair: Youth ticket available for people aged 16-25
Whilst there are so many budget options to the US, the same cannot be said for Asia. However SAS does offer some amazing youth fares from Oslo / Stockholm to China and Japan.
Here are some example fares for Asia:
Oslo / Stockholm <> Shanghai / Beijing: £215 - £239
Oslo / Stockholm <> Tokyo: £266 - £290
America
There are some decent deals to the US too, although it might not be as cheap as Norwegian:
London <> Miami / New York: £300
Amsterdam / Brussels <> New York: £234
Stockholm <> Los Angeles (non-stop): £270
Oslo <> Los Angeles: £260
So on…
If you credit your flights to Aegean’s Airlines Miles and Bonus programme, you can get up to 12,000 miles (based on the Oslo <> Tokyo itinerary), with which you can redeem a one-way flight between London and Athens! (You still have to pay the taxes though.)
It is very simple, just go to the SAS website, and in the entry for ‘travellers’, make sure you select ‘youth (12-25 years)’
SAS is a full service airline, so you will be given a full complimentary meal on the long haul flight. I have flown with them several times before and despite these low fares, I actually think SAS has one of the most spacious economy seats (shown in the picture) amongst European carriers (probably due to how tall Scandinavians generally are).
Youth fares are so often overlooked when it is such a bargain to travel on a budget. And by crediting to the correct frequent flyer programme you can even get a free flight to Greece! Do you know any other airlines offering youth fares? Let us know in the comment below!
Heading to Australia? The 3 frequent flyer programmes that offer good-value business class redemption
I have picked Australia for this post because it is very much the furthest place you can travel to from Europe. The distance and the travel time means that an extra effort to try to put yourself in business class is somewhat justified. Whilst it is possible to do this journey in economy class, as plenty of people did before COVID started, it is certainly far from ideal…
In this post I am going to introduce 3 frequent flyer programmes (FFP) that offer exceptional value when it comes to redeeming business class flights to Australia / New Zealand using points.
And no, Avios is certainly not one of them...
Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 Business Class
Let’s do some benchmarking using the most obvious / popular airline options when people travel to Australia…
Avios: A one-way business class award on BA’s flight to Sydney costs 125k Avios on off-peak dates and 150k Avios on peak dates.
Qantas: A one-way business class award on QF’s famous flight from Perth to London costs 126.5k Qantas points.
Singapore Airlines: A one-way business class award on Singapore Airlines from Europe to Sydney or Melbourne would cost at least 116k miles on its own frequent flyer programme, Krisflyer.
One of the best programmes to redeem business class award flights to Australia is Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles. It only costs 85k miles to get a business class ticket from Europe to Australia / NZ. The airline flies to more than 7 destinations in the region, so you can avoid an extra stop at Sydney if you intend to visit other Australian cities.
Your award options are not limited to Cathay Pacific flights. At 90k miles, you may redeem a one-way flight to Australia on other oneworld airlines, including Malaysia Airlines and Japan Airlines.
Asia Miles is a transfer partner of American Express, various hotel loyalty programmes, HSBC Premier and Heathrow Rewards, so it is very easy when it comes to earning miles through spending. Cathay Pacific is a member of oneworld, which means you can collect Asia Miles easily when you travel with any oneworld members, including British Airways, Finnair, American Airlines etc.
For those who have not heard of Aegean Airlines, it is a Greek airline which flies predominantly within Europe. It is also a member of Star Alliance, so whilst the airline does not fly to Australia itself, you can redeem its miles for flights on other members of Star Alliance, such as Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways (Japan), Asiana Airlines (Korea), Thai Airways etc. All of which provide one-stop connections between Europe and Australia.
At the moment, there is wide-open availability for redemption flights on Singapore Airlines during Easter next year, and it only costs 75k miles one-way.
(Just in case someone asks, yes it is cheaper to redeem Singapore Airlines flights in this FFP than Singapore Airline’s own Krisflyer…)
Unfortunately Miles and Bonus is not a transfer partner of any credit cards in the UK. However, you can still transfer points to Miles and Bonus from Marriott Bonvoy or Heathrow Rewards. Earning miles through flying is quite easy though, when you can earn 200% of the mileage flown when flying on SAS Plus (premium economy).
An example itinerary between Oslo and Chicago will net you 20k miles and only costs 830 EUR. Hence if you plan your travel carefully, you can get a free business class flight to Australia after 3-4 long haul trips.
Asiana Airlines is a Korean airline and is also a member of Star Alliance. Thus, like Miles and Bonus, you can also redeem its miles on other Star Alliance members. A flight from Europe to Australia would cost 82.5k miles one-way.
Asiana Club has no partnership with any credit cards in the UK either, but you may convert Marriott Bonvoy points to miles in the Club. Asiana Club is probably one of the easiest frequent flyer programmes to attain premium airline status, and to get perks like complimentary airline lounge access and premium check-in. I shall cover it in another post.
As illustrated by the examples above, knowing which programme to convert and redeem your points with can save you up to 50% of the points required (75k vs 150k). Let us know if you are aware of other programmes that provide good value redemptions between Europe and Australia!
Radisson has started selling points with bonuses! You can save up to 52% for hotels up north!!!
After Hilton, IHG and Marriott, Radisson has finally joined the party of selling points with a 100% bonus. This post is going to look at the best deals you can get for a mid-summer staycation in the UK with Radisson points, based on the current discounted price of points.
Radisson Rewards has just launched a point sale, with a 100% bonus. On average each point will cost 0.27p each during this sale, which ends on 30 June.
Radisson owns a number of hotel brands in the UK, including Radisson Blu, Park Plaza, Park Inn and the Edwardian . And you can redeem points for hotel stay across all these brands.
Two other major hotel chains, Marriott and IHG, are both selling points with bonuses as well.
The Radisson hotels where you may generate significant savings with points are usually up north, in Cardiff or in London. The examples below are based on a one-night stay on 15-16 August, a Saturday night:
| Hotel | Lowest price | Points required | Cost of points | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radisson Collection Hotel, Royal Mile Edinburgh | £235.60 | 70,000 | £189 | £47 (20%) |
| Radisson Blu Hotel, Edinburgh City Centre | £228 | 70,000 | £189 | £39 (17%) |
| Park Inn by Radisson Glasgow City Centre | £213.75 | 38,000 | £102.60 | £111 (52%) |
| Radisson Blu Hotel, Durham | £124.83 | 38,000 | £102.60 | £22 (18%) |
| Park Inn by Radisson Cardiff City Centre | £77.52 | 28,000 | £75.60 | £2 (2%) |
| Radisson Blu Hotel, Cardiff | £108.59 | 38,000 | £102.60 | £6 (6%) |
| The May Fair, A Radisson Collection Hotel | £231.75 | 70,000 | £189 | £43 (18%) |
| Radisson Blu Edwardian, Hampshire Hotel | £191.25 | 70,000 | £189 | £2 (1%) |
| Radisson Blu Edwardian, Mercer Street Hotel | £194.25 | 70,000 | £189 | £5 (3%)) |
Sadly this is the annoying part - neither the website nor its app would allow you to compare cash prices against the number of points required at the results page. You would have to click into the page of each individual hotel to compare the numbers.
What you may do, however, is to have one tab showing the prices in cash and another tab showing the prices in points. The order of the hotels should be identical if the settings of the other filters are the same.
Radisson has finally joined the ‘points sale’ party, and this opens up more opportunities for hotel staycation savings, especially in Scotland. And as a reminder, two other hotel chains, Marriott and IHG, are also selling points with a discount. So don’t forger to check out all these offers when you are planning your staycation!
[Fares Skyscanner has never told you about] Japan has discounted DOMESTIC flight tickets for foreign tourists!
Most people would prefer travelling on the Shinkansen (the high-speed rail) whilst travelling within Japan, including myself, since taking a train is much more convenient and way less stressful. However, Shinkansen tickets can be very expensive at times and there are still plenty of places which are still much easier to get to by plane (e.g. Okinawa, Hokkaido, etc.)
Fortunately, Both of the two major Japanese airlines, Japan Airlines (JL) and ANA (NH), offer discounted domestic flight tickets for foreign tourists, making travelling within Japan much more affordable.
The JAL discounted tickets are called Japan Explorer Pass, and the ANA equivalent is called Experience JAPAN Fare. Both of the discounted fares are split into three levels:
5,500 JPY (£41): flights within Hokkaido and to/from Tohoku (the part of Japan between Tokyo and Hokkaido)
7,700 JPY (£58): Tokyo - Osaka / Nanki-Shirahama, flights between Okinawa Islands (JAL only)
11,000 JPY (£82): all other domestic flights
You can only book these tickets on the airline website, through the pages of these special fares.
To be able to book and use these tickets, you must fulfil the following three conditions:
Reside outside Japan
Own a non-Japanese passport
Has an international return flight ticket travelling from outside Japan
When you book the ticket, you will be asked to provide the ticket number of your flight booking to Japan.
I certainly think so; let's take the most popular route, Tokyo-Osaka, as an example. A flight would cost around 8,000 JPY after adding the airport charges; adding in transportation costs from the city centres to Tokyo Haneda Airport and Osaka Itami Airport, the total cost would add up to roughly 9,000 JPY (£67).
Meanwhile, the fastest Shinkansen train would cost you at least 13,870 JPY (£104) one-way.
It almost certainly is.
According to Japan-guide, and using the same example, Tokyo-Osaka, the cheapest normal ticket on JAL / ANA between the two cities costs 9,200 JPY, so that’s 1,500 JPY more expensive than the discounted tickets for tourists.
Some of you may also find cheaper tickets on budget airlines between the two cities. However, budget airlines use airports that are a lot further from the city centres, so the travel time AND costs to these airports will be much higher (c.1,000 JPY higher) when you use budget airlines.
Nonetheless, it never hurts and costs nothing to check Skyscanner to see if there are cheaper flights.
With JAL, you can purchase an upgrade at the airport on a standby basis when you check-in. An upgrade to business class would only cost 1,000 JPY. No meals are served on domestic flights but you will get complimentary drinks and a bigger seat.
Japan is one of my favourite countries, and the Shinkansen is absolutely amazing when you ignore the price, but it becomes a bit pricey and slow when you travel longer distances. These special fares for tourists makes travelling around the country much more efficient and affordable!
Storytime: I booked a flight to Madrid for FREE: £0 and 0 points
(Please note that I am not going to refer to a specific name of a website / airline in the rest of the article just in case it might get me into trouble…)
To start the story, let me take you back to Black Friday in 2018…
I had subscribed to the newsletters of a student-focused online travel agent at the time, and I was told the day before that there was going to be some special discount available on Black Friday.
On Black Friday, I checked the website to see what discount is available - turns out there is a £50 discount code available for flights to Latin America on a specific Spanish airline.
I knew I wasn’t interested in booking a trip to South America almost immediately since I was more looking for a short and cheap European break around Xmas time. However, since the discount is for flight on a particular Spanish airline, and they fly between London and Spain, I decided to try my luck.
So I found this flight from Gatwick to Madrid on Christmas day for less than £50, and before check-out I entered the discount code.
‘Discount code successfully applied.’
To my surprise, the discount code actually worked!! Since it is a £50 discount code and the flight cost less than that, the final price was £0!!! I still had to enter my credit card details to confirm the booking though.
Since it is technically a FREE flight, I shared this discount code with her and showed her how to book the ticket. She managed to get a ticket as well but for a different date.
A day after making the bookings, however, both my colleague and I saw £1 being charged from our cards. To be fair, we were more than happy to pay £1 for the flight but we both thought, ‘maybe it won’t be a free flight!’
However, the £1 was refunded two weeks later, so the flight was indeed free! (The £1 charge is probably used to make sure the card details we entered were legit.)
So I did the online check-in as usual, went to Gatwick to take the flight, just like what most people would have done with a normal ticket. In the back of my mind I did have the fear that someone would come to me and ask me to pay more. Fortunately that didn’t happen, and by 8pm on Christmas day I found myself in Madrid!
The key lesson here really is: ALWAYS GIVE DISCOUNT CODE A GO. There is almost nothing to lose when you try to apply a discount code - if it doesn’t work, you just book the flight as it is; but if it does, you can now book the same itinerary but at a lower price! It is not like you will lose the flight or anything if the discount code doesn’t work.
And looking for a discount code is also very simple, just google it! There are plenty of websites out there which collect and share discount codes.
Visiting multiple countries in one trip? Making use of stopover rules can help you save money on flights!
If you:
find yourself having / wanting to visit multiple countries on a trip, or
have family abroad, so whenever you have a family trip you would have to fly home first, before joining your family to fly to another country,
Making use of stopover rules and booking all the flights on one single ticket can possibly help you save plenty of money compared to booking all the tickets separately.
When we are connecting between flights (aka transit), there are two types of transit:
Transfer: when the connection is below 24 hours
Stopover: when the connection is over 24 hours
Stopover is not always allowed (due to visa restrictions etc.), but a lot of airlines offer it as a part of an effort to promote the tourism at their own hub.
Due to the distance between Europe and Australia, flying between the two continents usually requires a stop in Asia, either in the Middle East (Dubai, Doha) or Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore). If you want to stop at these intermediate stops for longer to sight-see, you can simply use the multi-city booking function provided on the airlines’ own websites.
(e.g. on Singapore Airlines, when you look for flights between London and Sydney using multi-city booking, a blue button would appear to let you add a stopover at Singapore, see screenshots below.)
This is a strange example but it shows you can make use of the stopover rules even on such ‘indirect’ routings. If you look for a ticket from London to Tokyo, via Kuala Lumpur with no stopovers, on the ITA matrix, you can see the cheapest option being Malaysia Airlines and the fare rules show the following:
The stopover rules state that up to one stopover at Kuala Lumpur is allowed for free, so you can start building your itinerary somewhat creatively:
Compare this with booking the two return flights (London - KL, KL - Tokyo) separately, you would save over £200, almost 20% of the costs.
A similar itinerary can be created for many other city pairs:
Hong Kong / Tokyo
Hong Kong / Taipei
Singapore / Bangkok
etc.
This itinerary makes use of the partnership between Qantas and Emirates. Since Qantas operates flights between London and Australia via Singapore, and Emirates via Dubai (obviously…), having two stopovers in different cities becomes a possibility. Again you should look up a ticket without stopover first, and see if the fare rules allow free stopovers:
Again, the rules tell us that free stopovers are allowed, so you can start constructing your itinerary with stopovers:
As you can see from the screenshots above, I have used the ITA matrix to construct these itineraries and to look at detailed fare rules. ITA matrix is basically a more technical version of Skyscanner / Google flights - it has a less intuitive interface but a lot more functionality. The key functionalities I have used here are to limit a transfer point for the itinerary and to display the full fare rules.
However, you cannot book flight directly from the Matrix. Once you have constructed the itinerary and found a decent price, you need to download the ITA matrix powertool on Chrome, which can bring you to Google Flights, the airline website or a travel agent to book your itinerary.
I am not guaranteeing this is the cheapest way to buy a ticket, but it certainly is an option worth exploring. It is a trade-off between flexibility and price, since you will have to be on the flight in sequence. However, you can now build multiple countries into one trip without having the flight cost sky-rocketing!!
Thinking of a UK staycation? You can save up to 60% for UK hotels by buying points (Part 2)
Whilst international travel is still very much impossible with all the quarantine restrictions that have recently been introduced, some of you might be considering a domestic holiday this summer.
Meanwhile a number of major hotel chains have launched campaigns to sell points at discounted prices, so for some hotels you can get a much better deal by paying with points rather than cash.
The post is going to focus on Marriott and IHG. For Hilton, please read the previous post.
Lounge - Renaissance Hotel London Heathrow
3 hotel chains are now selling points at a discounted price:
Marriott: 60% bonus when you buy more than 2,000 points, so every point now costs 0.64p. Sale ending on 30 June.
Hilton: 100% bonus when you buy more than 10,000 points, so every point costs 0.41p
IHG: 100% bonus when you buy more than 3,000 points, so every point costs 0.41p. Sale ending on 15 June.
Whilst on paper, each point at Hilton and IHG is cheaper than Marriott, they are basically different currencies. Hence, you also need to look at the amount of points needed for a one-night stay at each hotel to determine who you should buy points from.
Marriott has 96 properties across the whole UK, and these are the 4 hotels at which you can generate the most savings by first buying then paying with points. The amount of savings can be up to 61% if you are heading to Oxford.
| Hotel | Lowest price | Points required | Cost of points | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Courtyard Oxford South | £97 | 12,500 | £80 | £17 (18%) |
| Courtyard Oxford City Centre | £205 | 12,500 | £80 | £125 (61%) |
| Trump Turnberry, a Luxury Collection Resort, Scotland | £390 | 40,000 | £256 | £162 (39%) |
| The London EDITION | £417 | 60,000 | £384 | £33 (8%) |
IHG’s portfolio in the UK is highly focused in London, hence most of the best deals are in the capital:
| Hotel | Lowest price | Points required | Cost of points | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday Inn Rochester Chatham | £66 | 15,000 | £62 | £4 (6%) |
| Holiday Inn Maidstone, Sevenoaks | £140 | 20,000 | £82 | £58 (41%) |
| Holiday Inn London - Stratford City | £176 | 35,000 | £144 | £32 (18%) |
| Staybridge Suites London - Stratford City | £185 | 40,000 | £164 | £21 (11%) |
| InterContinental Hotels London - The O2 | £222 | 45,000 | £185 | £37 (17%) |
| InterContinental Hotels London Park Lane | £511 | 70,000 | £287 | £224 (44%) |
Similar to Hilton, the Marriott and IHG apps are much more useful than their websites, because the result page on each app shows both the points required for the stay, as well as the lowest price by cash for every hotel.
And just in case you find the calculation difficult, you can just multiply the number of points by 0.0064 (Marriott) or 0.0041 (IHG) to find out how much those points would cost in GBP.
You can buy Marriott Bonvoy points here and IHG points here. If you do not have a membership for the respective chain, you will have to sign up for one before purchasing the points.
The only catch here is with Marriott Bonvoy. A new account can only buy points 30 days after signing up if there is some qualifying activity (e.g. an actual hotel stay), or 90 days if there isn’t. Hence, you might have to ask a friend who currently owns a Marriott Bonvoy account to buy the points on your behalf. A new account can accept point transfer from another account 60 days after signing up.
The points are sold in US dollars, so you should pay with a card that does NOT charge currency conversion fees. If you have a VISA or MasterCard-based point-earning / cashback credit card, you should buy the points using a Curve Card. Curves can help you earn those cashback or points on foreign currency transactions without having to pay for the conversion fees. If you sign up here, you can get £5 after your first purchase (the purchase does NOT have to be in a foreign currency)
When you redeem Marriott Bonvoy Points for a 4-night stay in a hotel, you can get the 5th night free. Hence, if you are planning a longer staycation (over 5 nights), you maybe able to save even more.
If you missed the Hilton sale, you may still be able to take advantage of the deals at Marriott and IHG, and save up to 60% of your hotel costs. The deals are more suitable for those who have family in the north and would like to spend some time down south. If you have found some good UK hotels deals, let us know in the comment below!
![[Hilton sale ending tomorrow!] Thinking of a UK staycation? You can save up to 55% for UK hotels by buying points (Part 1)](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec0e49488e81651845d1dbb/1590421286498-FLT4APMDPD553GPYDSAE/IMG_3313.JPG)
[Hilton sale ending tomorrow!] Thinking of a UK staycation? You can save up to 55% for UK hotels by buying points (Part 1)
Whilst international travel is still very much impossible with all the quarantine restrictions that have recently been introduced, some of you might be considering a domestic holiday this summer.
Meanwhile a number of major hotel chains have launched campaigns to sell points at discounted prices, so for some hotels you can get a much better deal by paying with points rather than cash.
The post is going to focus on Hilton since its point sale is ending very soon (27 May).
View from DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel - Tower of London
3 hotel chains are now selling points at a discounted price:
Marriott: 60% bonus when you buy more than 2,000 points, so every point now costs 0.64p
Hilton: 100% bonus when you buy more than 10,000 points, so every point costs 0.41p
IHG: 100% bonus when you buy more than 3,000 points, so every point costs 0.41p
Whilst on paper, each point at Hilton and IHG is cheaper than Marriott, they are basically different currencies. Hence, you also need to look at the amount of points needed for a one-night stay at each hotel to determine who you should buy points from.
Hilton has over 100 properties in the UK, and the hotels that represent good value when it comes to points redemption are usually up North. The examples in the table below are based on a one-night stay between 15-16 Aug, the third weekend of August.
| Hotel | Lowest price | Points required | Cost of points | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hampton by Hilton Bristol Airport | £105 | 15,000* | £62 | £43 (41%) |
| Hampton by Hilton Newcastle | £130 | 20,000 | £82 | £48 (37%) |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Sheffield Park | £86 | 20,000 | £82 | £4 (5%) |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Glasgow Strathclyde | £90 | 20,000 | £82 | £8 (9%) |
| Hampton by Hilton Liverpool City Centre | £273 | 30,000 | £123 | £150 (55%) |
| Hilton Garden Inn Doncaster Racecourse | £137 | 30,000 | £123 | £14 (10%) |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Milton Keynes | £128 | 30,000 | £123 | £5 (4%) |
| Hilton Maidstone | £140 | 30,000 | £123 | £17 (12%) |
| Hilton Bournemouth | £227 | 50,000 | £205 | £22 (10%) |
| London Hilton on Park Lane | £400 | 80,000 | £328 | £72 (18%) |
When it comes to comparing the amount of points needed for a stay vs. the normal prices by cash, the Hilton app is way more useful than the website. On the app, the result page shows both the points required for the stay, as well as the lowest price by cash for each hotel. The website, however, would only show the amount of points needed at the result page when you are searching for award stay, and you would need to click into the page of each individual hotel to compare it with the price by cash
And just in case you find the calculation difficult, you can just multiply the number of points by 0.0041 to find out how much those points would cost in GBP.
You can buy Hilton Honors (HH) points here. If you do not have a HH membership, you will have to sign up for a membership.
The points are sold in US dollars, so you should pay with a card that does NOT charge currency conversion fees. If you have a VISA or MasterCard-based point-earning / cashback credit card, you should buy the points using a Curve Card. Curves can help you earn those cashback or points on foreign currency transactions without having to pay for the conversion fees. If you sign up here, you can get £5 after your first purchase (the purchase does NOT have to be in a foreign currency)
With Hilton selling points at 0.41p each, you may now save up to 55% compared to what you would have directly paid in cash, which is an astonishing deal. However, as most bloggers would tell you, don’t speculate on points - buy them only if you have a plan to use them. If you have stayed at any hotel listed above, let us know your experience in the comments!
An easy way to save 25% on hotels - Best Rate Guarantee
Most of the hotel chains guarantee that you can get the lowest price for a room when you book directly with them (e.g. their website, their app, etc.) So what should you do when you find a lower rate from another website like Expedia?
‘Just book with the other website then.’
NO! NO! NO!
When you find a lower rate through an online travel website, you should submit a Best Rate Guarantee (BRG) claim to the hotel and ask the hotel to match the rate. If your claim is successful, the hotel will match the lower rate, and often, give you an extra 25% discount on top of it.
In simple terms, if you booked a hotel room directly on the hotel’s website and found a lower rate (Comparison Rate) from somewhere else online, for the same room type and same terms (e.g. free cancellation by a certain date), the hotel will match the rate AND OFFER AN EXTRA DISCOUNT OR EXTRA POINTS on top (as listed below):
Marriott (including St. Regis, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton etc.): 25% discount on the Comparison Rate or 5,000 bonus points
Hilton (including DoubleTree, Conrad): 25% discount on the Comparison Rate or 5,000 bonus points
Hyatt: 20% discount on the Comparison Rate or 5,000 bonus points
Shangri-La: 10% discount on the Comparison Rate
IHG (Intercontinental, Holiday Inn etc.): 5x hotel points for the stay
Radisson hotels (Park Inn, Radisson Blu): 25% discount on the Comparison Rate
The list above is not exhaustive: each major hotel chain should have a similar policy in place. And in most cases I would recommend taking the extra discount rather than the extra points.
I have had 3 successful experience with BRG in the last 12 months:
Marriott Nagoya Associa Hotel
Four Points by Sheraton, Singapore Riverview
DoubleTree by Hilton New York City - Chelsea
And according to different members on Flyertalk, it has become increasingly difficult to find hotels in Europe that offer lower rates through travel agent., but as shown above and examples below, you can still find these ‘BRG opportunities’ in Asia and the US.
All rates (both flexible and non-flexible) at hotels across all Marriott brands can be matched, as long as the rate you found on the other website has the matching terms (e.g. cancellation dates, check-in rules).
Here is an example:
the flexible rate for a double room at Courtyard Tokyo Station is cheaper on Kayak than on Marriott’s own app. You should be able to submit a BRG claim using this rate from Kayak.
What you cannot do is ask Marriott to match its own refundable rates to a cheaper, non-refundable rate found on another website.
You should book the (higher) rate on the Marriott site first, and then fill in the BRG form, where you will be asked to provide the link for the lower rate from another website. Remember to select 25% off instead of 5,000 points.
Once you have filled in the form, you should receive a notification within 24 hours, informing you whether your claim has been successful or not. If your claim is successful, the email will also include the new rate for the room after the extra discount.
Don’t worry about being stuck with a higher room rate if your claim is rejected, since Marriott offers a 24-hour free cancellation period for all types of bookings (refundable or not). You can simply cancel the booking on the Marriott site immediately if your BRG claim is rejected.
It is likely that you will have to register as a Marriott Bonvoy member for BRG to work. This is because the hotels often offer lower rates for their members. Thus if you have booked a non-member rate and submitted a BRG claim, they are likely to reject your BRG claim, and ask you to book the member rate available on their website.
The BRG at Hilton works a bit differently:
You can only submit the claim against the lowest rate available on the Hilton website. For example, even if you have found a cheaper flexible rate through Expedia, you cannot submit a BRG claim against the flexible rate on the Hilton website, since there is likely to be a cheaper non-flexible / advanced rate available on the Hilton website.
And unlike Marriott, Hilton does NOT have a 24-hour cancellation period for all bookings. So if you submit a BRG claim after booking a non-refundable rate and it gets rejected, you will be stuck with a higher rate that you cannot cancel.
Hence, for Hilton, the best way to submit the BRG claim is to call them BEFORE booking anything, and tell the phone agent you want to submit a BRG claim. When you are on the phone with the agent, you will have to walk him / her through how to get the lower rate from another website, and your claim is successful only if they can verify that there is a lower rate available (compared to what Hilton offers on its own website).
When I did it last time it took a while (c. 30 minutes on the phone), but it was totally worth it as I ended up saving 400 USD for a 5 night stay in New York City.
For someone who cannot be bothered, the answer would be, ‘just book with the website which offers a lower rate.’
However, the verification of a BRG claim is very manual, and the staff who checked your claim could have made a mistake. So if you strongly believe that your BRG claim is valid (e.g. you have checked against the T&C etc.), what you should do is to cancel your existing booking (if you are booking with Marriott) and repeat the BRG claim process again, as long as the lower rate from the travel agent is still available.
FYI, it took me 3 attempts before I finally received a positive response for my BRG claim at Marriott Nagoya…
Whilst Best Rate Guarantee is a very powerful tool when it comes to reducing travel costs, the claiming process is indeed quite complicated and takes a while to understand. However, mastering the art of BRG would open up loads of travel arbitrage opportunities. Have you ever submitted a BRG claim to a hotel? How was the outcome?