Secret saving on London travels with Network Railcard
If you live in the UK you should be familiar with the railcards, as they give you a discount of 34% on the (ridiculously) expensive train tickets. I was once young too and had the 16-25 / 25-30 railcards, but those good times are gone.
A less useful or known one is the Network Railcard. It is available to anyone, but has tougher restrictions. It is valid only in Southeast England, and there’s a £13 minimum fare for travelling on weekdays.
It still has value though, as it covers a few major cities including London, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Brighton. The reduction also works on airport trains to/from Luton, Stansted and Gatwick.
Even if you don’t travel outside London, the Network Railcard can buy you a discounted weekend Travelcard for London too, although it needs a workaround which I only found out by accident recently.
You can’t just buy the Travelcard straightaway, instead you need to search for a day return ticket between two London stations. This is what LNER offers for London Waterloo – Hampton Court with a Network Railcard:
As you can see, there’s a £10 Day Travelcard option which is valid for Zone 1-6. For comparison the regular price is £15.2, and Oyster daily cap is £14.9. Note that you must collect your paper ticket at a train station, as there’s no facility to do that in a tube station. The ticket is valid for tube / bus travels within Zone 6 and you don’t have to commence your travel at the station you selected.
A Network Railcard usually costs £30, but there are always some sales going on. Trip.com tends to offer it for less than £20, although do check the restrictions as you may need to buy a train ticket to activate the railcard.
My review of Iberia A330’s business class
The final trip before my next job is to South America, and first stop Buenos Aires! It sounds insane, but a one-way flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires in business class costs only 51,000 Avios plus just over €100, so although I have to add the London – Madrid leg myself it’s still a fantastic deal!
The flight, operated by Iberia, is mostly on an A350 aircraft which features the newer business class design. Unfortunately my flight is operated by an older A330 aircraft instead. However, from my research the two business class products don’t differ that much (at least not from the pictures), and it’s not worth tweaking my travel plans for the A350.
For checking in, Iberia uses Terminal 4 at Madrid airport, although you’ll actually take the shuttle train later to T4S for all non-Schengen departures. Priority passengers (business class and Oneworld elite) use the check-in counters numbered 700-799.
Priority passengers, as well as cardholders of Amex Platinum, are invited to use the fast track security.
We are onboard! Iberia’s business class cabin features 1-2-1 staggered configuration, which is probably the most commonly seen nowadays across all airlines.
For solo travellers the real window seats provide the best privacy, especially when you are sleeping.
If you are travelling with a partner, then choose the middle seats that are closer to the centre.
The monitor is mounted above the ottoman, which is my preferred design.
The seat converted into a bed:
The baseline is, it is a lie-flat business class seat, and that’s about it. It’s not really pleasing aesthetically, not very comfortable and is lacking in storage space. The A350 product appears nicer but kind of follows the same design principle and is barely anything revolutionary.
The amenity kit – Iberia is obviously obsessed with beige and grey!
The menu:
My beef tenderloin, cod tartare and ice cream:
Here is the thing: the meal portion isn’t really big, and for a 13-hour flight you don’t get served another meal (small plate of pasta) until close to landing.
In between there’s only salad and fruit available. I think it’s the first time I have to fight hunger when flying business class!
The IFE contains a decent, although not great selection of international films and dramas.
Their in-flight wifi is excellent though. Business class passengers and Iberia Plus members (free sign-up) can get the messaging package for free. A full package costs €24.99 for the entire flight and supports video streaming.
I had known what to expect before I hopped onboard, so there’s little surprise (good or bad) in this trip. Other things equal I’d probably choose most other airlines over Iberia, but given their excellent redemption deals I’m likely to fly with them again when going to South America next time.
Earn United miles on every Marriott stay, and vice versa
Marriott and United has had a long-term partnership which allows members to receive reciprocal benefits when staying at a hotel or taking a flight. They have taken a step further and launched a Dual Currency promotion.
It appears that the following members are eligible for the offer:
- Marriott Titanium Elite and Ambassador Elite
- United Premier Gold, Platinum and 1K
You need to link your Marriott and United accounts first if you haven’t done so yet. Once completed you can register to the offer, and:
- Earn 500 United miles for every Marriott stay
- Earn 750 Marriott points for every United flight
The flight and stay must be taken by December 9th. Only paid stays and flights count. You don’t need to change your earning preference, as the bonus is on top of what you normally accrue.
It is a great offer, even though for us who live outside the U.S. only the first offer is likely to be useful. Remember that you earn 1,500 bonus points for each stay as well in the current Marriott promotion.
In the United program it costs only 6K – 9K miles to redeem a short-haul flight in Europe and Asia, which is quite good especially since BA is constantly devaluing its partner redemptions. There is an ongoing offer to transfer Marriott points into United miles too.
Targeted: 12K bonus points for two IHG stays
IHG has been very keen on sending out targeted offers recently, and here’s another one.
- Register by December 31st
- Stay twice within 60 days
- Earn 12,000 bonus points
As usual only paid stays count. It is a very good offer, but note the 60-day requirement, so don’t register unless you have upcoming stays planned. Well of course, you need to be targeted first.
£10 / €20 off all flights, every time, via Trip.com
Ctrip ( 携程 ) is the largest travel agency in China who owns Skyscanner and Trainpal, to name a few that our UK readers are familiar with. They bought the trip.com domain (which must have been pricy) a few years ago and Trip.com is now their international trading name.
Unlike Trainpal which makes frequent appearances on Hotukdeals etc and is now somewhat known to the British public, I don’t think Trip.com has been very successful in improving their international presence. It drives them to throwing in money on marketing to attract new customers.
There is a very good offer for flight bookings at the moment. You can see the details here.
- Book on the Trip.com mobile app
- £10 off all airfares of £100+
- £5 off all other airfares
- ANY flights excluding Mainland China domestic are eligible
Simple as that. Anyone can get at least £5 off any flight and there’s no limit on how many times you can claim it. The offer doesn’t currently have an expiry date.
The promotion has a similar version for the France / Spain market. In the app if you change the settings and switch to France / French / Euro this offer pops up:
You get €10 off on all tickets costing €13 – €300, or €20 off above that. On paper it works out slightly better than the UK counterpart.
Intuitively you get the heaviest discount on cheap budget airline tickets. Milan – Tirana is priced at €9.99 on Ryanair, or €6 on Trip.
London – Lyon is priced at £12.99 on Wizz Air, or £6 on Trip.
Kuala Lumpur – Singapore is priced at £12.72 on Scoot, or £6 on Trip.
The saving is less impressive on more expensive tickets. It’s worth pointing out that although the France version offers a better discount, I find the pricing frequently more expensive than the UK version.
I have purchased flight tickets on Trip.com a few times, most recently Norwegian to Stockholm last month and I find them quite good. They have decent 4.1 star rating on Trustpilot.
If you don’t have a Trip.com account yet, my referral link will give you £15 vouchers, although I’m not sure how those vouchers work.
My review of Westin Palace Madrid
My flight to Buenos Aires departs at Madrid, as it saves me £££ compared to flying BA from London. I booked the Westin Palace Madrid hotel for one night as a transit.
The name Westin sounded very posh to me at the beginning, right until I stayed at the brand for the first time at Zagreb. Then I realised it’s at the same tier with Sheraton and Marriott – the Westin Excelsior Rome I visited recently was disappointing.
The Madrid hotel however, is indeed a bit different as indicated by the “Palace” in its name. Construction of the hotel was the idea of King Alfonso XIII. It was completed in 1911 and then the largest hotel in Europe. It was also the second hotel in the world that had a bathroom in each guestroom.
The Westin Palace Madrid hotel has a prime location in the city, within walking distance to the many museums and galleries. Recoletos station is just 10 minutes away, which brings you to the airport for just over two euro.
The exterior of the the building sets my mind at peace – at least it doesn’t seem in desperate need of renovation.
In fact the hotel is very well maintained. The marble floor is immaculate, the walls neatly painted and the finish of everything is fresh. I would believe it if someone told me it’s a new hotel.
My reservation is upgraded by one level to a Premium room. The building is massive with a weird triangular shape, so it takes age from the lift to certain rooms!
Room doors are surrounded by a layer of marble, which is classy but also a bit strange in the meantime.
The room on the other hand, looks pretty standard for a five-star hotel. Nothing specially draws my attention, except the signature Heavenly Bed which is very comfortable!
It comes with a very small balcony.
There are a terrace, a gym and sauna / steam rooms. There’s no pool however.
The restaurant is very beautiful and it reminds me of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Both hotels share Palace in their names for a reason!
The buffet breakfast is average.
Westin Palace Madrid is a decent hotel that’s got a lot of history and well preserved at the same time. The location is also ideal for tourists.
15% off Uber gift card (and more) via Amazon
The offer is back! Amazon just launched a sale on certain third-party gift cards, and most importantly Uber is participating.
You have two options. You can order a physical gift card here which arrives by post, but I’m only allowed to purchase one. It’s much easier to buy the digital gift card instead. Note that the discount applies automatically at the check-out page.
I used to hoard a lot of Uber gift cards via stacked Morrisons promotions, which have unfortunately died out at some point. It’s nice to see another decent offer finally and I’m not hesitating to jump on board.
Uber gift cards can be used for ride, takeaway (Uber Eats) and train/bus tickets (Travel), but not on grocery orders. Note that Uber Travel has extended the 10% back offer till the end of this year.
Note that there’s a daily cap on the amount you can purchase (£400?). Many other merchants are participating, including Apple, lastminute.com, Cineworld, Vue and Bella Italia.
New: redeem IHG Suite Upgrade on reward nights
Back in June IHG briefly enabled a new feature to allow redeeming suite upgrade on reward nights at some hotels. It met with technical issues immediately though and was put on brake just a few days after. It appears that the feature has now made a return.
There were rumours that it’s going live on October 2nd, which has become true. There are multiple reports that the customer centre in China is well trained on this matter and can perform the upgrade already.
A reader has also got in touch after successfully upgrading his booking at InterContinental London Park Lane.
Remember that you can request the upgrade from 14 days prior to the check-in date and it’s applicable on a stay of maximum five nights.
I have a four-night reward stay booked at InterContinental Tel Aviv in December and I truly hope to redeem my soon-to-expire suite upgrade there. It’s great that IHG has finally made an improvement, but to be honest they should just do what Marriott does and allow the upgrade on any rate.