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HK Express Full Miles offer, redemption from 2,000 Cathay miles
Hong Kong Express, a budget airline which is now a subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, has a regular-ish promotion named Full Miles, where you can redeem award tickets at a very low cost.
A new iteration just came live:
- Valid between Hong Kong and Beijing / Ningbo (China)
- One-way redemption costs 3,500 miles / 2,000 miles respectively
- Book by February 22
- Travel between March 12 and July 11
You’ll need to pay ~400 HKD in fees per way. Availability is decent:
To book, create a new HK express account by linking your Cathay Pacific account, so that it has access to your Cathay miles.
It is not a continuous promotion, and I’m not sure when the next round will start, but probably in one or two months. If I remember correctly they included some routes to Southeast Asia (Thailand?) last time.
The catch is, as it’s a budget airline no baggage allowance is included. Your Oneworld benefits also won’t apply.
My review of Royal Jordanian’s A321 business class
I’m going to Jordan to see the Dead Sea! I did my homework, and decided to travel on Royal Jordanian from Frankfurt. Cost-wise it’s only 22,000 Avios + £179 (business class), comparing to 38,750 Avios + £312 from London. Don’t even get me started on BA: for this 6-hour flight they operate a narrow-body, so expect the pathetic Club Europe seats if you paid for business class!
I arrived into Frankfurt (on BA) the night before, but not my bag. Frankfurt might somehow be my nemesis – in 2018 I was also here to transfer before Christmas, and my RJ flight was cancelled due to poor weather conditions in Amman. They rebooked me to Qatar’s QSuite though, so some silver lining there.
The check-in desk was opened three hours before departure, where I got my boarding pass and lounge invitation.
All passengers at Frankfurt T2 pass emigration first, and security check is near the boarding gates. The only Oneworld Lounge here is Japans Airlines’ Sakura Lounge, which is small but decent. The Goulash and Japanese Katsu Curry are quite good, but forgive my camera shot…
Time to board:
It is also a narrow-body (A321), but they’ve installed proper incliner seats in business class unlike the European airlines. There are 20 seats in five rows.
I’ve got the 1A seat.
The cushion and throw are already set up, and the leather seat is comfortable. Amenity bag:
Not too shabby for a short four-hour flight. I didn’t get a chance to take a proper photo of the recliner mode, but here it is:
As you may have noticed, there’s no IFE at the back of the seat. Each business class passenger is handed an iPad instead.
You can also connect to the in-flight wifi to access the same entertainment system. The wifi is only an Intranet, so you can’t really browse other things.
Let’s check out the menu, which has got a festive design for Christmas.
There are traditional local specialties such as Mansaf, but also Asian cuisine including rice curry and chow mien. Curiously there’s no pasta or steak, which are probably the most common dishes you see on an airplane.
How they serve the food is true novelty – from starter to dessert everything is served out of a trolley, and you basically mix and match whatever you want. I saw a trolley on Gulf Air too but it was only for dessert.
It is quite interesting, and convenient if you want to try a bit of everything. I had the Mansaf (lamb with yellow rice) but it’s quite different to what I had in my mind.
In all honesty, food quality is below average to my preference although I like the dessert and cheese. But they’ve really put their heart into serving the food, and the whole “ritual” took one hour and a half, a big chunk of the flight time.
There’s no fast track for premium passengers on arrival, but there were very few foreigners passing immigration anyway. Landing visa costs 40 dirhams, and the staff picked DCC without my consent so be wary. I booked airport pickup via Royal Jordanian, very reasonable at 19 dirhams.
Although it is a short flight and there’s no lie-flat seat, it is a very wholesome experience and definitely in a totally different league with BA’s alternative.
My review of Goldair and Skyserv Lounges Athens, and a BA upgrade
After a nice week in Athens I’m setting off to the cold London. I used my Avios for an economy flight, and thanks to my BA status I could still use the fast track facility.
All non-Schengen flights depart from Hall A, and you pass border control first followed by the security check. Massive queue for non-EU passport, but I went through fast track in a breeze!
There are a few lounge options, all next to each other.
Aegean operates their own (Star-Alliance) lounge, and other airlines work with one of the three third-party lounges. British Airways partners with Skyserv, but after having read some reviews I decided to try out the Goldair Handling Lounge instead.
The lounge is a massive hall itself.
It is quite bright. There appears to be an outdoor area but that’s for emergency exit only. Here is the working zone:
And let’s have a look at the food and drinks:
Hot food of the day include:
- Orzo with mushrooms
- Turkish meatballs
- Vegetable soup
- Rice
Desserts look quite tasty.
I’m quite impressed by the fact that they have a dedicated shower & bathroom facility right across the alley. To be honest it looks even fancier than the lounge itself.
As I had enough time, I went for a sneak peek into the Skyserv Lounge as well. They do accept both Priority Pass and Dragonpass too.
A few random pictures:
It’s actually more beautiful than the Goldair – the different tones of blue and wavy decorations make you feel like in the Aegean sea. It is however a lot busier, probably because of its broader range of airline partners.
The buffet area is a quite small selection, with the following hot items:
- Turkish burger
- Veal with peas
- Rice
Having visited both lounges I made my way to the gate. The flight was slightly delayed so I checked BA’s app again to make sure. At this point I noticed a change to my assigned seat – I got upgraded to Club Europe!
It was a pretty full flight, so the upgrade made sense. But in case you didn’t know, the business class setup on intra-Europe flights is laughable – it’s basically exactly the same seat, but with the middle seat blocked.
There are *12* rows of business class on this flight, and I’m seated at row 7. My original seat at the exit row would have been better.
Good news is I’ve got free food and drinks for this four-hour journey. BA’s upgrade strategy is intriguing: I have been upgraded three times (the previous two on long-hauls) as Silver and Bronze, but never once whilst being Gold!
Accor: bonus points with Qatar and great hotel redemption deals
[Qatar Airways]
Accor has had a partnership with Qatar Airways since 2022, which allows Accor elite members to acquire Qatar’s status, as high as Oneworld Emerald, after only one flight. You should consider this fast track offer if you are qualified.
They have also just launched a new offer for account linking:
- Link your Accor and QR accounts by Feb 29th
- Fly once with Qatar Airways by March 31st for 1,000 bonus Avios
- Stay once with Accor by March 31st for 1,000 bonus points
Accor has a similar reciprocal scheme with Flying Blue and Qantas. I think you can switch every 12 months.
[Limitless Experiences]
Similar to Marriott and Hilton, Accor has an auction / redemption platform named Limitless Experiences, where you can exchange or bid for experiences including hotel stays and events.
I’ve being paying attention since I’ve accrued 10k+ points from the All Signature promotion last year, and it seems that they are finally offering something interesting. There are discounted redemptions for hotel stays in Asia, Africa and Middle East.
Here are some examples:
- Japan, Grand Mercure Ise-shima Resort & Spa (half-board) 7,000 points
- Japan, Mercure Kyoto Miyazu Resort & Spa (half-board) 5,000 points
- Abu Dhabi, Fairmont Bab Al Bahr (breakfast) 4,000 points
- Bahrain, Mövenpick Hotel Bahrain (breakfast) 4,400 points
- Qatar, Pullman Doha West Bay (breakfast) 4,000 points
- Kenya, Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club (two nights all-inclusive) 20,000 points
- South Africa, Mercure Hotel Midrand (two-nights breakfast) 2,000 points
They will contact you with further details within 14 days of redemption, and be careful as there are various stay dates requirement. There are many cheap options in South Africa and India – paying only 2,000 points (€40) for two nights is insane.
The Fairmont hotel in Abu Dhabi is also a great bargain, as it can cost as much as €300 on some days in February. You must stay by the end of March though, and it doesn’t work me unfortunately.
In addition there are some other on-property experiences available, such as:
- Dubai, Pullman Dubai Jumeirah Lakes Towers, 30 minutes’ PT – 200 points
- Jordan, Mövenpick Resort & Residences Aqaba, buffer dinner for 2 – 1,500 points
- Jordan, Mövenpick Resort & Spa Tala Bay, underwater discovery – 700 points
- Bahrain, Mövenpick Hotel Bahrain, dinner for 2 – 1,500 points
- Saudia, Mövenpick Hotel Al Khobar, seafood buffer for 2 – 3,000 points
- Maldives, Raffles Maldives, sunken dinner for 2 – 10,000 points
My extraordinary 4.5-hour flight delay with Storm Isha!
After I booked my return flight to LGW from Seville I realised there’s no train from Gatwick on that day (Jan 21st) due to engineering work. I was a bit annoyed, but the whole trip turned out to be much more complicated and dramatic than that!
I have vaguely heard about Storm Isha, and received an email from BA that my flight might be delayed because of it the day before. And it turns out to be the case, as I woke up on the day to a notification that my flight has an estimated delay of 1.5 hours due to late arrival of the aircraft.
It means that we would land at Gatwick at around 8pm, which isn’t too big a deal. The delay goes back and forth during the day though and I keep receiving emails / push notifications from Tripcase / Google. It is quite upsetting, and right before I was going to leave the lounge I saw the estimated arrival changed to 10.30pm. At this point I’ve finally made up my mind to book an overnight stay instead, and Courtyard Gatwick Airport is my choice.
It’s a very full flight, and we waited quite a while before the pushback started. According to the captain there’s some “computer error” following the late arrival which caused further delays.
After we are on the runway, another 30-odd minutes passed but we are not taking off. Passengers are getting noticeably irritated and the captain finally spoke again: Gatwick mistakenly stroke out our flight record, and although they are working hard to resume it, it might take another 1 hour and 40 minutes!
You can only imagine how everyone is feeling on this plane. Fortunately it didn’t take that long before they sorted it out – we took off after about another half an hour, some people applauded, and it’s an uneventful flight for the most part.
Until we got to the UK and started descending, and the very apparent turbulence came into play. It was windy and rainy, but we were approaching the land slowly, but the very second before we touched down they pulled up again. The runway’s condition is to risky for landing.
The aircraft circled for another half an hour and it’s the worst time I’ve ever had on any plane. The plane is visibly swinging all the time and I for the very first time have got motion sick in the sky. I’m sweating a lot and having a stomach ache, but luckily I haven’t eaten anything for almost half a day.
The woman sitting next to me was on Whatsapp and I had to tell her off. I can see some others who are undergoing a worse pain than I am. Fortunately, the second landing attempt is successful, and the nightmare is over.
It was an eventful evening and many flights were affected by the extreme weather conditions just like us. I should count myself very lucky as most of these flights were cancelled or, maybe worse, diverted. One reader @SBS2813J’s London-bound flight was diverted to Paris, followed by a whole night of buses and ferry to Gatwick. He went straight to work from Gatwick!
@X’s Wizz Air flight was diverted to Brussels and then heading back to Milan. Passengers who wished to offload at Brussels must sign a waiver as Wizz Air refused to cover their transport cost from Brussels to London.
It’s almost midnight at Gatwick and many passengers are stranded because of the storm. There’s a big queue in front of the taxi desk, and I got a quote of £50+ on Uber for a half-mile ride to the Courtyard! I’ll walk instead.
Booking the Courtyard is the best decision I’ve made this year so far. I even got an upgrade to the Junior Suite.
It’s a very basic and dated room, but I won’t complain. The hotel is overbooked, and there are a few guests at the front desk who paid but couldn’t get a room. I feel very sorry for them and can only imagine how desperate they must be.
[Compensation]
Well here it is – AirHelp comes to my rescue again! Since my flight is delayed by more than three hours (4 hour and 39 minutes), I’m entitled to a €100 payout from AirHelp Plus no matter what the cause is.
Their help page suggests 26 hours before I receive a confirmation, which is more or less the case.
After uploading the boarding pass and my passport, I received the payment in a couple of days.
I purchased AirHelp Plus Complete in November and now I’ve got the lounge pass, delayed bag compensation and the flight delay compensation – is it lucky or unlucky? The €250 compensation I’ve got more than quintuples what I paid already.
Sadly they devalued AirHelp Plus Complete on January 12th, and you can only register 7 trips per plan year now. It might still make sense, as you’ll get more than the cost back as long as one flight delay or one bag delay happens.
If you are interested, enter our unique promo code AHVERYL8 for 8% discount. Prices of the Essential / Complete plans are reduced to €22.99 / €45.99 respectively.
I submitted my claim to BA as well, in less hope as I know the delay is probably mostly attributed to the weather. To my surprise, BA responded in less than two weeks (much sooner than my previous experiences) with a positive outcome:
The total amount of compensation you’re due is £350.00 as there’s only one passenger included in your claim. We are happy to settle your claim for the expenses. We have managed to investigate your claim for your expenses for which the approved amount is £120.20 for your expenses incurred due to the disruption.
So it’s £350 compensation plus £120.20 for my hotel+train expense. I’m a happy man again!
ITA Airways extends status again!
One reader spotted this and reminded me last night – it seems that ITA Airways has quietly extended elite status once again this year!
If you log in to your account, your tier should have a new expiry 01/25, which is an extension by one year. I earned the top Executive status through status match in 2021, used it not even once since, and still just got it extended over and over again. ITA is being really generous here.
I’m suspicious that their IT system hasn’t implemented tier downgrade yet. Given that they haven’t even finished integration with all Skyteam partners, that might be possible :p
If you are also an Executive member, you have the privilege of gifting one Premium card, which is also Skyteam Elite Plus. The benefit should reset next month.
Error fare: Virgin Atlantic LHR-PVG Upper Class for 30k points
(UPDATE: Virgin woke up and pulled the “offer” – it lived for almost 20 hours though!)
Virgin Atlantic launched a new global reward sale:
- Book by Jan 31st
- Travel by Dec 31st
- Save 20% points on all reward flights
- Few destinations are excluded
It is a good offer, although not as good as the previous 50%-off and 33%-off sales.
More importantly, their Shanghai route seems to have loaded the sale fare erroneously.
You pay the following for PVG-LHR, off-peak and peak:
- Economy: 8,000 points / 16,000 points + 873 CNY
- Premium: 14,000 points / 22,000 points +1,565 CNY
- Upper Class: 30,000 points / 38,000 points + 1,719 CNY
To put it into context, the original price for Upper Class off-peak is 57,500 points, so it is almost half-price, not just 20% off. For LHR-PVG you pay the same amount of points, but taxes are gonna be much higher.
If you have an onward connection, the discount works too.
Just a couple of days ago VS had an £800 error fare to Shanghai in Upper Class too – something’s going on there for this route? Do not hesitate as it might get fixed anytime soon.
Great offer: £100 off any Virgin Atlantic flight
(UPDATE: Virgin’s voucher codes have run out)
Trip.com brought back its very generous Virgin Atlantic promotion, and your can claim your offer code on the promo page.
- Book by January 31st
- Limited supply
- Save £100 on any VS flights departing from the UK
It applies to all cabins, and £100 saving could be substantial for economy / premium economy flights. It also stacks with the permanent £10 app discount so the total saving is £110.
A return flight in economy class from London to New York costs under £270:
And flights to other destinations aren’t much more expensive:
There’s a similar offer for Malaysia Airlines, where you can get £50 off (£60 with the app discount) for bookings by Jan 22nd.