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British Airways and Virgin Atlantic relaunches Shanghai with great reward availability
After being absent from China’s market for three years and having permanently discontinued Hong Kong, Virgin Atlantic is resuming its daily service between London Heathrow and Shanghai Pudong on the first of May.
Reward availability was released this morning, and you can book literally any single day, although seats over China’s festive periods are selling fast.
Here is a reminder what a one-way ticket in Upper Class costs, and the respective fees from Shanghai / London:
- Economy: 12,500 points + 833 RMB / £208
- Premium Economy: 22,500 points+ 1,565 RMB / £360
- Upper Class: 57,500 points + 1,719 RMB / £411
You need to add another 10,000 points if flying at peak. Shanghai is operated by the older B787 aircrafts, although I think they are less bad compared to the A350 suite.
British Airways on the other hand, is also relaunching Shanghai on April 23rd and Beijing on June 3rd. However Avios seats have been available for quite a while now so it’s not as exciting.
BA’s new RFS pricing wants 200,000 Avios + £550 for a return trip to Shanghai, which is ridiculous. Unless you are looking to book first class with a companion voucher, Virgin Atlantic is the more favourable option by a large margin.
Great Eithad first class reward availability from London and other cities
Etihad has opened up a lot of reward space on its first class route, and it’s a good opportunity if you are in for the experience.
First of all you could perform your searches on Etihad’s website which will give you a 7-day calendar view at a time. In the following example, the 88,024 miles price on March 18th indicates standard award availability, which doesn’t exist on other days.
Once you find your desired flight you could book using your Etihad Guest miles, which can be converted from Amex membership rewards points. You’d be overpaying (by a large margin) though, and the best way to redeem an Etihad ticket is to use Aeroplan instead.
A one-way ticket from Abu Dhabi to London in first class costs only 65,000 points and 84 CAD. Charges will be higher for the other way around because of UK’s APD. Aeroplan doesn’t have a promotion on point purchase right now, but you can still get their points by transferring from:
- Amex membership rewards in US / Canada, which is instant
- Marriott Bonvoy, but it might take quite a few days
Etihad flies to London and Geneva in Europe, as well as Washing DC in the States.
This is how Etihad’s first class on Boeing 787 looks like:
Which is, unfortunately, not comparable to Emirates’ first class suite that I was in a few days ago.
Hopefully their A380 fleet will return soon, and I can’t wait to sit in the first apartment!
Claim your free flight from Bamboo Airways
Bamboo Airways, a Vietnamese airline, is giving away their loyalty points which you can redeem for free flights.
You can view the offer details here. Until March 31, you earn 50 Bamboo Club points for taking any of the following actions:
- Log in on the website
- Log in on the app
- Open a promotional email
You can earn the bonus once per platform per day, so max. 150 points a day. During the promotional period your earning is capped at 4,000 points – if you don’t want to receive their emails, you need to log in on their website and app for 40 days to reach the cap.
4,000 points is enough for a one-way off-peak domestic flight under 460 miles. Some city pairs are:
- Ho Chi Minh City – Phu Quoc / Da Nang / Nha Trang
- Hanoi – Da Nang
You still need to pay the taxes and charges, which is about $20.
If you may visit Vietnam in the next year or so, consider sparing a few seconds every day to win your ticket.
Save £££ on your airfare with rail / bus hidden-city ticketing
You might have heard of “hidden-city ticketing”, a trick to purchase cheaper air tickets by adding one or more segments to your desired itinerary. For example, Flying New York – London – Paris could be cheaper than New York – London due to its indirect nature, so in this case it saves money to book the first route and drop the second leg if you only intend to travel to London.
There are complications of course, which I will discuss later in this article. There is an advanced and safer approach though which is less-known, that takes advantage of the interlining agreement between airlines and rail / bus companies.
Actually I’ve been aware of it since a long time ago. I was studying in Switzerland and my Mum was coming to visit me. When looking for an air ticket Swiss’s website offered the following route: PEK-ZRH on Swiss, and then Zurich-Basel on a SBB train. It’s cheaper than flying to Zurich only!
Similar arrangements can be found on Lufthansa’s website between them and DB:
Apparently it’s not necessarily cheaper so you need to do your research.
Most practically, the trick works best if you are looking for a one-way flight to the UAE. A direct flight from London to Abu Dhabi on Etihad costs around £500:
Whereas adding a leg to Dubai reduces the price by more than half!
The trip from Abu Dhabi airport to Dubai is undertaken by a coach. If Dubai is your final destination, you could take the coach or make your own travel arrangement; otherwise just leave the airport and enjoy Abu Dhabi!
Traditionally there are two complications with hidden-city, but they are very unlikely to hinder the novel approach:
- Luggage check-through to the final destination – your luggage won’t check through onto the train or bus so you’ll have to collect them yourself anyway
- Airline blacklisting you for the behaviour – contrary to a flight, it’s technically very difficult for the airline to know if you’ve taken the train / bus journey or not, which prevents them from taking any actions against you
My review of Virgin Atlantic’s A350 Upper Class Suite
I made Los Angeles the first stop of my U.S. trip, as it’s one the few routes that feature Virgin A350’s new Upper Class Suite. In terms of similar suite products, I’ve tried Qatar Airways’ Qsuite and was truly impressed, but I’m not expecting Virgin to match that experience.
With the upgrade voucher I paid only 27,500 points for LHR-LAX, and there was a promotion going on to get half of the points back. It may come across as being cheap, if you dismiss the fact that taxes and charges amount to more than £600…
I’ve reviewed Heathrow’s Upper Class Wing and Clubhouse recently. I didn’t bother with the Upper Class Wing this time but spent considerable time at the Clubhouse. Menu of the day is surprisingly good including Chicken Katsu Curry, Kimchi Fried Rice and Thai Curry. I attempted to visit the Amex Centurion Lounge as well, but unfortunately it already suffers serious overcrowding issue.
Time to board the plane! If you’ve flown with them before you must be familiar with the club lighting.
I didn’t anticipate angled seats, but the upper class cabin is still configured the reverse herringbone style. As usual middle seats are ideal if you are travelling with a companion, but window seats offer better privacy.
I pre-selected 2A (window seat), but for operational reasons the seat is no longer available when I check in, and I’m assigned 8D (middle seat) instead.
I start to feel uncomfortable the moment sitting down. There’s nowhere to rest my head or neck, and the foot rest is much lower than the seat. At 6′ my legs are just about to reaching the foot rest, and I don’t know whether to put my legs down or on it.
There are five buttons to adjust the seat position. It’s a puzzle and I can’t find a comfortable position after all.
After converting into a bed, the lie-flat seat looks like this:
I’m finally starting to get comfortable, then another anti-pattern design hits me. As you can see from the picture, because of the installation of the IFE, I cannot lift my right leg at all. It may not be a problem when you are sleeping, but I like to roll around when lying down.
What’s more, I’m shocked to learn the “door” doesn’t pull out for more than 10 inches – it doesn’t go beyond what the picture shows. The partition between two middle seats is quite short too. To be honest I don’t think it has the qualification of being called a suite.
The amenity kit is made from recycled materials.
The IFE pops out, and I find its angle awkward as well. The system is very new but movie selection is quite limited.
Menu:
The menu fails to whet my appetite, nor does the food. The chicken parfait is fine.
I ordered a sandwich before landing, which is… a cold sandwich as you’ll find in Tesco.
The bar is replaced by The Loft on A350. I didn’t notice it when I got on the plane and didn’t look for it so have no idea how it actually looks like.
I’m not a fan of Virgin’s old Upper Class, and the only motivation for me to fly with them again was to try out the new suite. Sadly it turned out to be a near-disaster and the Upper Class Suite feels worse than the older product. I’m not looking forward to flying Virgin again in the near future, but hopefully I’ll be able to redeem some Virgin points on ANA soon!
My review of Air Serbia Premium Lounge, Belgrade
My flight back to London departs at 10.20am, but I wanna review the Air Serbia Premium Lounge so got in quite early.
As you can imagine, Belgrade airport is fairly small and it has only two lounges: the Business Club which is used by the majority of the airlines except Air Serbia, and accepts Priority Pass.
The Air Serbia Premium Lounge is about 10 metres away. admitting the following passengers:
- Business class
- Etihad Guest elites
- Priority Pass
- Economy Comfort, under a current promotion
Economy class booked using miles falls into the Comfort category and thus is eligible for complimentary access to the lounge. As they accept Priority Pass however, gaining access shouldn’t be a problem anyway.
The lounge is separated by a wall with the business area on the left:
And dining area on the right:
There’s a fancy VIP room which is by reservation only.
In terms of food options there’s a decent breakfast spread:
There’s only bottled water in the fridge though. For anything else including soft drinks you’ll need to request it from the bar.
The bathroom is posher than the rest of the lounge. There is a shower room you could use to refresh yourself.
As it’s the flagship (and only) lounge of Serbia’s national carrier, I had high expectations and can’t lie about being disappointed. It’s so tiny to start with and has no natural light, and I’ve been to many independent airport lounges (especially the Plaza Premium lounges) that are better. Anyhow the food is decent and they’ve got a shower room, so feel free to stop by for a bit before your flight but it’s not worth too much of your time.
My review of Air Serbia A319 business class
After almost ten phone calls to Air Serbia’s call centre, I finally managed to book my business class ticket from Heathrow to Belgrade using Etihad Guest miles. I don’t think many people have ever travelled with them, so it’s worth writing a brief trip review.
(more…)Aeroplan: the best flight redemption between UK / Europe and Middle East
I’ve been in the miles and points game for like eight years now, and my international background / connections mean that I dip into loyalty programs of countries besides the UK. Yet Air Canada’s Aeroplan never entered my horizons until very recently, and it turned out to be an excellent redemption program for people living in the UK or Europe.
My friend told me about Aeroplan when he booked Bangkok – London in Oman Air’s first class for only 100k points. I will only focus on the Middle East redemption today however, as I think that’s where Aeroplan’s biggest edge lies.
[The Advantages]
Aeroplan has the the following advantages when it comes to flight redemptions:
- Extensive partner network, including many non Star Alliance carriers
- Easy to book online
- No carrier-imposed surcharges
- Adding a stopover for only 5,000 points
I don’t want to expand too much here, but not charging YQ alone can save you at least £300 for a long-haul return flight compared to British Airways and Etihad Guest etc.
[Getting Points]
I have the US Amex Platinum card through global transfer, and Aeroplan is a Membership Rewards conversion partner in the United States. I can transfer my MR points to Aeroplan at 1:1 ratio and it’s instant.
Aeroplan is not a MR conversion partner in the UK. However, it is with Marriott Bonvoy (60,000 Marriott points = 25,000 Aeroplan points) which is accessible globally.
[Pricing]
You can find Aeroplan’s redemption chart here. Europe and the Middle East both fall into the Atlantic Zone, so the following pricing applies:
Depart from UK or Europe, you are most likely looking at the 2,001 – 4,000 miles range, which means a one-way business class redemption costs only 45,000 points.
Most importantly, you can book the following carries on Aeroplan’s website, and availability is usually pretty good:
- Etihad
- Oman Air
- Gulf Air
- Egypt Air
Obviously Star Alliance carriers such as Lufthansa and Swiss are also available, but they are probably less exciting and availability is worse.
For a LHR – DXB / AUH business class return redemption, here’s roughly what each program wants:
- Aeroplan: 90k points + £313
- British Airways: 100k Avios + £717
- Etihad Guest: 125k miles + £687
- Emirates Skywards: 117.5k miles + £931
Assuming that 1 Avios / point = 1p, two people travelling together on BA’s 2-for-1 voucher is still no better deal than Aeroplan. It contrasts even more sharply if you look at the one-way UK inbound flight only.
I booked my Dubai flight on Egypt Air departing right before Christmas. There’s one Etihad flight with empty business class seats left but unfortunately the arrival time is inconvenient. I’m still quite happy though to find any available for the festive period.
You can also redeem in first class for 60,000 points per way, but availability is much harder to find.
[The Catch]
Aeroplan charges up to C$100 (£64) for changing your ticket, and C$150 (£96) for cancellation. It is much more expensive than Avios tickets with British Airways, although still manageable. Flexible Rewards are possible at the time of booking which can be changed / cancelled for free, however they are at least 20% more expensive which kind of defeats the purpose.
You can cancel your booking for free within 24 hours, which is inline with the other programs.