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Earn voucher or Virgin points on restaurant dining via SquareMeal
We wrote about IHG’s partnership with OpenTable which allows you to earn IHG points when making restaurant reservations. It turns out that OpenTable isn’t the oligarch in the industry and SquareMeal provides a very similar service.
SquareMeal has a wide range of business operations, but we’ll just focus on the dining part today. Basically:
- You earn 100 points for each restaurant reservation
- You also earn points when dining at select restaurants and paying with linked cards
For the second perk, you can search on their website and filter by Restaurants With Reward Offers:
You need to link a debit card or credit card (Visa / Mastercard / Amex) to your SquareMeal account. If you put enough spend through the designated card at participating restaurants you’ll earn a bonus. You don’t have to reserve via SquareMeal in this case, but there aren’t many participating venues.
You can opt to earn one of the two kinds of points:
- SquareMeal Points: 100 points = £1, and the voucher can be redeemed at participating restaurants
- Virgin Points
The first option sounds better value to me, providing that the vouchers are easy to exchange and redeem. Don’t forget to weight in the 150 IHG points from OpenTable in your equation.
The following are some ways to earn points:
- Sign up with my referral link and reserve once to earn 300 points
- Add your first debit / credit card to earn 100 points
- Earn 100 points every time you reserve a restaurant
- Earn 25 points every time you write a review
Of course, you must show up to your reservation to earn the points.
Convert you Marriott / HSBC points into Etihad miles and earn 40% bonus
Etihad is no stranger to the game of selling miles or offering point conversion bonuses. A very good offer was just made available if you are a member of Etihad Guest.
- Deadline is April 30
- Convert points from participating partners into Etihad miles to earn 40% bonus
- If you convert into between 10,000 and 20,000 miles, you also earn 40% tier miles on top
- The maximum tier miles you can earn is 20,000
Here are the most relevant participating partners:
- Marriott: 3 points = 1 mile
- Hyatt: 2.5 points = 1 mile
- Accor: 4,000 points = 2,000 miles
- Shangri-la: 1 point = 1 mile
- HSBC UK: 2 points = 1 mile
40% is the best bonus that Etihad has ever offered. If you convert 60,000 Marriott points in one go, you should receive (20,000 + 5,000) * 1.4 = 35,000 miles, which isn’t a bad deal at all. We have an article on how to redeem Etihad miles, but I’m not sure how easy the redemption process is in real life.
For those who are already active Etihad Guest members, the tier miles bonus is a great addition too. However, as you need 25,000 tier miles for Silver upgrade, it’s not possible to take advantage of this offer to become an elite member from scratch.
Virgin Atlantic Points Booster 40% bonus promotion (0.71p)
Virgin Atlantic has brought back its Points Booster promotion, which is a cheap way to bag some Virgin points.
You could check out the offer here. If you partake by April 22, you’ll earn up to 40% bonus on top of your usual points.
Points Booster is a special feature of Virgin Atlantic which allows you to purchase points when you have a past or upcoming booking with them. They are normally priced at 1p per point, and you can purchase either 1x, 2x or 3x of the flight distance (in miles).
For example, London Heathrow to New York JFK is 3,458 miles in distance, which means if you have a one-way flight booked, you can purchase either 3,458 points (£34.58), 6,916 points (£69.16) or 10,374 points (£103.74) under the usual circumstances. You will receive 20%, 30% or 40% bonus respectively, and with 40% bonus it works out at 0.71p per point, which is an excellent deal.
Beware that Virgin Atlantic (and BA) has recently increased their surcharges on award tickets though, so make sure you are still happy about the total cost before jumping on board.
For upcoming flights you could simply do it online, but for retroactive flights flown within the last six months you need to call the customer service. Both revenue and award tickets are eligible, and despite what the terms say, from my previous experience you could boost flights operated by partner airlines too, or for award tickets issued by Virgin Atlantic at least.
You should receive the bonus points soon-ish, but the original booster points won’t be credited until after the flight’s flown. Note that Points Booster purchases are final and non-refundable – the points will hit your account even if you cancel the flight ticket.
Claim 1,500 free Etihad Guest miles
It’s Etihad’s 15th birthday this year and they’ve launched a promotion to celebrate.
You can check out the promotion page here. The sweet spot is, you only need to give your name, email address and Etihad Guest membership number, and 1,500 miles will be deposited into your account by September 15th. It appears to be open to all Etihad Guest members.
1,500 miles probably won’t get you very far, but it’s free! I actually collected some Etihad miles a few years back when flying Philippines Airlines and they are going to expire in five months. The 1,500 miles should extend their expiry by another 18 months of which I’m very grateful.
On the off-chance that you plan to book an Etihad award flight within the next few days, they are also running a Redemption Offer. Book an Etihad flight using miles by September 6th and you can benefit from a 15% rebate.
2020 welcome (and free) miles for new Emirates members
World Expo 2020 is happening in Dubai this year, starting from October 1 to March 31, 2022. Emirates has launched a few initiatives to promote this event, out of which one is particularly interesting.
You can check out its offer with Mastercard here. More specifically, anyone who signs up as a new Emirates Skywards member with invitation code EXPO2020 will receive a welcome gift of 2,020 miles instantly. No activity is required to trigger the bonus.
According to Emirates, 2,000 miles can be traded for a $20 discount when purchasing flights on their website. If you have accumulated enough miles of course, you’ll be able to properly redeem award tickets and also entry to sport events sponsored by Emirates.
If you intent to visit Dubai during Expo 2020 on Emirates, don’t forget to sign up to the other offer here. You will receive one bonus mile for each minute you stay in Dubai, up to a total of 5,000.
(H/T Frequent Flyer Bonus)
3x Avios or 9x Emirates Miles on Your Bicester Village Shopping
Thing are looking brighter in the UK and all shops are re-opening sooner than later. If you fancy a trip to Bicester Village for some luxury shopping, you may also want to bag some extra miles along the way as both British Airways and Emirates have ludicrous offers at the moment.
BA’s offer is here. You are entitled to triple Avios during the promotion period, which is 15 Avios per £4 spent.
Emirates’ offer is here, which is more generous. You earn a 8-time Skywards miles bonus, and that’s a whopping 9 miles per GBP spent! However it’s only valid once on the highest spend during the offer period, so be careful if you plan to make multiple visits.
Both offers run until 31 May. You need to bring your receipts to the customer service desk at the end of your visit, and remember to keep them in case the miles don’t post.
Earn Emirates Miles on Your Daily Shopping
Being a frequent traveller in the UK, I’m sure you are familiar with British Airways’ eStore and Virgin Atlantic’s Shops Away. Like many other platforms, they operate a lead-based affiliate model that gives you an award for purchases referred by them – which, in this case, is air miles.
What I didn’t know is, Emirates Skywards has a dedicated shopping portal for UK members too, which you can access here.
It doesn’t make much sense to collect Emirates miles in lieu of Avios or Virgin Points if you reside in the UK, especially the earning ratios don’t look great. However, they do have an instore section as well and you can top up your Skywards account when visiting the following shops:
Therefore it’s worth crosschecking all the platforms before you shop. Morrisons for example, is not listed on BA’s eStore, and only available to select members on Virgin’s Shops Away. The next time Morrisons’ discount offers pop up, you might as well earn some Emirates miles in the meantime.
3000 Emirates Miles for One Hilton Stay in the Middle East & Africa
Since the refurbishment of its loyalty program a couple of years ago, it’s no longer possible to earn Hilton points and airline miles at the same time when staying at their hotels. However, they still run occasional promotions where you can earn bonus miles on top of the usual Hilton points.
There is now one such promotion, and you can register here.
- Register and book by 18th May
- Stay once by 31st August at participating hotels
- Earn 3000 Emirates Skywards miles
- Limit to first 1,000 registrants only
You need to select Emirates as your preferred travel partner in your Hilton profile.
All participating hotels are in the Middle East and Africa, so not many can take advantage of it. And unlike the previous Miles & More offer, you can only earn the bonus miles once.
Given the limited number of slots available, I’d recommend to sign up now if you believe there’s any chance you visit the regions this summer. Remember that you will still earn full Hilton points and night credits for the stay, so there’s nothing to lose.