Home » Airline Groups » Non-alliance Airlines (Page 7)
Category Archives: Non-alliance Airlines
10% off and Virgin Points on Morrisons Groceries
A few offers just started circulating for grocery shopping in Morrisons – and even better, they would actually work as a nice discount for a great deal of other retailers too.
First up is American Express. Some of us have received a 10% cashback offer on the cards:
Others have received a variant of 7% instead. The minimum spend is £30 and the good thing is it’s valid every time until April 7.
For those who didn’t qualify for the offer or without an Amex, you can benefit equally through Airtime. They’ve got (almost) the same offer:
With some people receiving 10% and the others 7%. Remember that Airtime takes much longer to pay out though and it can only be redeemed against your mobile phone bills.
Even better, either of them can stack with the in-store offer on Virgin Shops Away, which should be another 6 or 8 points per £1 on your spend.
Last but not least, despite what the terms might say, you’ll earn cashback and bonus points on gift card purchase as well, or at least it’s how it worked previously. So even if you don’t shop at Morrisons, you may still want to stop by and grab a few Amazon, Uber, John Lewis (Waitrose) or One4all gift cards .
A Surprising Giftbox from Starlux Airlines
Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year of Ox, and a nice surprise has just hit my mailbox!
The story started last year when Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines (星宇航空) launched their status match initiative. As the status was gonna be good for four years, I took part although I saw no immediate use of the airline. My BA Gold was matched to Insighter, the highest membership level of their COSMILE programme.
I was then approached by their customer service asking me to complete my contact details, as “a nice surprise will be on its way soon”. Unfortunately it didn’t happen as soon as they promised, although I had no complaint at all considering I got the status totally for free!
Almost a year after the match, on Tuesday I woke up seeing a Whatsapp message from DHL:
And I knew immediately that the belated gift is finally coming, so exciting!
The giftbox arrived onto my doorstep on Friday, sealed with Starlux’s logo on top.
Enclosed on the upper layer is a very well presented Insighter membership card:
I must mention that it is a metal card, and feels as heavy as my Amex Platinum. This is no doubt the most lovely membership card I’ve ever seen from an airline or hotel group.
Underneath you’ll find a luggage tag, which as described is made of vegetable-tanned leather. Again my named is engraved, which is a nice special touch.
All in all I’m very happy to have received such an exclusive gift, although I’m not sure that I deserve it. Just a reminder that Starlux’s status match programme is still ongoing, although your matched status will be valid only for one year now.
Etihad Gold, Dragonpass Prestige & Lifetime GHA Platinum for joining A Small World
Today let’s talk about a niche membership programme – A Small World (ASW).
A Small World is a paid membership scheme. There are multiple membership levels you can choose when signing up, and they come with benefits including hotel / airline status, award miles and more importantly, “member-only exclusive events”.
I have no idea how those events are like and I didn’t find much information online either, so let’s focus on the airline / hotel benefits today.
There are four different levels:
| Access | Lifetime | Prestige | Signature | |
| Validity | 1 year | Lifetime | 1 year | 1 year |
| Fee | €80 | €390 | €5,200 | €19,950 |
| Award Miles | – | – | 250,000 (Miles & More or Etihad Guest) | 1,000,000 (Etihad Guest) |
| Airline Status | – | – | Etihad Gold | Etihad Gold (*2) |
| GHA | Platinum | Platinum | Black | Black |
| Jumeirah | – | – | Silver | Gold |
| Dragonpass | – | – | Prestige | Prestige |
| Sixt | Gold | Gold | Platinum | Diamond |
And from my point of view, there are two opportunities here.
Lifetime – Pay €390 and you get lifetime GHA Platinum and Sixt Gold. It doesn’t sound too bad, especially the former which comes with solid benefits when you stay at hotels.
Prestige – the annual fee is definitely not cheap. However, the 250,000 award miles is worth around €3,000 already, and whether the remaining benefits are worth €2,200 is anyone’s opinion.
Free Emirates Silver for transferring your hotel points
Like many other airlines, Emirates has run a few different forms of promotions this year to collect funding, and the one currently running is particularly interesting.
You can access the offer here. It appears that the offer page is only shown when selected country is UAE, but according to the terms and conditions it should be available to all members globally.
Before 31 January 2021, all award miles transferred from eligible partner programmes will also earn 25% tier miles as a bonus. You can earn maximum 25,000 tier miles (requires 100K award miles transfer), which is just enough to upgrade you to Emirates Silver.
Eligible partners include certain banks in UAE, as well as Accor, Hyatt, Marriott and Shangri-la.
When flying Emirates, Silver offers the following privileges:
- Free seat selection
- Extra baggage allowance
- Priority check-in and boarding
- Business Class lounge access at Dubai
You could also earn 1 Emirates mile for every USD you spend at Marriott hotels globally through the Your World programme, and this is in addition to the Marriott points. Note that you’ll first need to link your Marriott and Emirates accounts here.
Emirates doesn’t have the best redemption chart in the world, however for redeeming Business Class or First Class tickets on their own metal the miles are not bad. I transferred 85K Amex points earlier this year for a First Class trip in February, and God knows whether I’ll be able to fly…
Aside from redeeming on flights, you could also use the miles on sports or event tickets sponsored by Emirates, which usually are great deals.
The best shot it is to transfer 240K Marriott points over and hit Emirates Silver straightaway, probably some time in January to maximise the duration of your membership. It may not be a crazy idea if you are sitting on a pile of Marriott points, and Emirates miles aren’t useless after all.
1,500 free Marriott points for linking your Emirates account
Marriott is known to have reciprocal programmes with airlines, if you have both accounts linked, being elite member with one of them entitles you to some benefits when flying or staying with the other.
I have never participated in any of these programmes, and just received a nice offer by email.
By enrolling in the Your World Rewards programme, which is the Emirates version, I get 1,500 Marriott points straightaway.
It’s very unlikely that I’ll fly Emirates anytime soon, however I wouldn’t say no to 1,500 points in just a few clicks. The t&c however, suggests that only recipients of the email are eligible, so it could be a targeted offer.
Bamboo Airways’ (conditional) status match programme
Bamboo Airways is a new airline based in Vietnam. They were founded only in 2017 so still fairly young as of today.
Get Virgin Atlantic Silver status with one short-haul return!
When we wrote about the Flying Blue programme, we mentioned its partnership with Virgin Atlantic and a trick for you to get Virgin Atlantic status very quickly. Let me elaborate on it today.
Best ways to use your Etihad Guest miles
Not belonging to any airline alliance, Etihad Guest is not a frequent flyer programme that many people know about. However, it does have many partners, and I credited my Philippines Airlines tickets to it last year (as I had no other choice, obviously…), so let me talk you through the highlights of their redemption opportunities today.
