Home » Airline Groups (Page 15)
Category Archives: Airline Groups
How to Change Your BA 50%-off Avios Tickets
The BA award ticket sale last October had up to 50% off on a lot of long-haul routes, and many of us took a punt at it. Unsurprisingly many of these flights have been cancelled (or will be), and it’s important to know what your rights are under such circumstances.
[Refund]
If you don’t mind losing the very good deal, you can of course just cancel the trip and ask for a refund.
Note that there’s still no refund option online and you must call. From my personal experience though, the refund comes through very quickly.
[Future Travel Voucher]
When your flight is cancelled, besides accepting a refund they’ll also push you to accept a Future Travel Voucher, or FTV.
Although it may make sense to accept one on few occasions, don’t do it if it’s a ticket from last year’s sale. An FTV is basically a voucher that carries all values of your previous ticket, which may include Avios, taxes and surcharges, seat selection fee etc.
It will act as part-payment towards your future booking. It means, if you accept a FTV and go on making a new booking, you’ll end up paying the current (full) price.
[Rebooking Online]
This is the best and most convenient option. Simply login to BA’s website and then rebook by selecting a new date:
You cannot change the origin or destination of your trip, however you won’t need to pay any fare difference either. You should be able to choose any flight on sale, as long as there are (reward) seats available.
[Rebooking over Phone]
It appears that online rebooking only works for direct flights though. If your flight has stop(s), or the trick above doesn’t work for you whatsoever, you must call BA’s customer service to rebook.
The biggest limitation here is, your trip must start by the original booking date + 365 days. As last year’s sale was in October, your trip will have to take place in October 2021 at the latest. It seems to be a restriction that cannot be bypassed if you rebook via the customer service.
My JER-LHR-HKG flight next week has been cancelled, and I called this morning to change my flight. As the current situation stands, I’m hoping to rebook to as far in the future as possible, which is mid October.
However, the agent from You First told me that BA will only fly to LGW from Jersey in October, which obviously is very inconvenient for my connecting flight to Hong Kong. I inquired about dropping the first leg so that I could start my trip in LHR instead, and was quoted £148 fare difference due to taxes.
I didn’t just give up and asked for a word with the supervisor. Another 15 minutes and the same agent came back telling me that their manager has agreed to move my flight and waive the charge, result! Unfortunately the trip still needs to take place by mid October or I’ll have to pay full Avios.
Hope my tips help.
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 .
1000 Free Miles (250 Accor Points) From Aegean Airlines
November last year, Aegean Airlines had a nice sign-up promotion where you could earn 5,000 miles for simply registering, and quite a lot of people took part.
If you are one of them – or if you a Miles+Bonus member anyway – you may be in for another nice surprise of 1,000 miles. A friend of mine received the following email from Aegean earlier:
A gift is waiting for you in the new digital environment of your account!
Something changed in Miles+Bonus!
Log in now to your Miles+Bonus account via aegeanair.com or AEGEAN app, browse the new digital interface and discover a special gift we have for you!
Seeing “a special gift”, I decided to try my luck as well although I received no communication whatsoever. And surprisingly, I saw this pretty banner when I logged into my Miles+Bonus account:
It appears that some people have received a variant of the offer, including 2,000 miles or 20% off a future booking to name a few.
Even if you don’t fly Aegean or Star Alliance, remember that 2,000 miles can be converted to 500 Accor points, which is worth €10 for hotel stays.
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.
Iberia Gift Card Sale – Save 25% off Your Next Flight Bookings
Iberia is running a promotion on its gift cards (again!) and it may be interesting to some.
You can check the offer here and click the Buy Now button to make a purchase. The gift cards provided in the link are in GBP, however you can switch the country if you want options in EUR or USD.
Until 14 February, you can enjoy a 25% discount when you buy gift cards, and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the amount.
- Can be used against Iberia / Iberia Express / Air Nostrum flight bookings
- Revenue bookings only, i.e. not award flights
- The flight must take place by 31 December 2021
25% is a very decent offer, and remember that it means additional savings on whatever cheap bargains you find. The snag of course, is that you must fly by the end of this year, which can be tricky to many of us.
If you are frequent traveller to or from Spain, the deal might make sense as I expect intra-Europe travel resume to some extent in a few months’ time.
Qatar Airways and Accor Plus Status Extension
With the pandemic’s threat still very strong, multiple airline and hotel corporations have published new status extension or qualification reduction policies for 2021 already.
Qatar Airways has just announced that, all elite memberships that are due to expire during 2021 will be valid through 2021, if you fail to meet the qualification criteria.
It is not hugely generous to be honest, as it only means a measly couple of months’ extension for those whose status is about to expire towards the end of this year. However, Qatar Airways ran a status match campaign in May 2020, and those who got their free status will also benefit.
It looks that Accor Plus, a paid Accor scheme in Asia Pacific, has also got a new policy. As you can read here:
Please Note: Due to the impact Covid all Accor Plus members will maintain their current status upon renewal in 2021.
You should be able to extend your status for another year when you pay to renew your status in 2021. It’s only mentioned in the AU site, but from the sound of it it should be a system-wide policy for all Accor Plus members.
Free Blinkist Subscription for Amex Cardholders
The past year hasn’t been great for American Express, as most of the travel benefits it’s proud of were of nil value due to the pandemic. In the meantime, Amex has also been trying to expand to more partnership opportunities.
If you currently hold an Amex card, you could claim a free one-year Blinkist subscription here.
Simply follow the process, create an account and add your payment details (no charge will be taken) and it’s done. Remember to visit Settings and cancel the subscription to avoid being charged though:
Your trial will still be valid for one year. On the page the wording suggests it’s for U.S. Amex cardholders only, however it appears to be open to all Amex account holders.
Blinkist presents short summaries, in text or audio, of non-fictional books.
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.