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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.

Black Friday Flight & Hotel deals roundup

Etihad

  • Book by November 27th
  • Travel between January 15th and June 12th
  • Use promo code WHITEFRIDAY20 or BLACKFRIDAY20
  • Save 20% on economy and business class fares

Note that the 20% discount applies to the base fare only, which means in reality the savings will be much less.

Aegean

  • Book by November 27th
  • Travel between January 15th and October 26th
  • No promo code needed
  • Save up to 50% on all tickets across the network

The actual discount depends on your travel date.

ITA Airways

  • Book by November 27th
  • Travel between December 1st and December 31st
  • Use promo code BLACK
  • Save 30% on all tickets except Economy Lite

The offer is available to many markets including UK, Europe and US (20% off).

Cathay Pacific

  • Book by November 26th
  • Travel between December 1st and June 28th
  • Use promo code UKBLACKFRI for flights departing from the UK
  • £100 off business class and £75 off economy / premium economy

Similar deals are available for France and Germany etc.

Air China

£100 discount on UK flights to China / Asia. Claim your voucher on Trip.com – they have other Black Friday offers as explained in this blog post.

TAP Portugal

London – Boston in business class for ~£1000 return, and the cost can be further reduced if you add a stopover (>24 hours) in Lisbon to avoid the UK APD. Example:

Use Google Flights and Skyscanner to find cheap date combinations. Book by November 28th.

Virgin Atlantic

  • Book by November 27th
  • Travel by September 30th
  • Pay 30% fewer points for all reward flights

This is an incredible deal for flying to/from Shanghai:

Redemptions for US destinations are unfortunately bundled with outrageous fees, so they might not be a great deal even with the 30% discount.

Melia

  • Book by November 26th
  • Stay by December 20th, 2024 (hotel dependant)
  • Save up to 50%

Remember to stack the Gold 20% off and App 5% off. The discount is genuine although not necessarily at 50% at most properties, and many of the rates are flexible.

Accor

20% bonus on digital gift card purchases. Gift cards are valid for 5 years, and can be used at participating hotels in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece and Poland.

Kimpton Hotels

The following UK Kimpton hotels are offering 20% discount of gift vouchers:

Gift vouchers are valid for 12 months and can be used upon hotel checkout. They work well with pay-at-hotel rates, including Amex FHR and IHG Luxury & Lifestyle.

Malmaison / Hotel Du Vin

Malmaison – rate starts at £100, including £50 dinner credit

Hotel Du Vin – rate starts at £145 for two nights, including £50 dinner credit

My ITA Volare Executive card finally arrived

ITA Airways is the Italian national carrier that was reborn a couple of years ago after its former entity Alitalia dissolved. They ran a status match campaign which, in theory, would give you Skyteam status right away.

My British Airways Gold status matched to their top tier Executive (Skyteam Elite Plus). In March 2022 ITA sent me an email reminding me of updating my address, because a surprise was waiting for me. Well one year and four months later the wait is finally over…

To give them some credit, very few airlines or hotel groups nowadays still mail physical membership cards. It’s thoughtful of them to include a gift box as well, instead of just attaching the card to a letter. Although frankly it is not nearly as nice as what Starlux sent me.

Earlier this year ITA Volare decided to extend all membership status to January 2024. Then in May Lufthansa agreed to buy 41% stake at ITA Airways – it seems very likely that ITA Airways will leave Skyteam to join Star Alliance soon, and let’s hope that means another status extension…