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30% bonus on buying Melia points
Melia is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and they’ve launched a bonus on points purchase.
Until March 3rd, all purchases will come with a 30% bonus. It usually costs a flat €5 to purchase 1,000 points, and with this promotion the cost is reduced to €3.84. On the buy points page I don’t see the bonus reflected, but I trust Melia for not lying…
Bad news is, Melia quietly devalued their program one or two years ago and it’s near impossible to find standard reward availability now, so redeeming points for hotel stays fully rarely makes sense. Good news is, cash + points (paying 2,000 points only) is still very good value.
As you can see, 2,000 points (costing €7.69) can usually offset €10+, sometimes €20+ of the hotel bill. Stacked with the app discount and Gold 20%-off vouchers, it’s easy to find very attractive deals. I just stayed at a Melia hotel at Madrid last night – it’s priced at around €100 on third-party websites, and I paid €58.
If you have Melia Gold membership (through Amex Platinum), you might want to buy a handful of points for cash + points on occasional Melia stays.
My review of Melia Athens
Back to Athens after nine years, and it’s the rare chance for me to stay at a Melia hotel again. €178 for two nights with breakfast included is a satisfying price, until it dropped again by a further €30 not long after I booked, oh well…
Location of the Melia Athens is good, but not great. The neighbourhood seems a bit rough, but it’s just 25 minutes on foot to the Acropolis which is a nice stroll for walkers. The Omonia metro station is fairly close, which brings you to the Acropolis and seaside directly.
I got trapped in a big traffic jam in Thessaloniki, followed by a flight delay, and was exhausted when I arrived at the hotel. Man from the front desk learned Chinese for a few years – we had a short but delightful conversation before I went to my room.
I am Melia Gold, but it doesn’t come with room upgrade as a benefit. I did however claim a room-upgrade voucher as my birthday gift, and it is time to test it. The voucher allows you to choose the room of a higher category during online check-in:
It’s only one-category, and only confirmed 48 hours before arrival, so not hugely useful. On the bright side, they are very efficient and I could see my room number in the app in the morning.
I got an upgrade to Supreme Room VIP Experience:
View from my room:
The bathroom has a very funky design, which converts part of the bathtub into a shower cabin.
The tub has built-in jacuzzi jets for a nice massage:
Dates and preserved fruits as the welcome gift for my Gold status:
The room is more or less the same with a standard Supreme Room, but with some VIP Experience addons:
- Welcome drink
- Free breakfast
- 20% dining discount
- Free fast wi-fi
- Coffee machine
- Upgraded bath amenities
- Early check-in and late check-out
Although its rooms are tired, the hotel has a nice rooftop swimming pool on the 8th floor.
Nice view of Mount Lycabettus.
It looks quite fancy in a different way at night.
Gym, sauna and steam room are on the same floor.
My welcome drink:
Breakfast is served at the Vivendo restaurant on the mezzanine floor until 10.30am. There’s also a late breakfast option at Cafe Mondo afterwards, but I’m not sure whether the offering is the same.
This is the usual buffet you find in Europe. The Spanakopita – Greek spinach pie – is pretty good.
It’s not a top-grade hotel, but in general it doesn’t have any major flaw and the rooftop pool is a big highlight. If you don’t mind the slightly odd location, Melia Athens is worth considering when the price is right.
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:
- Kimpton London Fitzroy
- Kimpton Manchester Clocktower
- Kimpton Edinburgh Charlotte Square
- Kimtpon Glasgow Blythswood Square
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
Purchase Melia points and save on your staycation
Melia points is on sale again, and you may benefit from it if you are looking for a staycation, or can travel abroad soon.
The offer link is here. You need to log in first, then go to Your Points -> Buy Points to make the purchase. Until June 30, any purchase you make comes with an additional 25% bonus, which will be deposited to your account within 24 hours.
It’s weird that there’s no mention of the offer on the point purchase page. However all the details are available in the email I received, and one reader has already confirmed to me that he received the bonus. Still, I’d suggest you to just buy 1,000 points first and see if the bonus hits as expected.
Under this promotion, you are paying €40 for 10,000 points, or £34.5 in pound sterling. This is far from the best discount that Melia has offered, buy given the strong £ at the moment, and Melia’s generous redemption system, there are still good deals to be had.
There are seven hotels in the UK, and let me show you the lowest price v.s. redemption cost for Sat, May 29:
- ME London £525 / 48,945 points = £169
- Melia London Kensington £230 / 72,400 points = £250
- Melia Whitehouse £138 / 28,551 = £99
- Melia Whitehouse Apartments (N/A for points)
- Innside Manchester (N/A)
- Innside Liverpool (N/A)
- Innside Newcastle £112 / 19,514 points = £68
Out of the four hotels which are available, three fare very well against the cash price – £525 sounds extortionate for the ME to be honest, but £169 is for sure a steal. For Melia London Kensington, the pricing does look weird: I think it may not offer standard award availability at all due to it being a Melia Collection hotel only.
If you think you can stay at any of these hotels soon, or even better if you could visit Spain, it may be worth taking advantage of the 25% bonus now.
Back in stock – Heavily discounted Melia points vouchers
We wrote about the dirt-cheap Melia points vouchers on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, which sold out very quickly. They are back online finally, at the same very reasonable price.
The link on Amazon UK is here. You can buy 55,000 points for £161 (0.29p per point) and delivery will take place in approximately two weeks.
The link on Amazon DE is here. You can buy 55,000 points for €179 (0.29p per points) and it’s currently in stock so shipping will be faster. However there’s a four euro charge to post to a UK address.
There points behave like normal Melia points (12-month rolling expiry, convertible to miles / Avios). I’ve written a lot about the valuation of Melia points so won’t elaborate here, but I genuinely think it’s a great deal.
Amazon sells heavily discounted Melia points (cheap 5-star hotels / Avios!)
We’ve written about Melia quite a few times on this blog. Melia Rewards is a low-key yet valuable hotel loyalty scheme. It runs frequently sales for points purchase which can represent great value.
It’s running another excellent deal on Amazon UK at the moment, which if I remember correctly is the first time. There are two options:
- 55,000 points – £161
- 35,000 points – £103
The 55,000 points one works out slightly better, although at the time of writing it’s temporarily sold out (UPDATE: still available on Amazon DE at the same price). You are paying roughly £30 for 10,000 Melia points, which is close to the record low. In last-month’s points sale on Melia’s website, the price was €35.7 (~£32) per 10,000 points.
As we’ve discussed before (here and here), it’s very easy to outsmart Melia when redeeming your points on hotels. Usually a five-star Melia hotel costs 22,000 points per night whereas a Gran Melia would cost 28,000 points, with few exceptions.
In the worst case, you could spend your points directly at the hotel venue, on food, drinks and spa services etc. The rate is fixed at €5 per 1000 points which is still significantly better than what you are paying now.
Melia is also a transfer partner with British Airways too, so you can transfer your Melia points into Avios at the rate of 10:3. It’s not a great rate, but if BA decides to run 30% conversion bonus in the future, then you are now “buying” Avios at roughly 0.77p.
Note that these are physical paper vouchers shipped to your address and you need to visit Melia’s website to redeem them. Once redeemed, they function as normal Melia points and have the same expiry rules.
Historically Amazon Spain also runs (even better) deals on the same Melia voucher. Although it’s not the case now, as Black Friday in approaching I’ll keep an eye on the relevant page in case it comes back.
5,000 Melia points for completing a short survey!
If you are a member of Melia Rewards, remember to check your mailbox (including the spam folder) and a nice surprise may be awaiting!
