Asiamiles Credit Card 10% – 15% Transfer Bonus
Asiamiles, the mileage programme of Cathay Pacific, has started a credit card transfer bonus promotion.
You need to register on this page first. Now through 31 January 2021, you are entitled to a bonus when transferring credit card points into Asiamiles:
- Recipients of targeted emails get a 15% bonus
- Everyone else gets a 10% bonus
The bonus miles will be deposited into your accounts within 8 – 10 weeks of the promotion’s closing date.
In the UK, the only participating bank is American Express Membership Rewards. 10% doesn’t sound a lot, however if you have the Amex ICC card it means every point is equivalent to 1.35 * 1.1 = 1.485 miles, which is a great conversion ratio and worth considering.
For the use of Asiamiles please see my intro here. Unfortunately they’ve eliminated stop-overs on one-way awards so you can no longer book two trips as a one-way flight, however Asiamiles still represents better value when redeeming long-haul premium cabins compared to Avios.
Accor double points & UK gift card 15%-extra sale
Just saw two promotions when I logged on to Accor’s website and might be worth sharing.
The first offer is here, although it’s unlikely to be useful. Book and stay by 10 January and you will earn double reward points on your stay.
The second offer, which is more interesting, can be accessed here. Accor is now selling e-giftcards in the UK, and to promote it you are getting double bonuses for your purchases:
- Up to 1,500 bonus points
- Up to £40 extra value
For the former, you need to purchase by 31 December. 500 bonus points is awarded for the £100 gift card, and 1,500 for the £250 one.
The latter is less clear – the message says you’ll get £40 extra value for the £250 gift card, however there’s no mention of the deadline or if you get anything for the £100 or other denominations.
If you purchase the £250 gift card now, you get an additional value of £40 plus 1,500 points which is worth €30, which isn’t a bad deal.
You can only use the gift card at participating Accor properties in the UK. The gift card is valid for 12 months from the date of purchase, and cannot be used for pre-paid spend, i.e. checkout only.
My Review of JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London
My final sprint to hit Marriott Titanium this December! Thanks to the Amex £400 offer (and yet another friend), I’ve chosen the JW Marriott Hotel to stay for a couple of nights.
Next to Knightsbridge, Hyde Park is another area where a few luxurious hotels are located, which includes the JW Marriott, InterContinental and Hilton. Personally I don’t like it that much though, as there’s no eatery or tube station nearby, so not very convenient unless you purely want to stay in your hotel room.
You can’t easily tell from the outside, but the hotel is actually fairly big – you could tell from the massive lobby and reception area at the ground floor. Judging from the lobby only, the JW Marriott looks closest to what a typical five-star hotel would appear in my mind, amongst its counterparts that I have visited recently.
The Executive Lounge is also located here, which is open till 11pm and also very big.
No food or alcohol is served though, but you could help yourself to some soft drinks and biscuits throughout the day.
I was upgraded just one-level to Superior King. It’s a bit surprising considering how empty the hotel must be, but given that I’m not here for holiday I couldn’t care any less.
Although not quite spacious, the room does look elegant enough to me. I especially like this small clock on the bedside table.
Breakfast is served via in-room dining only, and this is how mine looks:
The presentation isn’t great, and the soggy omelette doesn’t taste any better either…
From the poor upgrade I received and the disappointing breakfast, I can’t say the stay was very enjoyable. However, I wasn’t in a holiday mood to be honest, and the reduced experience was also partly due to the executive lounge cut etc, so during normal times it may be quite different.
IHG Starting Milestone Bonus Offers in 2021
If you log in to your IHG account, you may find the following two new offers under the My Offers section:
In 2021, you’ll earn 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights stayed, and an additional bonus of 20,000 points if you stay 40 nights.
Unlike Hilton and Hyatt who’ve made status qualification very easy next year with elite nights rollover etc, IHG has decided to offer more bonus points instead. However, it heavily resembles the same offer that Hilton has had for a couple of years…
It appears that not everyone can see the offer now, but I don’t think it can be targeted and surely IHG will make an official announcement in the coming days.
Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Directory Now Available on IHG
Back in October IHG finally started integrating Mr & Mrs Smith hotels into their booking system. The process takes time, but it looks like a decent number of Mr & Mrs Smith properties are already on board.
You could view the hotel directory here. Remember that not all 1000+ Mr & Mrs Smith hotels are participating – only around 400 of them have signed up to IHG so far, although the number might increase in the future.
From what I can tell, IHG has specifically handpicked cities or locations where it’s got no or very weak footprint. Take the UK as an example, you barely see any big city on the list apart from London, where there are nine properties.
On the other hand, Cornwall has six properties, including St Mawes Hotel and Driftwood:
And Cotswold has also got five properties, including Cowley Manor and the Rectory Hotel:
Which is great news, as hotel chains are almost non-existent in such areas. Bare in mind though that you could only book the Best Flexible Rates via IHG, which could be significantly more expensive than booking direct or via other channels.
My Review of W Hotel Leicester Square, London
Thanks to another friend’s Marriott £400 offer, I was able to try out the W Hotel before the tier-4 madness kicks in…
The hotel is very, very central – in fact if you search for London hotels on Marriott’s website the W Hotel is always the first one to come up. I see the hotel every time I visit Chinatown or Soho, which was why I wasn’t so excited to visit it initially.
The ground floor has only a small concierge desk, and you need to go to floor one to check in.
The reception area is also very small, and dark. I’m staying here for two nights, and fortunately the hotel will remain open until the day of my departure.
Very thankfully, I was upgraded to a Marvellous Suite on the 6th floor. I’m quite amused by the fact that the first thing I see when opening the door is the bathroom, how unique!
This is the very first time I’m staying at a W hotel, and I find its quirkiness very entertaining. I was looking for the toilet and shower, only to find that they are hidden behind the mirrors:
And the amenities come with very naughty packaging and descriptions:
Feel free to enjoy a bath overlooking the street:
The bedroom is pretty fashionable and smart too, with a massive bed. All things including TV, temperature and lighting can be controlled using the iPad.
It is a proper spacious suite with a curved long wall. Given its location and height though there isn’t much of a view.
Breakfast is in-room dining only and you could order from the iPad. I had eggs benedict for the first morning and full English for the next. Food quality is good.
Gym is located on the 6th floor, along with the SPA centre.
The staff I’ve spoken with are all very helpful. I’m genuinely impressed by the stay and really love the pleasant surprises the hotel has given me. If Amex runs similar offers in the future I’m happy to return😜
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.
Amazon Fresh £10 discount offer
It’s been a while since Amazon offered any promo codes, and there’s finally a new one for Amazon Fresh.
You could see the offer page here. Unlike other offers, you don’t see a banner telling whether you are eligible by visiting the page. It doesn’t look a targeted offer this time, however you must:
- Be a paying Amazon Prime member
- Have never placed any Amazon Fresh order before
If so, your can save £10 on your first Amazon Fresh order of £60 or more by entering code 10FRESH at check-out. Note that the order must be placed by 31 December.