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Hello everyone, and welcome back to another news you may have missed. A slightly calmer week on the news front, however Sam and I did spend two fantastic days at this year's Farnborough International Airshow on Monday and Tuesday as Press. I went to the Airline Leasers Summit (part of the Aerospace Global Forum) whilst Sam got to enjoy a Boeing 777X interior reveal event. We were also some of the first media in the world to see inside United Airlines' brand new Airbus A321XLR

Most people collecting Virgin Points are saving them for a flight, and this is normally what we'd be doing, but in all honesty, I was bored one day and wanted to book us something to look forward to. In that vein, did you know that Virgin Red has a private suite inside the O2 arena in London called the Virgin Red Room, and you can book it for almost any show there using points rather than money? You book the whole thing through Virgin Red directly in about the time it takes t

Earlier in the month, Amex added ALL Accor as a transfer partner allowing you to move and spend your Membership Reward points on hotels with the Accor group. Building on that initial partnership, Accor Gold membership has now been added as a feature for Amex Platinum cardholders. That takes you from four free hotel statuses to five, and it gave us a reason to do something we'd been meaning to anyway: go back through the whole list! So if you're holding the Amex Platinum, here

If you've got an American Express card, thanks to a hefty amount of sponsorship The O2 is one of the better venues in the country to use it. There's a free lounge with a complimentary drink, free bag drop, and a separate enrolment programme that gives you 10% back on food and drink across the arena. Here's how each one works. The Amex Lounge The Amex Lounge sits on the ground floor of The O2 arena. As a cardmember you get: A complimentary drink for the cardmember (one per car

Another week, another cut to your benefits. In December, we lost a chunk of value in the Avios devaluation. In May they raised the taxes and fees for reward flights. Then Friday last week, Amex confirmed it's cutting the earn rate on the Premium Plus card and scrapping the triple Avios on British Airways spend. Now the British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card is getting an even more brutal cut. Everything below takes effect on 7 October 2026, the same day a

You did it. You booked your dream Avios flights. You are going to the Maldives. But then BAM. You finally get off the waitlist for the operation you need / you realise you're going to be due to give birth at any moment / your ogre of a manager won't let you take the time off ... you get the idea. So you realise, you're going to have to cancel the flights. Now you're worrying about the cost and whether you get your Avios back. Oh my friend, take a breath, and let me reassure y

If Australia has been sitting on your travel list, Qatar Airways has just given you up to 24,000 reasons to move it up. If you book a flight between Doha and Australia during the promo window below, you'll get up to 24,000 bonus Avios on top of whatever you'd normally earn. It's a short booking window, so worth acting on quickly if the numbers work for you, but you have quite a while before you have to have completed your flight. So if this is the winter (or summer in Austral

Welcome back to another Sunday round up, and goodness what a week it has been. Half of our planned articles were shelved because there was just far too much going on. There is a plan in the near future to move to multi-posting if you were wondering, but not quite yet. First up in the week we had a wonderful guest writer Neil (otherwise known of ManofMilesUK) who wrote us a great article all about whether solo travellers have an advantage in the points and miles world. Huge th

Well, they've said something. IAG Loyalty (AKA Avios) put a statement up on the 25th Anniversary Flight landing page on 16th July. It's short, but crucially, unlike a lot of corporate apologies, it does actually say sorry. Twice. Let's have a look. The statement in full "We know customers experienced technical issues accessing the booking page for our 25th Anniversary Celebration Flight with our partner, American Express. We're truly sorry for the frustration and disappointme

Amex has confirmed it's cutting the Avios earn rate on the British Airways Premium Plus Amex, and if you hold this card, the notification is either already in your inbox or about to be. From 7th October 2026, the card drops from 1.5 Avios per £1 to 1.25 Avios per £1. The old perk of triple Avios (3 per £1) on BA and BA Holidays spend is gone too, that spend now earns the same flat 1.25 Avios per £1 as everything else. BA Premium Plus Amex vs the free BA Amex: what's the real

In a less eventful post compared to the last few days, we thought we'd do a quick Avios route round-up of what's being added, and what's going away. BA's going to see Father Christmas British Airways are to start flying from Gatwick to Rovaniemi on 4 December 2026, Mondays and Fridays, twice a week, through the winter. For those who don't know, you may know Rovaniemi as Lapland. Gatwick to Ivalo (also Lapland) carries on as before. Cabin Off-peak Peak Economy 15,000 Avios 16,

Updated at 10:00 Thursday 16th July We have had a statement from an IAG Loyalty spokesperson: "As you know Avios-Only flight to New York sold out yesterday afternoon following exceptional demand. Customers who registered their interest can still join a waitlist on our website should any tickets become available through cancellations. We know customers experienced technical issues accessing the booking page, due to the very high volumes of booking requests. We're sorry for the

Right, this is it. The moment a lot of you have been waiting for. If you registered your interest back in June for that ridiculous BA and Amex Avios-only flight to New York, the wait is nearly over. American Express have finally announced that booking opens at 12 noon BST tomorrow, 15 July, on the dot. If you missed the original post, quick recap: one-off charter flight, LHR to JFK and back, paid for entirely in Avios with zero taxes and fees, starting at 25,000 Avios return

In a Points Well Made first, today's post has been kindly written by Neil Woodhouse, otherwise known on Tiktok and Instagram as ManofMilesUK. We would like to extend this invitation to any of you who may wish to guest write, just simply email sam@pointswellmade.co.uk with an idea, and we will try and make it work! Hi, I'm Neil – or as some may know me, ManofMilesUK – and let me show you the good, the bad and the uncomfortable reality of being a solo-travelling points collecto

Hello, I hope you're all tolerating the heat! The Hilton Honors Plus debit card welcome bonus has jumped to 50,000 points, the highest it's ever been. For context, the standard bonus is 15,000. It was 30,000 in March. This is the first time the welcome bonus alone has covered the annual fee, and you've got until 7 September to apply. If you've been on the fence about this card, that fence just got a lot harder to sit on. Helena has written up our 10-day trip to Slovenia, cove

If you'd told me a year ago that Slovenia would become one of my favourite countries I've ever visited, I'd have probably questioned you. But here we are, and I am slightly annoyed at myself for not going sooner. Yes, as a country it's small, but it's so wildly underrated, and it packs an almost unfair amount of beauty and charm into its borders. Sam and I based ourselves across three very different spots: the capital Ljubljana, the disgustingly scenic Lake Bled, and the Adri

The Hilton Honors Plus debit card welcome bonus has been boosted again, and this time it has jumped to its highest ever level! The standard bonus for this card is 15,000 points. In March it was doubled to 30,000. It's now being offered with 50,000 points, and you have until 7 September 2026 to apply. You earn 20,000 points on your first transaction with the card. You will get the remaining 30,000 points when you spend £2,500 in foreign currency within six months. We covered b

British Airways has announced two separate promotions today, both worth knowing about if you've got Avios or you're planning to buy some. One is a 40% bonus on purchased or gifted Avios. The other lets you use fewer Avios to unlock the same savings on BA Holidays packages. They run on different timelines and work in completely different ways, so let's take them one at a time. 40% bonus Avios when you buy or gift If you need to top up your balance to hit a redemption target, t

This article is sponsored by Reward Flight Finder who are offering Points Well Made readers 20% in July 2026. Link down below. One of the most common destinations we get asked about regarding reward flights using Avios is Japan. A week doesn't go by without someone emailing, DM'ing, or commenting about how to do it. Japan has, over the last couple of decades, emerged as one of the most popular destinations for UK holidaymakers. Whether that's a paid booking or a reward flight

You may have already noticed two new offers appear in your American Express app. (If you don't already, do keep an eye on this section as you never know when you may be able to save some money on something you were going to buy anyway!) For any offer, make sure to save the offer to your card first, or else the offer will not track when you make your purchase. The first is from Virgin Atlantic for spend £2,000, get £200 back. This offer will work if you are buying reward fligh