News You May Have Missed at Points Well Made - 12th April
- Sam
- 10 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Hello, I hope you've all had a good week!
Offers galore this week. Virgin Atlantic is handing out up to 1,100 tier points on a single holiday booking, BA Holidays has a 10,000 bonus Avios offer running, Amex has £75 off UK hotels, and there's a 100% bonus Hilton points promotion and a 3x IHG points. We've rounded up the hotel ones separately so you don't miss any. Do make sure to check out about Hotels.com new loyalty scheme, as you can pair this one with earning Avios if you go via the Avios website.
Away from the deals, BA has confirmed it's rolling out Starlink wi-fi, and with it, in-flight phone calls. Helena has feelings about this, and none of them are positive. We've also dug into why Iberia business class Avios availability to the Americas has completely vanished from November onwards, and looked at BA's latest schedule changes, which include dropping Jeddah and cutting Gulf frequencies. Given what's going on with the US-Iran ceasefire, it looks less like caution and more like BA has decided this isn't blowing over any time soon.
As always, a bit of housekeeping, if you want to get in touch to change your subscription to a weekly only email, or from weekly to daily, then please do email sam@pointswellmade.co.uk. Or if you have anything else you want to ask us, tell us or request for us to cover, we love to hear from you so feel free to email helena@pointswellmade.co.uk.
Lastly, if you had signed up to our weekly only emails but had not been receiving them, my apologies. I have now hopefully fixed the error causing this.
Sam
There are very few places left where you are properly, gloriously unreachable, and goodness what a joy it is. No emails. No phone call. No “just looping you in” messages that absolutely did not need looping. Please. For all of our sakes stop. looping. me. in!
For years, the inside of an aircraft cabin has been one of them. The last bastion of quiet. A rare pocket of forced peace.
And now? British Airways is in the process of rolling out high-speed WiFi powered by Starlink (yes, that one, courtesy of Elon Musk), and with it comes the very real possibility of in-flight phone calls.
Not messages. Not emails. Actual. Out-loud. Phone calls.
And I’m sorry, but this isn’t just mildly annoying, it’s flipping appalling.
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It was pointed out to me by a follower this bank holiday weekend that seemingly all Avios business class availability on Iberia to North and South America has disappeared from November onwards.
Others reported that BA availability was also missing over this weekend (Reddit #1, Reddit #2), but this has since reappeared.
But it begs the question, what's happening?
Using Reward Flight Finder's Worldwide Map search, I searched for a return trip between the dates of 1st November, and 25th March. This search does not exclusively search for an outbound on 1st November, and the return leg on 25th March, but instead looks at all availability in between those two dates.
From the map above, you'll see some rings, blue denotes economy, yellow denotes premium economy, and purple is business. You'll see one purple ring corresponding to Los Angeles, and yet this is in fact ghost availability, no such seat exists. So for the entirety from November through to March, there are no business class seats to the whole of the Americas.
Virgin Atlantic has launched a limited-time promotion aimed at leisure travellers, offering a fast-track to Silver status through a single holiday booking, and a chance to make Gold. It’s one of the most generous Tier Point offers we’ve seen Virgin Atlantic offer.
Yesterday we covered Virgin Atlantic's limited-time Tier Point promotion, which can get the lead booker to Silver (or even Gold) from a single holiday booking. You can read that one here. Turns out the timing wasn't a coincidence, because both British Airways Holidays and American Express have now jumped in with their own spring offers. Here's what's available to you.
Here is a quick summary of the best hotel points offers around right now. Some of you may already have stays booked at one of these brands, and if you don't register for the offer, you're leaving free points on the table.
Hilton has a 100% bonus on purchased points (5,000+), plus their 2,000 bonus points per stay promo runs until the end of the month. IHG is offering 3x bonus points on stays across Europe, Asia and more, but you need to register by tomorrow (11th April) or you'll miss it.
Marriott is giving 2,500 bonus points per cash stay until May, plus a bonus elite night credit for each brand you stay at. And Hotels.com Rewards is back. They've ditched the unpopular One Key scheme and brought back a 10-night reward system.
Less than a month after we covered BA's biggest ever route announcement — Melbourne, Colombo, and frequency boosts across 11 routes — there's been another significant round of schedule changes. This time, the story is in two halves.
A bit of geopolitics for you first. A two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran came into effect on 8th April, but it's already under strain. Israel says it doesn't cover Lebanon, Iran briefly closed the Strait of Hormuz again within hours, and both sides are accusing each other of violations. The truce expires around 21st April, and if it falls apart, the airspace closures come straight back.
That's the backdrop to BA's schedule changes. And viewed through that lens, what BA is doing looks less like an airline just being cautious about the Gulf and more like one that's decided not to bet on the situation stabilising any time soon.
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