News you may have missed at Points Well Made - 2nd August

Hey, hey hey! Welcome back to another news you may have missed.

This week has seen another offer from Qatar Airways on top of their Australia one. British Airways has rejigged it's Middle East flights once again, so if you are headed there soon with them, do check this out. We've also produced a handy list of shows which you can utilise your Virgin Points on at the O2 should you wish to. Naturally my recommendation is of course Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with a live orchestra, which I am already going to with my mum!

There is currently a pretty fab offer for you Amex lot whereby you get £300 back when you spend £700 or more at (not on) United Airlines. There are technicalities though so do go and check those out! We've also written a little bit of a handy guide as to why not to transfer your Amex Membership Reward Points too early, as we see this mistake happen far too much.

Lastly, Sam has done a write up on a new product in the UK market, Ruma Travel. I would thoroughly recommend going and giving this a read if you haven't already. It's a really exciting start-up that is probably going to help all of us points earners out in the coming years.

As always, hope you have had a great week.

Helena

Qatar Airways is offering up to 10% off and double Avios until 30 July

If you missed it last week, Qatar Airways is currently throwing the kitchen sink at you, with up to 24,000 bonus Avios on flights to Australia, buy Avios sales, and now Qatar Airways are offering you up to 10% off your fare and double Avios on top. I wonder why...

We've written a full guide on this offer which you can find here.

Could this free reward flight search, Ruma Travel, be the key to your next flight?

You'll all know the pain that is finding reward flights. Multiple tabs open at once, fighting airline systems that insist on logging you out every five minutes (I'm looking at you Virgin Atlantic, Qatar Airways etc). This, in part, is why we created our Avios calculator, because nowhere else online allows you to directly compare the Avios pricing among all the Avios airlines, and we felt like that was important.

Meanwhile, for a user friendly experience that allows you to actually search for availability, particularly non-BA availability, the better options are US-focused sites such as point.me or seats.aero, but full functionality of these sites remain behind a paywall. I will admit to having needed to use these extensively in the past (let me know if you'd like us to do a full breakdown on all services available to you to search for points availability).

But now, a UK focused version has surfaced, Ruma Travel, and it's free! We have written a full piece on this which you can find here.

British Airways has rejigged its Middle East flying again in a big way

British Airways has moved a big chunk of its Middle East schedule around again over the past few days, and I know a number of you were trying to target Dubai with your Avios this winter, so sorry in advance for being the bearer of bad news if you haven't heard already.

Because BA keeps setting dates and then changing them, treat this as where things stand today rather than gospel. We've done a full write up on this which you can find here, including specific routes and dates.

Every O2 show you can book with Virgin Points in the Virgin Red Room, in price order - July 2026

There's been a bit of a Virgin Red Room focus for us right now, but this will be the last for a while, I promise!

There are 57 shows bookable right now at the Virgin Red Room using your Virgin Points, from August 2026 through to April 2027, and we thought we'd put them down for you all in price order. So here they all are, cheapest first, starting from only 10,000 Virgin Points.

Find the full list of shows and how much you need for each one here.

Great Amex offer: spend £700 at (not on) United Airlines, get £300 back

American Express is giving £300 back when you spend £700 or more online at United Airlines, not on United Airlines (more on that below), on bookings made by 23 October 2026, for a ticket departing from a UK airport. This is an exceptionally strong offer, effectively giving you at most 43% off your ticket!

I know what some of you are saying, and yes, we have seen this offer before at £350 back on a £700 spend, but I wouldn't be turning this current offer down.

If you have not used an Amex offer before, they sit in the Offers section of the Amex app. You save one to a card, spend at that retailer/hotel/airline on that card, and Amex refunds part of it as a statement credit.

British Airways American Express cards won't be receiving this offer (you should be able to see why), but other cards may, so check your Offers to be sure. And head on over to here for the details on this offer.

Stop transferring your Amex Membership Rewards points too early!

There is a piece of advice that I really feel like I need to give you, and it's one of the most important things you can do to protect the value of everything you earn. It is this: do not transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to an airline or hotel programme until you are ready to book something specific.

But because it runs counter to the instinct most people have, which is to "lock in" their points somewhere familiar as soon as possible, it is worth explaining exactly why it matters, what has happened in recent years to make it more important than ever, and what you should be doing instead.

Head on over here for some solid advice and what you should be actually doing!

Points Well Made is a passion project from Sam and Helena. If you've enjoyed this and want to help us keep the lights on, please consider buying us a Ko-fi or subscribing monthly. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more of the same. Thanks for reading.