An impressively generous new cashback offer has appeared on American Express cards (except British Airways ones!) from United Airlines. It is even stronger than the offer which ran last year. You will get £350 back when you spend £700 with United Airlines – a 50% rebate if you find a ticket priced at exactly £700. You can fly direct from London Heathrow or Edinburgh. Other gateways may be available if you can get the United Airlines website to price them up with a connection. The rules say that you need to book a flight by 23rd May which is departing from the UK. I am guessing that non-UK dep ..read more

The daily chat thread is now part of our forums. Click here to go to the forum home page and then select ‘Click here for today’s chat thread’. Thank you ..read more

If you wanted to fly to the Maldives later this year, today is your lucky day. A huge amount of availability has appeared from the start of the winter timetable – in the last week of October – until the start of the school holidays in December. (If you’ve got school-age children you can stop reading now, unfortunately.) Here is, courtesy of SeatSpy, availability for 2 x business class to the Maldives in late October, November and early December. Virtually all dates are actually showing 9+ seats available in business class. Premium Economy is also wide open with 9+ seats on most dates. I’ve do ..read more

The daily chat thread is now part of our forums. Click here to go to the forum home page and then select ‘Click here for today’s chat thread’. Thank you ..read more

There is good news today on the two Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard credit cards. Virgin Atlantic has permanently increased the sign up bonuses on the cards. The new higher rates should show immediately (you can apply here) and if they are not there now, they will appear later this morning. The bonus on the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard goes from nothing to 3,000 Virgin Points. The bonus on the £160 Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard goes from 15,000 Virgin Points to 18,000. I think both of these changes are symbolically interesting. On the free card: By putting some bonus – albeit ..read more

News in brief: Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders get a new cashback deal Two weeks ago a good Marriott Bonvoy cashback offer appeared on a lot of American Express cards – but not Marriott Bonvoy American Express cards! You receive £100 cashback if you spend £400 at selected UK and European hotels, cumulatively, by 3rd July. We assumed that a more generous offer would emerge for Marriott Bonvoy American Express cardholders …. and we waited …. and we waited. Finally it has arrived. Assuming your Bonvoy Amex is targetted and you save the offer, you will get £75 cashback when you spend ..read more

The Lincoln Plaza London hotel, out at Canary Wharf, is never in a rush. Even by luxury hotel standards, the construction process saw long delays. It finally opened in late 2018. Less than 18 months later, of course, it was closed due to the pandemic. Four years on, it is STILL closed. There is hope though! The hotel is now bookable again on hilton.com from 7th May. It is part of Hilton’s Curio Collection, which means that you can earn and spend Hilton Honors points here as well as getting your status benefits.  Curio is a group of high-quality independent hotels which use the Hilton ‘sy ..read more

The daily chat thread is now part of our forums. Click here to go to the forum home page and then select ‘Click here for today’s chat thread’. Thank you ..read more

Hilton Honors has launched what is, almost certainly, going to be the best value hotel ‘experiences’ redemption of 2024 – if you’re a Formula 1 fan. You can get two tickets to a VIP party at Silverstone to watch the British Grand Prix on Sunday 7th July for just 125,000 Hilton Honors points for two people. You can redeem on the Hilton Experiences site here. EDIT: We sold this out in 20 minutes. Tickets for the Friday practice session rooftop party are still available. Regular readers may remember that Hilton trialled this last year with an event on the Friday practice day. This year it has br ..read more

This is our review of short haul business class on Austrian Airlines. It’s easy to get jaded with a home airline – in our case, British Airways – but every so often it is worth sticking your head above the parapet and trying a different European airline to see how it compares. This year, I’ve been trying to do just that. Last week I reviewed ITA Airways from London City to Milan. In a few weeks I will be trying out Aegean Airlines’ business class on a flight to Rhodes, based on positive feedback from some of you in the comments. Today, it is the turn of Austrian Airlines. Part of Lufthansa Gr ..read more