News & offers: Lufthansa 2-4-1 offer in First from £1856 , Iberia promo update, double Avios & more

Lufthansa 2-4-1 offer in First and Business class

Lufthansa have been doing some great sales recently in First and Business class on ex EU. The latest one is not quite as good but the prices are still very reasonable. The offers all depart from Italy which could make a fantastic two centre holiday if you wanted to combine them with a stop in Rome or Venice for example. You must book by 15 July 2018 and two people must travel together on the booking to get the offer.  All prices are per person return. The travel period is:

• Departure period:  03.07.2018 – 31.05.2019
• Return period:  03.07.2018 – 31.08.2019

First Class

Lufthansa First is still on my to-do list but all the people I know that have flown it have been impressed. The seats aren’t as fancy as the Etihad Apartment or the Singapore Suites but they do have some great features for their First Class product. The First terminal at Frankfurt is pretty special with private bedrooms, a huge selection of fine spirits, cocktails, great champagne and a Porsche chauffeur service to the aircraft. On board they also have a caviar service and Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle champagne.

Prices start from per person:

• Dubai £1856
• Nairobi £2105
• Muscat £2277
• Delhi £2330
• Bangkok £2383
• Hong Kong £2573
• Seoul £2573
• Johannesburg £2573
• Cape Town £2688

Departures are available from Milan, Bari, Rome, Cagliari, Florence, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Olbia, Turin, Pisa, Verona and Venice

The First class offer page is here.

Business Class

There are some good value business class deals as well but I have to admit I am not a huge fan of Lufthansa’s business class with the small footwells that your feet go into whilst lying down. They also have a 2-2-2 configuration on most aircraft which means no direct aisle access from the window. The airline has at least been upgrading the sleep amenities such as pillows and duvets recently like BA.

• Cairo £535
• Tel Avis £583
• Dubai £1003
• Mumbai £1275
• Bangkok £1322
• Hong Kong £1437
• Seoul £1552
• Johannesburg £1304

Departures are available from Milan, Bari, Rome, Cagliari, Florence, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Olbia, Turin, Pisa, Verona and Venice.

The business class offers page is here.

Iberia 9,000 Avios bonus promotion update – why they are not honouring some bookings & why this is good news

The Iberia promotion that started around 10 days ago had created more blogging frenzy than I have seen about an offer for a long time. A lot of people were being very pessimistic about people ever receiving their miles or about Iberia honouring some of the statements they made as they were often conflicting. As reported by US blog, View From the Wing, Iberia has been not honouring some of the transactions but this is not a bad thing.

The most worrying thing about the promotion for me is the amount of people that took part which potentially means a big shortage of Avios redemptions whilst people all scramble to use up their 90,000 Avios. Iberia has reportedly been freezing some accounts where people have potentially opened multiple accounts to take advantage of the promotion. If the people don’t actually exist, it’s fraud, so I don’t blame Iberia for doing this. They are checking identities and if all checks out the account will be unfrozen.

They have also been refusing Avios for some countries of origin that were not eligible for the promotion. The good news is that in these circumstances they have been refunding the money and cancelling the bookings. So the good news is that Iberia seem pretty on the ball and if the worst happens you should get your money back. Finding Avios availability may be a different matter but there are lots of ways to use the Avios other than flights should the worst happen.

If you are having trouble logging into your account it doesn’t mean they have locked it. Many people have had the same issue (including me) and it is simply a feature of their wonderful IT! I find that if your browser remembers your PIN, Iberia doesn’t like it. It is best to use incognito mode and enter it all manually. Resetting your pin from the app also usually works better. I managed to get back into mine by resetting the PIN.

The good news is that the Avios are starting to appear in people’s accounts. TLFL’s Claudio the Correspondent had his Avios deposited last night so hopefully mine won’t be too far behind!

Did you do the promotion? Have you had the Avios appear yet? Let me know in the comments below or on social media

Double Avios weekend

If you are not already collecting Avios via the British Airways eStore it is well worth a look this weekend as they have double Avios on everything. You simply shop as usual but by clicking through the link on the BA website you earn Avios on your purchase. There is also the Avios eStore that is due to close for UK customers shortly unless you have an Aer Lingus or Vueling account. However, in the meantime, you can still shop on there and your Avios should go into your BA account even after it closes if they don’t credit before.

Although for travel purchases the Avios eStore is better, they are not offering the double Avios promotion. With the BA eStore, you can collect double Avios on everything you buy until midnight on 8 July. The purchases must be made online, in-store ones will not count even with your linked card. If you have been considering an Apple purchase now could be the time to bite the bullet with 8 Avios per £1. Beware though as certain new products are often excluded from the Avios.

If you are looking for travel purchases Hotels.com and Booking.com are offering 8 Avios per £1 as well. The catch with Hotels.com is that you will earn lower Avios if you want to count your stay towards your free night. It is also worth comparing with Topcashback rates. On hotels.com you would be better with TopCashback as it is currently 9% (no Hotels.com Rewards) which would work out at 9.45 Avios per £1 with the bonus spent versus 8 with BA.

There is also a competition to win up to 500,000 Avios when you make a transaction of £50 or more by 9 July.

You can find the offer page here.

Amex Platinum offers

If you have an Amex Platinum card have a look at this months offer’s as there are lots of good offers for travel purchases on mine:

• Air BNB – £15 Statement Credit on a transaction of £200+ online at amexoffers.uk/Airbnb by 1 August 2018. Valid once per card for the first 10,000 Cardmembers.
• NH Hotels – get £35 on a transaction of £200 or more at participating NH Hotels by 31 August 2018. Valid once per card for the first 15,000 Cardmembers to save. Lots of choice with the participating hotels
• World Duty-Free – get £5 back on £50 spend by 19 September (you could also combine with the Heathrow Rewards and Red by Dufry offers) for triple dipping!
• Melia – Spend £400 by 28 September 2018 get £100 back. There is only a very small list of hotels participating but there are some of the higher end ones such as ME in Ibiza, Miami and Madrid and the Grand Melia Don Pepe in Marbella.
• Addison Lee car service – get a £5 statement credit on a transaction of £20+ online at Addison Lee by 20/09/2018
• Amba hotels – get a £55 statement credit on an eligible transaction of £200+ in-store & online at Amba Hotels. Book & pay by 30/09/2018
• Guoman hotels – get a £55 statement credit on an eligible transaction of £200+ in-store & online at Guoman Hotels. Book & pay by 30/09/2018.
• Hyatt – get £60 on transactions of £300+ paying at check-out at participating Hotels, by 30 September 2018. The participating hotels only include Europe and India but the rather nice Hyatt Regency The Churchill near Oxford Street is included.

If you have the card but don’t have these offers it is always worth asking Amex as they have been known to add them for some people.