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Waikiki beach and Lion's head

London – Hawaii business offers Virgin & BA from £1764, IHG hotels promotion & Iberia promo

The tier point runners’ favourite place is back with the best offer we have seen for a while from the UK but sadly nowhere near the glory days of the sub £1000 ex Dublin fares of a few years ago. However, considering the amount of flying time and the fact that you are leaving from London, these are a pretty good deal. Hawaii is one of my favourite places in the world and despite the long journey and the fact I have already been 3 times, I would love to go back again. Both BA and Virgin are doing offers for a very limited period early next year. If you want to find out more information about visiting Hawaii you can read my guide here.

In terms of tier points for BA you should be able to get 840 tier points for this trip if you put in a stop in New York in both directions. You can then transfer onto the Transcontinental New York to Los Angeles to pick up the Hawaii flight. You can read my AA transcontinental flight review here

British Airways to Hawaii

BA B747 club world review
Upper deck Club World on B747

BA works out slightly more expensive than Virgin at £1806 return from Heathrow but if you are after tier points it will get you silver in one go as well as well over halfway to Gold. The flights are only available for midweek departures in January and February 2019 and must be booked 6 months in advance. I can see March and April availability for very slightly more. You must also do the transatlantic flight on BA not AA according to the rules.

They are non-refundable and non-changeable but do allow 2 transfers in each direction which I would recommend for the extra tier points. The transcontinental flight from JFK to Los Angeles is a step up from the usual AA domestic service as it has flat beds, amenity kits and a proper meal service. You can stop over in  New York for free (and/or) Los Angeles providing the stop is less than 24 hours. One other routeing to consider is via Dallas as American Airlines operate a B767 with longhaul busines class seats to Hawaii on this route. Other departures points have standard US domestic First seats which are only slightly better than Club Europe. The minimum stay in Hawaii is 7 nights.

britishA321 American Airlines transcontinental business class with flat bedsTickets have to be booked on British Airways tickets but you can book them through travel agents as well. You can find the dates and prices on British Airways here.

 

Virgin Atlantic and Delta

Redeeming using miles on Virgin Atlantic Upper Class availibility
Upper Class on board bar B787
 
Virgin have also matched the price if you buy direct although you can get the price down to £1764 if you buy through Expedia. It is also worth looking at adding a hotel with Expedia as that can often give you a better price than booking them separately. The rules are pretty much identical to the BA ticket as they are obviously going head to head. Tickets are for midweek departures in January and February, minimum stay is 7 nights and they are non-refundable and non-changeable. If you wanted to get Virgin Tier points you can also add in a transfer in New York or somewhere else to get the points. This trip could give you 240 minimum tier points with just one change of aircraft in each direction. If you could manage to fit in a stop or transfer where the Delta flight to Hawaii was over 3,000 miles then you could get as many as 400 tier points.
 
Delta one business class
Delta One business class
 
The transatlantic flight would be on Virgin or Delta and then onwards with Delta. Unfortunately, Delta One, their premium domestic transcontinental product is not available for most Hawaii flights and only available on:
  • New York-Kennedy (JFK) to/from Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), San Diego (SAN) and Seattle (SEA)
  • New York-Kennedy (JFK) to/from Las Vegas (LAS)
  • Washington D.C. (DCA) to/from Los Angeles (LAX)
  • Boston (BOS) to/from San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX)
  • Atlanta (ATL) to/from Honolulu (HNL)
  • Minneapolis (MSP) to/from Honolulu (HNL)
You can also book the tickets on Virgin Atlantic or Delta.
 

IHG Points & Cash promotion

InterContinental Hotel Dublin review lobby lounge
InterContinental Hotel Dublin lobby lounge
 
Points or miles and money options are sometimes not great value. If you are unlikely to ever get enough points to pay for a room or flight in its entirety, then they are a great way to use up smaller numbers of points. IHG is an exception to the rule as their Points & Cash deal is often worth considering even if you will earn enough eventually to get the room. The latest offer makes this particularly true as it gives you 10% off the money part of points and cash. So if you are little bit shy of the points needed for your redemption, now could be the time to see if you could use points and cash instead.
 
As an example, if you were looking at the Crowne Plaza The City in London (which is a nice hotel and usually reasonable value at weekends) it would usually cost you 55,000 points. With points and money, you could use 35,000 points plus £86.79. To buy the extra 20,000 points would cost £173. Rooms cost from around £200+ during the week and £160 at weekends if you pay all cash.
 
Crowne Plaza London
 
Sadly the offer is only for UK and Ireland hotels only. To qualify you need to book your room by 27 July and stay by 30 September 2018. If you need some inspiration you can read my reviews of the InterContinental Park Lane London and InterContinental Dublin.
 
 

Iberia 9,000 point promotion saga continues

So far everyone I am aware of that had an existing Iberia Plus account before the recent promotion has received all or most of their 9,000 Avios per booking bonus as per the terms and conditions of the offer. However, everyone I know that opened an account during the promotion has received nothing other than a request for them to verify their identify and send in copies of their booked tickets. I can understand that Iberia wants to make sure these are genuine people as there were reports of people opening multiple accounts to ‘game’ the promotion. The request for the tickets is odd as you would think that Iberia would know what tickets you booked?
 
There are now reports of people on Flyertalk that had sent in their tickets having their Avios claim rejected for ‘irregularities’ of some sort that Iberia don’t even specify. They are offering a chance to get a refund of the tickets at least, but no Avios of course. Technically they can cancel your ticket and give you a refund if they want. The bonus Avios is a bit more of a grey area particularly since the terms and conditions weren’t that specific.  Obviously, there are only a small number of reports on Flyertalk so it would be silly to jump to conclusions based on a small number of reports. The people I know are still waiting to hear back so I will keep you updated if I hear anything.
 
Given the amount of coverage in the blog communities worldwide, this has the potential to be a PR disaster of the Hoover free flight promotion proportions (for those old enough to remember it).
 
Did you open an account for the promotion and get your Avios claim rejected or approved? Let me know in the comments below or on social media.
 
 
 
 
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16 comments

  1. Iberia Promo no problem for me. 90k and booked two great tickets yesterday, Madrid to S America with the usual massive ‘tax ‘ savings compared to ex UK.

      1. My account is around 12 years old….not really sure that made any difference though. If you’re thinking of making a booking, be aware, you needs TONS of patience as it can be like pulling teath on their web site. I found the flights I wanted…2xBusiness, but the web refused to go over to the payment site, so I called up and was sorted. Another little trick is to change the default UK web site and go into the Spanish .com site, and select Spain and English language, trust me, it’s a lot easier……that was on Chrome. We always travel long haul ex Europe, AMS is our favourite , but Madrids OK, depending where you’re going.

        1. Yes the website is a mess and doesn’t work well with Chrome. I switch over to edge and it works much better on there.

  2. I opened a new account to get the avios.
    Three flights had left before they got back to me to ask for my passport copy.
    Since then I’ve had an email from a non- ibera account telling me the remaining seven flights have been cancelled. Nothing from Iberia yet and no refund on my card.
    Perhaps they’re trying to work out how to deny me the avios on the three flights they can’t cancel?

    What is all the more annoying is that my wife had an account we could have used for the deal but which was locked because Iberia’s rotten website decided the pin was wrong ( it wasn’t) and the answers to the security questions to change the pin were also wrong ( they weren’t).

    Gutted at missing out and I think if I could be bothered I’d have a case against them….I did nothing wrong…..puts me off Iberia entirely to be honest.

    1. Hi Iain what an awful experience. I suspect that you will get an email from Iberia asking you to apply for a refund. I have no idea what they will do about the 3 flights that have already gone. Let’s hope you get the Avios for those at least. I had the same problem with logging in but eventually got round it with a different browser. Iberia’s IT is a shambles.

  3. Good find on the Hawaii trip definitely would like to return (ideally taking in the a318 again. The 2 stop rule makes this a little more challenging.
    Have you had any luck in pricing it with JFK/EWR and a west coast or Dallas flat bed to Hawaii?

    1. Hi James. I can get it work with a Dallas fine to get the flatbed for the same price

  4. Both my wife and I booked quite a few flights with Iberia and both opened accounts with Iberia Plus prior to doing so. The flights are all in August or September and we have received emails advising in some instances of flight changed.
    However neither of us can access our accounts to see if the Avios have been credited, as such calls and emails to Iberia have revealed that accounts have been duplicated or worse by their system, so for “security reasons” they’ve blocked all accounts.

    We then received emails requesting copy passports for the accounts opened, together with full details of flights booked, laborious but we did that last week and not having heard back, we then resent them but still no response. So this morning I again phoned and spoke to a customer service agent who advised that they have been inundated with calls and emails due to the success of the promotion but we’re having to manually check all new accounts opened and we must be patient.

    I pointed out that if the Avios has not and will not be credited, we had been notified that we only have until the 31st July to cancel flights and receive refunds but she assured me we would get either Avios or refunds.

    Iberia clearly badly misjudged the response this promotion would create and are now suffering the consequences but unfortunately so are we and I suspect many others.

    1. Thanks for the update Ray. In terms of logging in, have you tried the work arounds? I know other new account holders that can log in depsite still waiting for a reply from IB. Try logging in from a different browser (not chrome) using incognito mode and enter the number and pin manually, not autofill. You can often reset the PIN from the app as well. It sounds like a poorly thought through promotion where they didn;t realise that people would open accounts and book multiple flights and are now completely overwhelmed.

  5. Hi michelle
    Trying to route the Hawaii deal through jfk and dfw (then straight into Hawaii) but cant seem to get the stops to show up – how are you doing this please?
    Monika

    1. Hi Monika. I can get it to route via DFW by using the mutli city option for that price but not JFK at the moment. This is a common issue where the rules state one thing but then you can’t actually get it to price up at the correct price. It may be worth trying a travel agent or someone like Propeller to see if they can get it to work.

  6. The link on your blog today as follows: You can find the dates and prices on British Airways here. does not work, it takes me to another of your blogs…..can you direct me to where I can find the dates and prices of the London – Hawaii offer. Thanks.

  7. Hi Michelle – great site – my wife and I (both BA Gold) read your emails every day.

    Jumped in with both feet to Hawaii deal – found it slightly easier to manage through Skyscanner, which then took us into BA website (price increased slightly), however, managed to get flights in March, including Edinburgh connections for £ 3,673 for 2.

    We have been to Hawaii before (6 years ago), but like yourself, happy to return.

    We opted for the more direct route, via LAX – less Tier Points (only 640 apparently), but not sure if we really fancied New York stopover anyway, and Seat Guru reviews of AA long haul domestic were a bit mixed.

    Thanks again and keep up the good work

    1. Hi Douglas. Great to hear you managed to get a good deal. I’m jealous now! I can’t decide whether to book or not as I don’t need any tier points until March but I do love Hawaii! If you haven’t already joined feel free to have a look at the BA Gold Facebook group that I run as well! We share our travel experiences, have social events and can ask questions from fellow travellers. https://www.facebook.com/groups/640590549482913

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