News & offers: 100% bonus Hilton points, Emirates sale from £1859 + £100 off & £153 & 80 tier points trip

Buy Hilton points 100% bonus – is it a cheap way to book hotels?

Buying hotel points is always worth looking in case it actually works out cheaper than paying for a hotel with cash. Hilton have an offer to purchase points on now. The 80-100% bonus is available for when you buy Hilton points before 26 February 2019. The bonus amount appears to be targeted. I will base the calculation on the full 100%.

For some of the top end hotels such as the Conrad Koh Samui (review coming soon) which retails at around £550 a night or the new Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives which retails at over £1000 a night, this can save some money. If I bought the maximum points, it would cost $800=£625 for 160,000 points including the bonus. That should be enough for two nights somewhere at the top end so you would be potentially saving around £400. If you can pool points to get enough for the buy four nights get one free, it would get even better. The new Waldorf  Maldives above will have a new top price for Hilton at 120,000 a night whereas Hilton had previously capped the maximum redemption points at 80,000. Even at this price it would still work out much cheaper to buy the points.

You can find the Hilton buy points page here.

£153 for 80 tier points and a long haul business class seat on short haul

One of the better ways to earn tier points are the short-haul routes that have long haul aircraft. Two of the most consistent routes for this are London-Madrid and Frankfurt -Madrid. London Madrid usually has one long haul flight per day for both Iberia and BA depending on the time of year.

The LATAM Frankfurt-Madrid route can also be a handy way to add in a few tier points on a Madrid or Frankfurt trip. As a Blue Executive Club member, you would earn 40 tier points and 1100 Avios each way. LATAM currently uses a B787 on this route with a 2-2-2 layout. You can get a return trip from Madrid (or Frankfurt) for a very reasonable £153 return. The Madrid Frankfurt route is on a LATAM B787. I really enjoyed my flight on this route, and you can read my review here. You could combine this with a short break in Frankfurt or Madrid which could get you another 80 tier points if you booked Club Europe.

The rules are:

• Travel: 9 May 19 through 1 Nov 19 on Tuesday-Thursday
• Flight restrictions: travel between MAD and FRA must be on LA flights 704/705/708/709.
• Minimum stay requirements: do not apply.

You can book direct with LATAM here.

£100 off Emirates and sale

The last couple of weeks I have been publishing my reviews of Emirates in business and first class. 

If you have an American Express card (mine appeared on the Platinum card) a new offer has appeared offering £100 off Emirates flights. It is only available for purchases on the UK Emirates sites but given that there are some special offers from the UK currently it may be worth a look, Unfortunately, this would mean that you would not be able to book a Qantas code share to get the BA tier points and Avios. The Amex rules are:

• Only flights departing from UK airports.
• Offer only available when you spend £800 or more at emirates.com/uk by 31 March 2019.

There is also currently with a sale on with a few decent but not great prices. The prices are valid for travel until the end of November or early December. The Joburg price is pretty reasonable after the discount to depart from the UK. Prices in the sale start from:

• Johannesburg £1819
• Mauritius £2199
• Phuket £2229
• Bali £2649
• Singapore £2499
• Cape Town £2209
• Bangkok £2229

The Emirates offer page is here.