NEWS & OFFERS: London to Sydney business class offer, Up to 40% off Virgin reward flights and Hyatt buy Mr and Mrs Smith

London to Sydney business class offer

Korean airline Asiana regularly offers decent prices to Australia, but it has been a while since we have had an offer. Unfortunately, it looks like the days of the £2200 per person return have gone but judging by today’s prices it is pretty good. It also looks like with the Chinese airlines returning to the market, it is beginning to drive prices a bit lower. 

Asiana is rated as 5* by Skytrax and has modern aircraft and seats with flatbeds and aisle access. You fly via Seoul to reach Sydney.

The price is from £3009 return per person if you book through a travel agent. However, there is one departure date, 16 November, where the price is showing as £2492. The most availability is January and February 2024, but I can see it on other very limited dates before then, including May this year.

The next cheapest I can see it for some random dates is £3009 with Booking.com, but you can check all the travel agent rates using Skyscanner. You can also book by phone with Trailfinders for slightly more. Booking direct with Asiana is around £200 more. 

Thanks to my friend D for the tip-off!

Up to 40% off Virgin Atlantic redemption flights

Virgin has launched a new off for reward flights booked using Virgin Points. The offer is only available on the routes below.

It says that it is only available in Economy Classic and Premium cabins only, which is a bit ambiguous, but I can see reductions in Upper Class as well.  You need to book between 00:01 GMT 28 April 2023 and 23:59 GMT 01 June 2023.

Here is the table for the reductions which vary by destination and month:

To be eligible for this offer, you must book a new reward flight or upgrade through virginatlantic.com or the Virgin Atlantic contact centre.  The discount only applies to points, not any cash element (taxes, fees, and carrier-imposed surcharges) of the flight price.

The offer is valid on Virgin Atlantic marketed and operated routes only (flight number starts with VS). Partner airline and codeshare flights are not eligible.   The discount is not valid on Gold Reward Flights (reward flights booked with double points) or Points Plus Money bookings. If you subsequently change the dates outside the offer period, you will have to pay the full price. 

Hyatt buy Mr and Mrs Smith – what happens with IHG One Rewards?

Hyatt and Mr & Mrs Smith today announced an agreement for Hyatt to acquire London-based Mr & Mrs Smith, a platform offering direct booking of over 1,500 boutique and luxury properties. These properties are currently available to book using IHG ONE Rewards, but when the sale is completed at some point between now and the end of June, they will work towards Mr and Mrs Smith being available to book on Hyatt.com. And through the app. 

Hyatt has not said when or if you will be able to use Hyatt points for the hotels or earn them on Mr and Mrs Smith stays. They just say that they are “exploring ways to enable World of Hyatt members to earn and redeem points across eligible hotels in the Mr & Mrs Smith collection.”

“We are excited by this planned acquisition and to explore bringing guests and World of Hyatt members even more global luxury offerings across hundreds of geographies – including over 20 countries where there are currently no Hyatt hotels such as Fiji, Croatia, Iceland and Anguilla,” said Mark Vondrasek, chief commercial officer, Hyatt.

I think it is fair to assume that once the sale is complete, they will disappear from IHG rewards. So if you were planning to book using IHG points I would do it soon.