In this post:
TAP’s new Premium Economy
TAP Air Portugal has announced a new cabin that offers more space, more privacy, comfort, and a superior travel experience. While they are not calling it premium economy as such, it certainly sounds like it.
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Premium Check-in.
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Priority Baggage.
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Fast Track Security.
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Priority Boarding.
65% Avios bonus
This is one of the highest rates of bonus for Avios we have seen for a while. The usual rate of bonus across the airlines is 50% with up to an occasional 70% with Qatar. The catch is that it is a Qatar Airways promotion, but you can easily set up an account and transfer Avios instantly to your BA account.
The Promotion only runs until 6 December 2025, so you will need to be quick. The bonus Avios an eligible member can collect will be based on the number of Avios purchased when a minimum of 3,000 Avios is purchased or gifted.
So let’s look at the cost to purchase versus BA:
- 3000 Avios purchased from BA = £69
- 3000 Avios purchased from Qatar = £66
So, Qatar is slightly cheaper. However, the big watch out is that the bonus is staggered:
- 3000 – 10,999 Avios = 25% bonus
- 11,000 – 20,999 =45% bonus
- 21,000 Avios or more = 65% bonus
If you plan to purchase less than 21,000 Avios you would be better waiting for a 50% offer to appear. The other alternative, which is usually cheaper, is to boost your Avios. This does rely on you having earned Avios in the last 30 days, though.
Here are the other points you need to be aware of:
- Purchased or transferred Avios are not refundable and will be posted within 72 hours.
- Members can buy, gift or transfer up to 250,000 Avios per calendar year. BA only allow you to buy 200,000 Avios.
- To transfer, prices start from US$15 and go as low as US$13 for every block of 1,000 Avios.
- Members must have earned a minimum of 1 Avios since enrolment to purchase or gift Avios.
With the bonuses, it can often work out slightly cheaper than buying cash tickets. For example, let’s take the new pricing for New York, which will be 176,000 Avios + £399. If you were to buy the Avios in the offer it would cost £1873. Plus the £399 taxes and charges would make £2272. If you are booking well in advance, you should be able to get flights for around £1950-£2100. However, for anything less than 6 months in advance, the average price is currently around £3500. If you also add in a companion voucher, then it is even better value. The main issue is making sure there is availability before you buy, and booking immediately after you have bought them, before the availability goes.
You can find the Buy Avios page here.
100% Bonus on Hilton Points – real life savings example
Even though the last bonus only ended on 21 November, there is another 100% offer that has just started. I know on TLFL, we write about a lot of these buy offers which can be a bit repetitive, so I thought it would be useful to give an extreme real-life-saving example. I have just bought points for a fantastic hotel in Antigua.
Hermitage Bay is part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which means it is now available to earn and redeem Hilton points on. We are heading to Antigua for our honeymoon and loved the look of this hotel, but it is around £2000 a night.
The hotel recently completely remodelled all 30 suites to balance interior style with generous outdoor living and sea views. In addition to the renovated Hillside Pool Villa Suites and Garden Pool Villa Suites each having private pools, now all Beachfront Villa Suites feature a private hot tub on the terrace. Additionally, the spa has been transformed, moving from its hillside location to a serene beachfront setting.
Having decided the hotel looks amazing, I had a look at how many points it would be per night. During our stay dates, a Hillside Garden Pool Villa costs £1840 for a Hilton Member advance purchase rate. On points, it costs 230,000, which was more than I had. So, I also used some American Express Membership Rewards, which you can transfer over at a 1:2 ratio, and it is worth considering before you purchase any points.
If we assume I started from zero (which I will be for the second night) and bought the full 230,000 points, it would cost £948.98 versus paying £1840 in cash – a saving of £891.02 per night – well worth doing!
Hilton Honors normally lets you buy up to 160,000 points per account per calendar year, before any bonuses. With this bonus, that means you could purchase up to 320,000 points. However, during this promotion, that cap has been increased by 50%, to 240,000 points, pre-bonus, making a total of 480,000 including the bonus points. The limit resets on 1 January each year.
You may be thinking that this would only let you buy two nights of a top-priced hotel; however, you can combine points across accounts at no cost, so you could acquire substantially more points by asking friends or family to purchase them and then consolidating them. There is one issue with this: you have to have had a Hilton account for 30 days with some points activity before you can buy points, or 90 days for a new account with no points activity. If you can muster enough points for four nights, don’t forget that Hilton’s “5th Night Free” is a benefit for Silver, Gold, and Diamond members, where every fifth night is free when booking a standard room reward stay of five or more consecutive nights using all points. You need to book the whole stay as one stay to get the free night, which will show automatically in the final price.
You can also consider doing what I often do: buy a couple of nights on points and pay cash for the rest, which still saves money. The only issue is that you would have two bookings, but usually, hotels will let you keep the same room, providing you book the same category.
You can find the Hilton buy points page here.
Have you made a substantial saving buying points or miles? Let us know in the comments below.
