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Marriott 50k bonus with a catch
Marriott have another huge bonus of 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points available on their Homes and Villas bookings. The promo is available for bookings until 10 May and stays until 31 December 2024.
There is a two night minimum, but the main catch is that you need to spend a whopping $2500 as a minimum to get the bonus. However, for a villa at peak periods this is very easy to do, so it is worth considering if you plan to rent a villa or apartment this year for a holiday.
You can find the promotion page here.
Virgin double or triple points plus lounge access deal
Virgin Flying Club have teamed up with Bicester Village to give Bicester Village members (free to join) up to 60% off the original retail price at participating stores at the Bicester Village Private Sale and you can also earn bonus Virgin Points at the same time. Flying Club members will earn double Virgin Points on purchases up to £500 and triple Virgin Points when they spend more than £501.
To claim bonus points, members simply need to present proof of membership and shopping receipts at the Guest Concierge or Train Station or use the Village’s e-redemption service on the day of purchase.
The offer available in-store between 09:00 and 20:00 from 4 May until 2 June 2024.
Lounge promotion
The Virgin Atlantic Holidays sale is now on as well as the main flight sale that I wrote about here. There is also a special promotion for select economy bookings to receive complimentary access to No 1 Lounge at London Heathrow. Sadly it is not the excellent Virgin Clubhouse lounge.
The free Lounge offer applicable on bookings made between 01 May – 31 May 24 for departure between 01 May 24 – 31 Jan 25.
The promotion is only valid on holidays to New York, Las Vegas, Jamaica, Dubai, Maldives and St Lucia departing from Heathrow only.
You can find details on the official sale page here.
Emirates’ A350 new business class destinations includes UK
Emirates has announced the first set of destinations to be served by its A350 aircraft, entering service in September 2024. With 10 new A350s expected to join the Emirates fleet by 31 March 2025, the airline plans to deploy its latest aircraft type to 9 destinations in the coming months. In total, the airline has 65 A350-900 on order.
These first 10 Emirates A350 aircraft will offer three cabin classes, with 32 next generation Business Class seats, 21 seats in Premium Economy, and 259 “generously pitched” Economy Class seats. All of these aircraft are earmarked to serve short to medium haul cities on the Emirates network, with Bahrain as its inaugural destination. There will be no first class cabin. It has been suggested there could be a small social space but this seems unlikely.
As yet, we don’t know what the business class seats will look like, but they are expected to be the same as the B777-X and are anticipated to be suites. They will be made by Safran, so they will most likely be a customized version of one of their existing suites, such as Unity.
Adnan Kazim, Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer, Emirates Airline said:
“The A350 will be a game-changer for Emirates, enabling us to serve regional points with superior operating efficiency and flexibility across the Middle East and GCC, West Asia and Europe. With the latest generation cabin products including more of our sought-after Premium Economy to more cities, top-notch in-flight entertainment technologies and an abundance of other customer-friendly features, the Emirates A350 builds on our long-standing commitment of investing in the very best customer experience in the sky. Flying the A350 to 9 cities in such a short span of time adds more premium cabin options and choice across geographies for our customers, and ensures we maintain our competitive edge and industry leading position.”
The first A350s will fly to the following cities:
In the Middle East/GCC
- Emirates will operate its first A350 to Bahrain on the daily EK839/840 service from 15 September. Frequency of A350 services will progressively increase to cover two Bahrain services with the second service starting on 1 November.
- The first Emirates A350 will land in Kuwait on the daily EK853/854 service on 16 September.
- Muscat’s daily EK866/867 will be served by the A350 from 1 December.
In West Asia
- The Emirates A350 will be deployed on EK502/503 to Mumbai from 27 October.
- Ahmedabad’s daily EK538/539 will be served by the A350 from 27 October.
- Colombo’s fourth daily service EK654/655 will be served by the A350 from 01 January 2025.
In Europe
- Lyon will be served daily with the Emirates A350 from 1 December.
- Bologna will be served by the A350 from 1 December.
- Edinburgh will rejoin the Emirates network from 4 November, operated by the A350.
Emirates flights to A350 destinations are now on sale and can be booked on emirates.com.
2 comments
Yes, it’s a shame the Marriott offer excludes taxes, cleaning etc, which can easily be 1/5 of the costs. For the old 1k offers they did include them, and had no minimum. But obviously have corrected that since. A Bali villa in November is still worth doing, as there are some bargain places available, instead of a hotel stay. We have done that before when Plat had the One Fine Stay offers, which were indeed brilliant.
I had seen the email from Marriott H&V with much excitement thinking 2 short cheap stays in the back ar5e of Yorkshire would suffice. But no, massive spending requirement. I suppose as the article says, useful if you have a Med villa trip to make
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