NEWS & OFFERS: Hilton Honors Debit card 50% off & silver status, Etihad lite business class fare loses perks and citizenM sale

Hilton Honors Debit card 50% off

If you don’t want a credit card but want to collect points, spend a lot in foreign currency, or are interested in collecting Hilton points, this offer may be for you. We wrote a full article about the cards here.

In essence, there is a cheaper card that usually costs £60 per year and the more expensive one that costs £150 per year. 

Hilton Honors Basic Debit Card

• £60 yearly fee
• Limited-time offer of 3500 bonus points when you spend £1000 in foreign currency within 6 months of signing up. 
• Earn up to 3 Hilton Honors Points for every £1 spent on eligible purchases
• Instant Hilton Honors Silver Status (For the whole time you own the card, not just for a year)
• Realtime Exchange Rate with low 0.5% FX fees
• Low 0.5% fee on ATM withdrawals abroad. 2.5% fee over £250 per month
• Earn 1 Hilton Honors Point for every 1p rounded up with Point Booster.

Hilton Honors Plus Debit Card

• £150 yearly fee
• Limited-time offer of 12,000 bonus points when you spend £2500 in foreign currency within 6 months of signing up. 
• Earn up to 4.5 Hilton Honors Points for every £1 spent on eligible purchases
• Instant Hilton Honors Gold Status (For the whole time you own the card, not just for a year)
• Realtime Exchange Rate with no FX fees
• Fee-free ATM withdrawals abroad. 2.5% fee over £500 per month
• Earn 1 Hilton Honors Point for every 1p rounded up with Point Booster

There is now a special offer to save 50% on the basic card, bringing it down to a very reasonable £30. This could be worth considering if you travel a lot and don’t already have a credit card with low or free FX fees or one that gives points. Most credit cards charge around 2-3% for FX transactions. The offer also provides an easier to achieve bonus points offer. Instead of having to earn on solely foreign transactions, you can get 2,500 Hilton points when you spend £1000 in pounds or foreign currency within three months. 

The offer ends on 30 April.

You can find the offer page here.

Etihad removes perks from their “Value” business class fares

If you plan to book one of the good deals with Etihad for business class, be careful which fare category you get. On Monday this week Etihad made changes to its Value fare category which removed some of the business class perks you would usually expect. The changes do bring it into line with other carriers such as Qatar, Emirates and Finnair that have light business class fares. Providing you booked before 4 March 2025, you will get the perks under the previous rules. However, if you have to change a ticket and it is reissued you will get the new rules.

Here is what has been removed:

• Refunds
• Seat reservations
• Lounge access

Here you can see the categories of fare classes and what each includes:

This is only one way, but you can see that it is only an extra £28 to get those perks. Other fares (this is London-Bangkok) seem to have a similarly low difference between value and comfort. It will be a no-brainer for most people to pay the extra price to get those perks unless, for some reason, you don’t need them. 

There are more details on the Etihad website here.

HT: Loyalty Lobby

citizenM sale

citizenM offers affordable luxury boutique-type hotels in 18 city centres across Europe, the USA and Asia, with hotels in London and Glasgow within the UK.  They can often be a good value option for London given the astronomical prices that seem normal now.

There is a new sale with up to 20% OFF bookings with citizenM until 13th March at 11am. The discount offer is 15% off standard rate and 20% off for members. You can stay until 30 April 2025 and all hotels are included. 

You can find the sale page here.