Bits: Virgin East Coast sale, 30% Hyatt ‘buy points’ bonus, Hilton’s new price guarantee

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News in brief:

Virgin East Coast Edinburgh sale for £25

Virgin East Coast is running a special promotion to push its new ’23 trains per weekday’ timetable to Edinburgh from Kings Cross.

Until 4th March, it is selling 25,000 Standard Advance one way tickets from London to Edinburgh for just £25 each. This are only valid for weekday travel between 16th May and 15th July.

Remember that you will also earn Nectar points or Virgin Flying Club miles on your purchase. The Virgin miles are worth more (you get 2 per £1 whichever you take) but obviously you need to be an active Virgin collector to get value from them.

30% bonus when you buy Hyatt Gold Passport points

Until 7th March, Hyatt is offering a 30% bonus when you buy Gold Passport points.

This is obviously worth a look if you need to top up your account. It may also be worthwhile if considering a stay in a top tier Park Hyatt such as the ones in Paris or Sydney, where buying the points may be cheaper than paying cash.

The new Park Hyatt resort in Mallorca will also be opening this Summer and looks from the images (see below) very impressive. Prices are a little scary (rooms from Euro 800, or Euro 1,000 if you want a cancellable one) so a redemption would be a good deal. Note that points and ‘cash and points’ rooms have not yet been loaded on hyatt.com.

The Hyatt ‘buy points’ site is here.

New Hilton ‘lowest rate’ guarantee

Hilton has launched a new ‘lowest rate’ guarantee, promising that you will pay less on hilton.com than you will pay on Expedia, Hotels.com etc.

The power of Expedia / hotels.com is so strong these days that they are able to force hotel chains not to undercut them. Hilton has worked around this by restricting the discount to Hilton HHonors members (free to join, of course) which means that technically the general public is excluded.

Weekend stays booked 15+ days in advance will now be 10% cheaper for Hilton HHonors members (3% midweek). From 1 – 14 days in advance the discount is just 2%. The discounts clearly show on hilton.com during a search, whether or not you are logged in.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (December 2021)

There are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Hilton Honors Gold status for as long as they hold the card? It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Gold and MeliaRewards Gold status. We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Did you know that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are a great way of earning Hilton Honors points? Two Virgin Points can be converted into three Hilton Honors points. The Virgin Atlantic cards are the only Visa or Mastercard products in the UK which can indirectly earn Hilton Honors points. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with American Express Gold (20,000 bonus points), the American Express Rewards Credit Card (5,000 bonus points) and – for small business owners – American Express Business Gold (20,000 bonus points) and Business Platinum (40,000 bonus points).

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Hilton Honors points.

(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Category

Hilton Honors, World of Hyatt

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Chris says:

24 Feb24 February 15:33

Does anyone know if buying Hyatt points is enough to keep an account active? I’m close to a big chunk expiring and this may be easier than a trip to East London or Birmingham!
Liz says:

24 Feb24 February 17:13

Thanks James – I know I missed the promotion but we weren’t even planning a trip to London until 2 days ago. I was going to redeem for a night in Chicago and held our spend back on the credit card so I wouldn’t trigger the free night too soon. When we got the voucher we decided not to change our Chicago booking in the end – got a lovely 4 star hotel half price on hotels.com back in Dec so decided to not mess with that booking. So spur of the moment trip to London is now happening! We normally stay at the really basic Travelodge at Covent Garden (pre HfP days) when we go to London but even that is pricing up at almost £200 so really happy with our deal.
- James67 says:
  
  24 Feb24 February 19:59
  
  That’s what I meant by ‘assuming’, you got the best deal at the time you could book so that’s all that matters. Interesting for me to see scale of the difference you found on hotels and hilton. I will check close in for deals at bankside and elsewhere to see if it’s worth cancelling staybridge to recover my 140k ihg points. When travelodge Waterloo was new I stayed a few times on the real cheap sale rates under £20/night and was quite happy with it, so too were various friends that normally only stay mid to high end hotels. Now that many have been recently refurbihed it is probably good time to use them again but I would never do so at their outrageous close in Saturday night rates. I spend so little time in hotel rooms that my only real concern is they are clean, the bed is firm enougb to be comfortable, and the bathroom is functional. I’ve stayed in hiltons more than once that made me wisb I was in a travelidge. Thankfully, with a whole bunch of new openings across all their brands, Hilton is now worth staying again in the UK.
rams1981 says:

24 Feb24 February 18:19

OT notice the AMEX FX exchange 1000 bonus points have now posted
BigAl says:

24 Feb24 February 18:33

Am currently going through a torturous process with Hilton trying to get them to honour the BRG. I provided the details of 5 websites who had a rate up to 40% cheaper than the room I purchased directly with them, on exactly the same dates and same conditions. I even took a snapshot of one of them and sent it within 24 hours to their team. The first email I received back stated their “verification team” were unable to find that price (I checked back constantly, and it’s even still up there now, 10 days later). The subsequent 5 emails I have received in response to my protestations have all simply stated that “the verification team were unable to find that rate within the permitted time”. I find it utterly criminal Hilton can boast a BRG and then be so obtuse about enforcing it. For what it’s worth I’m a platinum member. Has anyone else had similar experiences?
- James says:
  
  24 Feb24 February 20:35
  
  Try the Hilton rep on flyertalk, or Twitter
- xcalx says:
  
  25 Feb25 February 08:11
  
  “Has anyone else had similar experiences?”
  
  Last 2 Hilton bookings I made led to the price matched to the OTA (Priceline) and an extra $50 off the cost using the BRG.
Brian says:

24 Feb24 February 20:09

OT – decent Marriott flash sale on right now…
Nathan says:

25 Feb25 February 05:53

Something which I don’t think has ever happened before or if it has I certainly haven’t noticed! I booked the Hilton Hua Hin Thailand yesterday for the same day as was having an unexpected trip there. The rate was a points + cash rate. When I checked out this morning the rate was a fair bit cheaper (in Thai terms) than the rate quoted at time of booking. No complaints but was a bit surprised!
James says:

25 Feb25 February 16:05

Off topic but if you already have HHonors Silver status then get a Hilton credit card do you just stay at silver status or are you upgraded anymore?
- Rob says:
  
  25 Feb25 February 21:19
  
  Stay Silver
Peter says:

29 Feb29 February 11:45

Just hope that your room is as advertised, they offered view of Shard for my room; no view. I initially told them I’d stay somewhere else, but they offered me dinner, and I accepted.