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Bits: Marriott UK weekends flash sale, BA scrapping ‘unaccompanied minors’ service

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News in brief:

Marriott launches a UK flash sale

Marriott has launched a flash sale which is running until 5pm next Monday 29th.

It covers 50 hotels across the UK for weekend stays before 10th April.

The headline entry price is £49 but its not clear how many rooms at how many hotels are available at that price.  The special booking page is here.

Brownie point for the first reader to recognise the UK Marriott below ….

Marriott flash sale

British Airways dropping ‘unaccompanied minors’ service

BA announced yesterday that it closing its ‘unaccompanied minors’ service, a move which will cost it a lot of business in ferrying overseas boarding school children to and from the UK.

Here is the announcement:

Despite the overall growth in our customer numbers over the last decade, demand for our Skyflyer Solo (Unaccompanied Minor) service has declined.

Having conducted a thorough review of the service, we have concluded with regret that we can no longer offer this service.

British Airways will honour all bookings that have already been made for unaccompanied minors, but new bookings will cease from today (Wednesday February 24, 2016). In line with existing policy, the airline will continue to take bookings for 12 to 18 year-olds who wish to fly independently. However, children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult aged 16 years or over.

Existing Unaccompanied Minors may have changes made to their bookings provided all travel is completed by January 31, 2017.

Following today’s announcement, any customer with an existing booking for an Unaccompanied Minor may cancel their booking and receive a full refund.


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

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British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

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You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (63)

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

  • Tilly71 says:

    OT:
    I have 250 accor points but I can’t seem to be able to transfer out using the trick used via another site after the quiz points hit, I keep getting a blank page after submitting the details to transfer to iberia.

    • Rob says:

      Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It is possible they have ‘fixed’ it so it no longer works.

  • Liz says:

    OT Flybe flights from Dundee to Amsterdam begin 23/5 – tickets now on sale!

    • Alan says:

      Excellent – prices seem reasonable too. Need to have a KLM flight by the summer to reset expiry of those points so might do o/w Flybe and o/w KLM!

  • Lady London says:

    I think it’s a mistake for them to drop it. It was good publicity. You just thought of your kids being in the hands of someone like Mary Poppins – totally British. A priceless marketing asset lost.

    If it wasn’t profitable then why not just up the price?

  • pauldb says:

    OT: avios.com has 25% off Flybe redemptions, from 3375e/w.

    “Book your flight between 25 February and 17 March 2016 to fly anytime from 10 March to 6 July 2016”

  • Rochelle says:

    We flew 2 unaccompanied minors from NY to London in October. We actually used Virgin as we had some friends flying in on a Virgin flight but also used the unaccompanied minor service for added security and peace of mind. They were excellent and efficient and the added bonus was that on Virgin the service was free of charge, unlike BA, with whom the service round trip would have come up at a few hundred pounds!

  • Chris says:

    OT but Virgin Trains (West Coast) look like they will be having a seat sale from March 1st – 3rd.

    According to the Nectar app you will also get double points on seat sale bookings. IIRC they also done it with double virgin miles last time as well.

  • harry says:

    OT Harry Potter and the Cursed Child £10 with 100 CC points = 240 Avios

    Not tempted but you can shift these for £14-odd on Ebay, so it just about stacks up.

    Buying for your children/ as a present makes more sense this time

    • Rob says:

      Thanks, I will alert my staff 🙂

      • Sussex bantam says:

        Just be careful – this is the script of the stage play. Not a new novel.

        • harry says:

          I was a good friend of Jo Rowling when I was younger, in fact I was rather better at French lol

          Extremely nice girl, lovely.

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