Bits: Rolling Luggage Avios change, free Luxury Travel Fair tickets, 3 x Flying Blue miles with Accor

News in brief:

Rolling Luggage Avios earning change

Last week Rolling Luggage and Avios launched their new partnership with a generous Avios earning rate.

The earning rate was:

• 5 Avios per £1 spent
• 1,000 Avios bonus with your first purchase
• 750 Avios bonus with your second purchase within 12 months

Rolling Luggage has now changed the Avios bonus by adding a minimum spend to the terms.  This has nothing to do with a rush of orders for £8 luggage tags from their site ….

You will now receive a bonus of 1,000 Avios with your first purchase over £100.  A second purchase of £50+ within 12 months will trigger a further 750 bonus Avios.

At present you can only collect Avios online via their website here. In the next couple of weeks Rolling Luggage will launch their in-store Avios collection.

Free Luxury Travel Fair tickets

The Luxury Travel Fair is back at Olympia in London from 2nd-5th November.

To be honest, this is not a hugely exciting event.  It is essentially just a lot of high-end hotels and travel agents in booths.  You don’t, for example, get airlines bringing along their latest business class seats to try out.

The fact that they actually charge for tickets is a bit cheeky.  However, until 15th September you can order free tickets via their website using code LTFTWO in return for a £2.50 handling fee.  If you live nearby then it is worth popping in.  We don’t recommend it at the standard price of £14.50 in advance or £15.50 on the door.

Triple Accor miles for Flying Blue members

Accor Hotels (Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, M Gallery, Ibis, Pullman etc) has launched a promotion exclusively for Air France / KLM Flying Blue members.

Le Club AccorHotels members who have chosen automatic conversion to Flying Blue miles can earn triple miles on stays between 1st October and 31st December.

Flying Blue members usually earn the usual 1 mile per 2 Accor points earned, with non-status members receiving up to 2.5 points per €1 depending on brand.

Assuming you are staying at one of their premium hotel brands which earn 2.5 Accor points per €1, this promotion will get you 7.5 Accor points per €1 – equivalent to 3.75 Flying Blue miles per €1.  You will get even more miles if you have Accor status.

Every member can use this offer three times during the promotion period.  There is no minimum length of stay.

The offer page is here.

This offer is valid on advance bookings only, which must be made before 30th September 2017.

One warning – if you switch your Accor earning preferences from points to Flying Blue miles in order to take advantage of this offer, all of your existing Accor points will also be converted into Flying Blue.  If you don’t want this to happen, don’t sign up for this deal.

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (December 2021)

Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card.  However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.  These are:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with two free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 30,000 Flying Blue miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 5,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 5,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Blue mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.