Bits: BA launching Seychelles today?, new Avios partners, new Hilton Curio in South of France

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News in brief:

British Airways (re)launching the Seychelles today?

According to the rumour mill, which includes tweets from BA pilots, a new route is being announced today. There is a good chance that it will be the return of the Seychelles to the British Airways network.

If you have some Avios and potentially a British Airways American Express 241 to spend, get thinking.

As soon as the announcement is made, two Club World seats for Avios will be released for every flight. No restrictions. It obviously depends when the route is due to start of course – if it is launching in March then only March 2018 to early September 2018 will be available, which is not peak season.

It might not Seychelles of course. I’ll let you know tomorrow. We do know, for certain, that it will be a Boeing 787 route.

British Airways Seychelles

New Avios eStore and Virgin Shops Away in-store partners

Avios and Virgin Shops Away have added eight new in-store partners to their respective eStores.

If you haven’t linked a payment card to your eStore account yet and you like eating at places like Byron, Prezzo and Flaming Grill, you should do so before your next meal. Do NOT link the same card to both stores as you won’t be able to control which site receives the miles.

The new places and earning rates are:

Byron 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Chef & Brewer 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Old English Inns 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Hungry Horse 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Flaming Grill 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Fayre & Square 5 Avios/£1 or 4 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Eating Inn 5 Avios/£1 or 8 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1 (not a typo)

Prezzo 3 Avios/£1 or 2 Virgin Flying Club miles/£1

Virgin also has a long-established deal with Jamie’s Italian at 2 miles per £1.

New Hilton Curio in the South of France – good redemption option?

Hilton is about to open a new Curio Collection hotel in the South of France. The Grand Hotel des Sablettes Plage seems to be Hilton’s first property in the South of France and it looks very pleasant.

The hotel has an indoor and an outdoor pool as well as a private beach.

A standard room Hilton Honors redemption is 60,000 Hilton Honors points or less, depending on the cash price on the day. However, there don’t seem to be any standard redemption rooms available after June 2018 at the moment so you can’t book for next summer.

Historically Ryanair and CityJet have flown to Toulon from London during the Summer, although no flights are currently showing for 2018.

The booking page with more images is here.

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

British Airways and Avios, Hilton Honors, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

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

Sam Bessey says:

19 Sep19 September 06:41

Les Sablettes has been open and operating as a Hilton property for a few months now. Me and my girlfriend did a redemption stay there in August. It was very pleasant but had a couple of minor teething issues that are hopefully rectified now.
- Rob says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 07:35
  
  Official opening is 27th, it had had a ‘soft opening’ already.
  - Sam Bessey says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 08:05
    
    I see… the one thing that I found a bit rubbish was their much-vaunted ‘private beach’ which consisted of a weird roped off section of sand about 50m from the hotel (so not connected in any way at all), surrounded by ‘public’ beach on both sides
    - Rob says:
      
      19 Sep19 September 08:40
      
      That is normal in Nice and Cannes in my experience.
      - Andrew says:
        
        19 Sep19 September 10:24
        
        And at IC Cannes you have to pay for sunbeds even if you’re a hotel guest.
- Chris Palmer says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 13:12
  
  I have been to the new Hilton. The decked area out the front is great for breakfast. However, the service is absolutely terrible. The rooms also have lots of problems (broken items, things not working, etc.) Check the TripAdvisor reviews and proceed with caution.
Nate says:

19 Sep19 September 07:23

OT. I flew from London to Dubai last week on BA first with my wife and son using avios and my 2-4-1 voucher. Overall it was nice but there were a couple of problems.

Firstly our IFE was not working. It seemed like it affected other passengers in first too (not sure about other cabins) and it took about 2.5 hours to fix via system resets. By the time it was rectified we had finished dinner and it was midnight so we decided to sleep (overnight flight).

Secondly there appeared to be a problem with the temperature of the cabin. We were sitting in 5E and 5F at the back – it was cold throughout and the cabin kept apologising and did their best to rectify the situation.

I politely complained and at the end of the flight CSM offered 7k avios each to me and my wife. Points are yet to deposit and just waiting for them in my account.

Do you think that is adequate compensation?
- Rob says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 07:34
  
  Sounds about right given BA’s compo scale. You would need to go to MCOL for more.
  - the real harry1 says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 07:43
    
    looks a bit low to me, see several FT threads
    - Lap1 says:
      
      19 Sep19 September 18:16
      
      We had problem with IFE and received a £200 voucher (family of 4)
Roger I* says:

19 Sep19 September 07:35

Not quite the first Hilton in the South of France. There was a Noga Hilton in Cannes but that relationship ended a while ago.
Boi says:

19 Sep19 September 07:40

OT: Marriott 1000 avios landed in our 6 BA accounts yesterday. Thanks Rob.
Alex W says:

19 Sep19 September 08:11

OT – anyone been having issues with Tesco on Awardwallet recently? Thanks.
- mark2 says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 08:20
  
  I don’t do enough with Tesco to put them on AwardWallet, but recently Hilton has been asking for re Captcha every time.
  - Rob says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 08:35
    
    Yes, annoying – I have deleted Hilton.
    - Andrew* says:
      
      19 Sep19 September 09:15
      
      +1
    - The Original Nick. says:
      
      19 Sep19 September 13:45
      
      Removed Hilton from AW ages ago because of the same issue. So annoying.
Bill says:

19 Sep19 September 08:31

Recently got an avios statement about the Bryon in store avios, was a nice surprise when that came through.

O/T just flew into Miami on WTP on the 747-400 was really shocked to discover that all the seats had the food trays tucked in the arm rest which reduced the width of the seat. I’m quite a big fella so it was a a little uncomfortable. I must say the extra leg room did compensate for it.
- chris1922 says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 12:41
  
  Yes, the seat in front is too far for a seat back table.
Gavin says:

19 Sep19 September 09:57

Avios after the premium market with Hungry Horse!
- Rob says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 10:41
  
  That’s what I thought ….
James says:

19 Sep19 September 10:07

Is it safe to link your cards to both stores and assume purchases will track in one or the other randomly if you’re not to bothered which gets it? Waitrose shopping is only valid on Virgin for example so I want to capture everything without having to think which card is in which store. For me a few Avios is good but if it goes to Virgin I’ll just shift that to IHG each year.