News: join me on a loyalty podcast, £100 Eastern Airways cashback with Amex

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News in brief:

Join me on the ‘Let’s Talk Loyalty’ podcast

I recorded another episode of Paula Thomas’s ‘Let’s Talk Loyalty’ podcast this week. It has now run to over 140 episodes, featuring guests from all across the loyalty spectrum. This is my second appearance since it started.

If you’re employed in the travel or loyalty space it is worth a listen. The main focus here is paid loyalty / subscription loyalty and how to make it appealing. We look at Emirates Skywards+, which I wrote about earlier this week, as well as InterContinental Ambassador and Pret’s coffee subscription. There are lots of other loyalty titbits along the way too.

You can listen directly from the Let’s Talk Loyalty website here, via Apple here or via Spotify here.

Eastern Airways £100 american express offer

Save £100 on Eastern Airways flights with American Express

American Express has launched a cashback offer with a bit of a difference – £100 back when you spend £300+ with Eastern Airways.

The Eastern Airways route map is here. The airline deliberately ignores London, but there are multiple routes from Southampton and it has some presence at most regional airports.

In terms of getting out of the UK, you are restricted to:

Birmingham to Gibraltar
Southampton to Gibraltar
Southampton to Rennes
Southampton to Nantes

For a couple, £300 would cover a return domestic trip in the UK. A solo traveller may struggle to spend that much on one journey.

The Eastern fleet comprises British Aerospace Jetstream 41 and ATR72-600 series turboprops, Embraer regional jets and Embraer E-jets. The seat count runs from 29 to 76. Wherever you fly, it will be a different experience to your standard British Airways short haul Airbus flight.

Category

General

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

Andrew says:

17 Sep17 September 05:49

Is Miami not in the US?
- Peter K says:
  
  17 Sep17 September 07:24
  
  Usually.
  Wikipedia also says:
  
  “Miami (Nea Krini), a beach in Thessaloniki, Greece
  Miami (neighborhood), in Alexandria, Egypt
  Miami, Manitoba, Canada
  Miami, Queensland, Australia
  Miami, alternate name of Meyami, Iran”.
  
  Maybe one of those is also serviced? 😁
tony says:

17 Sep17 September 06:58

Eastern used to have blinding inflight service back in the day, with champagne from a full sized bottle on the BHX-NCL run.

I now see that according to the website they have suspended all inflight service as a COVID-19 safety measure, which at this point in the pandemic is getting quite lame.

Companies need to stop using COVID as an excuse for poor quality service.
- Andrew says:
  
  17 Sep17 September 07:17
  
  Covid excuses are now actually insulting our intelligence. I don’t understand why Virgin can’t go back to a full service course-by-course meal with proper table set up in Upper – if you can do it in a restaurant, why not on a plane? And if I wanted a glorified economy single tray meal, I’d fly Club World.
  - Stephen Golding says:
    
    17 Sep17 September 09:26
    
    Absolutely agreed. I found out I couldn’t get stuff out of my storage unit at 5:30pm on a Saturday because they now shut at 5pm “because of Covid” (pre-Covid it was 11pm). This storage unit is called “Access Storage”. And I can’t get access!
- Dominic says:
  
  17 Sep17 September 07:27
  
  Agreed. The COVID excuse was tiresome months ago.
  
  Same with call centres; sorry, how can C-19 STILL be causing long wait times?
  - Spurs drive me mad says:
    
    17 Sep17 September 08:19
    
    Eon, Bucks County Council, DWP, Barclaycard are top of my current hate list this month… they weren’t much cop before C19 now it’s just another excuse for bad service. And stop telling me my call is important to you as clearly it’s not!
    - Andrew says:
      
      17 Sep17 September 09:30
      
      If you have problems with your local authority, pick up the phone and call, or pop round and knock on your local Councillor’s front door. That’s the very reason why they put themselves forward to serve you and the rest of the community.
    - AJA says:
      
      17 Sep17 September 09:40
      
      Just once I would appreciate some honesty in those stupid recorded messages!
      
      How about: “Your call is important to us until you cannot bear to hold on waiting and you voluntarily hang up”
      or
      “Your custom is important to us and we apologise in advance but unless we answer you within the next 60 minutes your call will automatically terminate “
  - J says:
    
    17 Sep17 September 10:18
    
    Staff shortage due to sickness/self-isolation?
    - Rob says:
      
      17 Sep17 September 12:40
      
      Unlikely given the % with covid is 1:70 and you don’t need to isolate if vaccinated if your partner or sproglet is ill.
      - Chrisasaurus says:
        
        17 Sep17 September 13:53
        
        WFH for financial businesses is limited though so a little understanding for banks etc
        
        The rest frankly have had a year to organise themselves appropriately…
      - The Savage Squirrel says:
        
        17 Sep17 September 18:16
        
        maths pedantry alert… 1:70 is a ratio not a % 😀
Sarah says:

17 Sep17 September 07:01

Is there a way to check flight availability for Finnair flights leaving from Edinburgh using avios, for all dates? Can’t see it as an option on SeatSpy.
roger says:

17 Sep17 September 08:05

with marriott booking offering mobile key do i still need to visit front desk for check in or can I directly enter my room assuming on check in the room is allocated.#
This is in spain so they may want to see passport,
- Chrisasaurus says:
  
  17 Sep17 September 08:07
  
  If they want your passport they won’t issue the mobile key so worth trying it
Memesweeper says:

17 Sep17 September 08:29

ARN to HKT won’t price on BA.com even where there is availability in business… bit annoying! Might be tempted if the taxes/fees/charges were reasonable.
- Memesweeper says:
  
  17 Sep17 September 08:45
  
  AA.com quoting less than £70 in TFCs for a business return ARN to HKT, plus 150,000 of their elusive miles…
riku says:

17 Sep17 September 09:35

The seats might be nice in long haul Finnair planes but they have dramatically cut back their food and drink in business class. No hot food in business class HEL-JFK might be seen as taking things too far but finniar see it as “minimizing food waste”.
Andrew says:

17 Sep17 September 09:38

Missed Southampton to Dublin for getting out of the UK.
Anon says:

17 Sep17 September 11:52

The way that taxes and charges work on Finnair redemptions using Avios is a bit strange. I’ve looked at some Finnair points deals and it looks like the taxes and charges them
render them almost pointless.