Hilton 20% off summer sale
Hilton has launched its latest sale with 20% off Europe, the Middle East, and Africa when you book by 3 September.
This offer is available for weekend stays booked direct with Hilton. The stay must be completed on weekends by 8 September 2024. For purposes of this offer, “weekend” is defined as Friday, Saturday, and/or Sunday nights and in the Middle East (excluding the UAE, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, and Africa) as Thursday, Friday, and/or Saturday nights.
Bookings until 15 July 2024 must book a minimum of 3 days before arrival. Bookings between 16 July and 3 September 2024 must book a minimum of 1 day before arrival.
The downside is that full prepayment is required when booking and rates are not refundable.
You can find the sale page here.
Finnair new Air Lounge business class seat rollout complete
Finnair has successfully completed its new long-haul cabin renewal rollout, with all long-haul aircraft now refurbished. So when you fly Finnair long haul you know you will have the new seats.
The project included the launch of an entirely new Business Class seat, a brand-new Premium Economy cabin, and a refreshed Economy Class.
The state-of-the-art cabin was first launched in 2022 and, within two years, was rolled out to the airline’s entire long-haul fleet of A350s and A330s.
I have flown the new business class on both the A330s and A350s (you can read my reviews here). The business class seats are huge and a real innovation in that they don’t recline. Instead, you can recline, lounge, or lie flat in the huge area available to you. I personally find it comfortable and think it is a good product. You can even experience this on the London—Helsinki route, as they use long-haul aircraft up to twice a day.
Finnair has also announced the upcoming renewal of the cabins of its regional E190 aircraft. These short-haul jets, operating flights to a range of Finnair’s Nordic destinations, will receive a brand-new cabin, inspired by the colours and design now seen across Finnair’s long-haul fleet. Finnair will also soon open a new larger lounge at the Schengen area of its home hub Helsinki Airport.
Revolut’s new loyalty debit card scheme with Avios and many other airline miles
Revolut, the global financial app has today announced RevPoints, a European debit loyalty card programme is now available in the UK. This allows customers to turn their spending into rewards, including airline miles and exclusive discounts on travel, accommodation, experiences and more.
I have been using Revolut for many years and find it handy for transferring money in foreign currencies or for withdrawing cash without a fee from cashpoints abroad. You can transfer money instantly from your own bank account into Revolut, allowing you to withdraw cash easily abroad. It is, in effect, a current account that comes with a debit card. Unlike some current accounts, you do not need to pay anything into or out of it regularly. You will only earn RevPoints on purchases, not for things like transfers or withdrawals but it is definitely a very useful development for miles collectors.
The most interesting part of the scheme is that you can transfer their RevPoints to 30+ airline loyalty programs, including British Airways Executive Club, Flying Blue, and many more. The points will be valid for 3 years which gives plenty of time to use them. This will be an ideal opportunity for those who don’t want a credit card or don’t want another one to earn Avios with everyday spend. It could also open up Avios earning for large purchases such as cars and tax bills where you can’t use a credit card.
RevPoints can also be redeemed for significant discounts on holiday accommodation and experiences through the Lifestyle tab within the Revolut app. Points can also be used for discounts at top brands such as French Connection and Dermalogica when shopping online with Revolut Pay.
Depending on your plan, users can earn up to 1 point per pound spent, and even accelerate earnings by converting spare change into points, completing in-app challenges or on in-app bookings for Stays and Experiences. In addition to earning on Stays and Experiences bookings, Standard plan users can turn on the Spare Change feature to earn on card spend. On top of the points they earn on card spend, Spare Change round-ups will be converted into additional points, at a rate of up to 50 points for every pound spared.
There is a bonus for new users of 3,000 points (equivalent to 3,000 air miles or up to £60 in travel discounts) after making 150 eligible transactions. Plus, you can get up to 10,000 bonus points by upgrading your plan and meeting spending thresholds within the first 90 days.
You can see the earning rates and bonuses for the different plans here:
You can earn bonus RevPoints by upgrading to a paid plan. When and how many bonus RevPoints can be redeemed depends on your plan’s T&Cs. For those on Revolut’s Ultra plan, the rewards are much higher but come at a cost of £45 a month. Customers who spend £2,500 a month could earn up to 30,000 RevPoints annually. It does come with a lot of extras such as insurance and 3GB data to use abroad a month. I will be taking a closer look at Revolut Ultra in the next couple of weeks.
Once you have joined Revolut, here’s what you do. It was not showing on my app yesterday so I am not sure if it is up and running yet.
To enable RevPoints in-app:
- Go to your Profile
- Select ‘RevPoints’
Once RevPoints is enabled, you can check how many points you’ve earned:
- Go to ‘Lifestyle’ on the bottom menu
- Select ‘RevPoints’ (top-right icon)
To start earning RevPoints, you’ll need to:
- Make card transactions: use your Revolut card for your spending
- Use round ups: convert your spare change into RevPoints at boosted rates
- Take part in weekly challenges: use your Revolut card with Apple Pay, donate, refer a friend, and more
- Book Stays and Experiences: make a booking and receive two times the amount of RevPoints you’d earn by spending with your Revolut card
There are also changes for Revolut customers on Metal and Ultra plans who will get “new lifestyle enhancements depending on their plan type.”
Customers will be able to stay up to speed with this year’s summer of sport with access to The Athletic, perfect a new skill with MasterClass or improve their chess game with Premium membership on Chess.com. The new subscriptions will complement the current range – which includes the Financial Times, Deliveroo, Tinder, ClassPass, and NordVPN. These new benefits will be available in-app and can be easily activated by customers on eligible paid plans via “Profile” > “Your Plan” > “Partners”.
- The Athletic: Paid subscription worth £59.99 per year – coming to Metal & Ultra.
- Chess.com: Diamond membership worth up to £180 per year – coming to Ultra; Platinum membership worth up to £120 per year – coming to Metal.
- MasterClass: Premium membership worth up to £228 per year – coming to Metal & Ultra.
7 comments
This article might be a little premature as the option to select RevPoints doesn’t appear to be available yet.
It appeared on my account last night.
Just a word of warning regarding Revolut. I used it for several years, recommended it etc. Then suddenly I received a phone call from a very polite young man (ringing from the Revolut number), explaining that someone had been trying to pay with my account and also set up a debit from my account. He never asked me for any personal information, he had all the info at his fingertips and finally, in securing my account where HE sent ME a text FROM THE REVOLUT THREAD THAT I HAD ON MY PHONE. It had a code which I gave. They then drained my account of £1000.
I am usually very savvy with scams. Since then I had 2 further phone calls with very polite, young gentlemen, happy to spend time on the phone who knew all about my account. Also from the Revolut phone number. The chat person said to me I should have used Chat – but how do I know that would also not be a scam? Needless to say my reply to these men was full of expletives!
I never recovered any money, Revolut did not want to know or help in any way. I have since found out, through investigating that they have successfully taken money from thousands of others – often these people have £1000’s in their account, so in the greater scheme of things I got off lightly.
If you continue to use Revolut, don’t leave hardly any money in your account – just transfer in small amounts as and when you need it.
I would hate this to happen to anyone else. (And yes, I felt really stupid).
Thanks for the warning. I use the auto top up feature so only a small amount goes in at a time and then transfer across instantly if I need to do a bigger transaction.
I just wanted to point out that although Revolut looks like a bank – it isn’t. It hasn’t passed the tests required by the UK FCA, so your money isn’t protected.
@Malcolm
that is exactly the issue – your money is not protected. My husband still uses his Revolute card but only transfers a little bit of money over at a time. I was unlucky because I’d just had a $1000 refund to my card from a cancelled car rental. Otherwise I would not have had much on it at all. They drained the £ and the $ in one go.
Thanks malcolm
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