Hilton 20% off Summer Sale
Hilton has launched its latest sale with 20% off Europe, the Middle East and Africa if you book before September 3.
This offer is available for weekend stays booked directly with Hilton. The stay must be completed during the weekend no later than September 8, 2024. For the purposes of this offer, ‘weekend’ means Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday evenings and in the Middle East (excluding the UAE, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco and Africa) as Thursday, Friday and/or or Saturday evening.
Bookings until July 15, 2024 must be booked at least 3 days before arrival. Bookings between July 16 and September 3, 2024 must be booked at least 1 day before arrival.
The downside is that full prepayment is required upon booking and rates are non-refundable.
The sales page can be found here.
Rollout of new Finnair Air Lounge business class seats completed
Finnair has successfully completed the rollout of the new long-haul cabins, with all long-haul aircraft now refurbished. So if you fly long distances with Finnair, you know you have the new seats.
The project included the launch of an all-new Business Class seat, a brand new Premium Economy cabin and a revamped Economy Class.
The state-of-the-art cabin was first launched in 2022 and was rolled out to the airline’s entire long-haul fleet of A350s and A330s within two years.
I’ve 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 as they do not recline. Instead, you can sit back, lounge or lie flat in the vast space available to you. Personally, I 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 E190 regional aircraft. Operating to a range of Finnair’s Scandinavian destinations, these short-haul jets will feature a brand new cabin inspired by the colors and design now seen on Finnair’s long-haul fleet. Finnair will also soon open a new, larger lounge in the Schengen area of its home hub Helsinki Airport.
Revolut’s new loyalty debit card program with Avios and many other airline miles
Revolut, the global financial app, today announced RevPoints, a European debit loyalty card program now available in the UK. This allows customers to convert their spend into rewards, including airline miles and exclusive discounts on travel, accommodations, experiences and more.
I have been using Revolut for years and find it useful for transferring money in foreign currencies or withdrawing money from ATMs abroad for free. You can transfer money directly from your own bank account to Revolut, making it easy to withdraw money abroad. It is essentially a checking account with a debit card attached to it. Unlike some checking accounts, you do not have to make regular deposits into or out of it. You only earn RevPoints on purchases, not on things like transfers or withdrawals, but it’s certainly a very useful development for mileage collectors.
The most interesting part of the program is that you can transfer their RevPoints to over 30 airline loyalty programs, including British Airways Executive Club, Flying Blue and many more. The points are valid for 3 years, which gives plenty of time to use them. This is an ideal opportunity for those who don’t want a credit card or don’t want another one to earn Avios on everyday spending. It could also provide Avios income for big purchases like 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 via the Lifestyle tab in the Revolut app. Points can also be used for discounts on top brands such as French Connection and Dermalogica when you shop online with Revolut Pay.
Depending on your plan, users can earn up to 1 point per dollar spent, and even accelerate their earnings by converting change into points, completing in-app challenges, or through in-app bookings for stays and experiences. In addition to earning from stay and experience bookings, Standard plan users can enable the Reserve Change feature to earn from card spends. On top of the points they earn from card spends, Spare Change roundups convert into extra points, at a rate of up to 50 points for every pound saved.
There’s a bonus for new users of 3,000 points (equivalent to 3,000 air miles or up to £60 in travel discounts) after completing 150 qualifying transactions. Additionally, you can receive up to 10,000 bonus points by upgrading your plan and meeting the spending thresholds within the first 90 days.
You can view the earning rates and bonuses for the different plans here:
You can earn additional RevPoints by upgrading to a paid subscription. When and how many bonus RevPoints can be redeemed depends on the terms and conditions of your plan. For those on Revolut’s Ultra plan, the rewards are much higher, but these cost £45 per month. Customers who spend £2,500 per month can earn up to 30,000 RevPoints annually. It does come with a lot of extras, such as insurance and 3GB data for monthly use abroad. I’ll be taking a closer look at Revolut Ultra in the coming weeks.
Once you’ve joined Revolut, here’s what you do. It didn’t show up on my app yesterday so I’m not sure if it’s active 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’ in the bottom menu
- Select ‘RevPoints’ (top right icon)
To earn RevPoints you must:
- Carry out card transactions: use your Revolut card for your expenses
- Use roundups: Convert your spare change into RevPoints at increased 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 twice the RevPoints you 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 can stay up to date on this year’s summer of sports with access to The Athletic, perfect a new skill with MasterClass or improve their chess with a Premium membership to Chess.com. The new subscriptions complement current offerings – including the Financial Times, Deliveroo, Tinder, ClassPass and NordVPN. These new benefits will be available in the app and can be easily activated by customers with eligible paid subscriptions via ‘Profile’ > ‘Your subscription’ > ‘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.
You can apply for a Revolut card here.