Bits: bonus buying Marriott points, Lufthansa cuts free cabin bags, Aerotel T3 hotel sale
News in brief:
Get a bonus or discount when you buy Marriott points
Marriott Bonvoy has launched its latest bonus if you buy their hotel points.
You can check your bonus via this page of the website but you should be offered 40%.
You may see a different offer due to targetting. Marriott is trialling something different this time – some people, including myself, are offered a 30% discount. This is equivalent to a 43% bonus.
The annual points purchase cap has been raised from 100,000 to 150,000 points plus – if you were offered a bonus instead of a discount – your bonus on top.
At the top end, buying 150,000 points with a 40% bonus gets you 210,000 points for $1,875. This is 0.66p per point which is above our target valuation of 0.5p for a Marriott Bonvoy point although you can still get value at this level.
You might find it especially worthwhile if:
- you are topping off your account before making a points booking, or
- you are close to 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points and want to make a transfer into airline miles (you get a bonus of 5,000 airline miles when you transfer 60,000 Bonvoy points into 20,000 airline miles in most programmes), or
- you are planning a stay at a property where you know you will get outsized value
Outsized value is still possible despite Marriott Bonvoy moving towards revenue-based redemptions. With no reward charts available, however, you need to look at it on a case by case basis.
Our review of The Bodrum EDITION showed how I got a room costing €1,750 per night for just 85,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night.
This was 1.76p per point – more than double what you can buy them for here – although I admit that such deals are generally only found at peak dates.
Your Marriott Bonvoy account must be 90 days old before you can buy points, or 30 days old if the account has some other activity on it such as a hotel stay.
The page to buy is here. The offer runs to 23rd June.
Lufthansa to ban cabin baggage on its cheapest tickets
The race to the bottom continues, with Lufthansa the latest to make a move.
From this week, Lufthansa will be selling Economy Basic fares. This will only include one small personal item and no carry-on baggage, unless you have Star Alliance Gold status.
Available for travel dates from 19th May, you will only be allowed one personal item on board. The size limit is 40cm x 30cm x 15cm.
Never one to cut flyers a break, it has set these dimensions at a tighter level than Ryanair and Wizz Air (40cm x 30cm x 20cm) and easyJet (45cm x 36cm x 20cm).
Even by Lufthansa’s standards, April was already not going well. The airine saw multiple days of strikes, announced the closure of its Lufthansa Cityline subsidiary and cancelled 20,000 flights over the summer due to high fuel prices and concerns over fuel supply.
What is odd about this move is that the European Union is moving towards giving flyers a legal right to one free cabin bag, on the basis that so many passengers take one on board that offering fares without one included is effectively mispricing. Lufthansa may well have to drop Economy Basic very soon.
30% discount on the Aerotel Terminal 3 hotel
Aerotel is the Plaza Premium-run hotel which operates inside the arrivals area at Heathrow Terminal 3.
Whilst windowless, it’s clearly an amazing location if you are departing early or arriving late.
Aerotel Terminal 3 is running a 30% discount offer at present. You need to book by 3rd May for stays until 31st August.
You are looking for the ‘Summer Comes Early’ rate. Deals are also available at Aerotel properties in Jeddah, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Cebu, Sydney, Madrid, Muscat and Singapore.
Our review of Aerotel Terminal 3 is here.
You can book on the Aerotel website here.