The Loyalty Points Programs That Could Get You a Winter Vacation — and Why You Should Always Sign Up for Them When They’re Free

Loyalty in the travel industry has come a long way since Texas International Airlines promised the first incentives for frequent flyers in 1979, and hotel chains like Marriott and Hilton launched rewards programs in the 1980s.

Rewards these days come with a plethora of different names, values, collection methods and rules on how to spend them, as well as the added complication of tier points that indicate how special a customer is.

A handful of programs just underwent a major shakeup and now offer the opportunity to rack up enough points for a well-deserved break. Some are much better than others, says Nicky Kelvin, editor of The Points Guy (thepointsguy.com). However, he says you should always sign up for them if they are free. “Don’t leave any points on the table,” he adds.

Avios adds cruises to its currency

Once known as Air Miles for British Airways Executive Club members, Avios is now the currency used for rewards and spending on everything from flights and hotel rooms to wine, grocery shopping and car rental. You can even get Avios when you buy Moonpig cards online (up to five Avios per £1 spent) or by booking Deliveroo (up to seven Avios per £1).

Now IAG Loyalty (which runs Avios) has expanded to the seven seas, giving consumers three Avios for every £1 or €1 spent when booking balcony rooms or suites on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

“The Avios you earn for a double balcony (cabin) can cover a single flight within Europe,” says Gerard Nolan, vice president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Royal Caribbean International (RCI). You can get a flight to Paris for 18,500 points plus £1, or to New York for 50,000 Avios and £100.

Is it worth it? You must book your cruise directly with RCI to get Avios; You may get better deals from a tour company. But with Avios becoming the currency of choice for more and more businesses, you’d be crazy not to sign up (britshairways.com).

The new One Key program includes Expedia, Vrbo and Hotels.com

One Key’s autumn launch in the UK, following its US launch last year, replaces the legacy Expedia Rewards and Hotels.com programs and includes rewards for holiday rentals through HomeAway for the first time.

Members receive 2 OneKeyCash for every £1 spent on eligible hotels, holiday homes, activities, packages and car hire. So if a trip costs €800, you get €16 in OneKeyCash. Flights provide only 0.2 pc. for every £1 spent.

In addition, One Key has blue, silver, gold and platinum levels, offering users rates of up to 6pc. can earn on Expedia’s top quality hotels, and save 10 to 20 pct.

Tier status is achieved by purchasing a certain number of travel elements per year. For example, a group of friends staying in a holiday home for five nights, taking five flights and renting a car for five days results in fifteen travel elements. This would unlock Gold status, with 20% savings on over 10,000 hotels, 4% OneKeyCash on top hotels and room upgrades where available.

Is it worth it? It’s good that you can now get rewards for vacation rentals, but Hotels.com’s old program was more generous and gave a free night for every ten nights – a 10 percent reward instead of the new 2 percent (expedia.nl).

Hilton launches debit card

Unlike credit cards, debit cards are rarely associated with reward points, which makes Hilton’s new hotel loyalty debit card particularly interesting. In partnership with travel money card Currensea, the Hilton Honors card is available in basic and ‘plus’ versions, with annual fees of £60/£150.

The basic version gives you silver status and one Hilton Honors point for every £1 you spend on everyday purchases, and up to three points for every £1 you spend with Hilton abroad. Currency exchange fee 0.5 pcs.

The enhanced version gives you Gold status and 1.5 points for every €1 you spend, and up to 4.5 points for every €1 you spend with Hilton abroad, saving 0pc. charges when exchanging currencies. Sign up before November 30 for a bonus of 3,500/12,000 points when you spend £1,000/£2,500 abroad.

A free hotel stay costs between 5,000 and 95,000 points. You can also redeem points for experiences – a Silverstone Sunday Race Day costs 125,000 points.

Is it worth it? Only if you regularly stay at Hilton Hotels.

Debit cards offer a chargeback, a system that allows you to claim a refund from your card provider if a purchase doesn’t arrive or is defective. However, the protection on credit card payments over £100 is even stronger. That’s because, under section 75 protection, your credit card company has the same responsibility as the merchant if there’s a problem with the things you bought or if the company you bought them from goes bankrupt (hiltonhonorsdebitcard.currensea.co.uk).

Virgin Atlantic is renewing its Flying Club

The airline promises to ‘revolutionize the world of refunds for Virgin Atlantic customers’ and has just announced changes to its Flying Club from this Wednesday. Instead of only guaranteeing a dozen seats for reward redemption per flight, every seat on every flight will be available for points.

However, dynamic pricing will be used for reward places, meaning they could cost a lot more points than before. To counter this, Virgin is promising a number of frugal seats at the same price or lower than current fares on many flights, with one-way seats to New York starting at 6,000 Virgin points, down from the current 10,000. A spokeswoman said the monetary value of the points would be released on October 30.

Is it worth it? “It’s hard to say how good or bad it will be,” says Kelvin, who suggests that high point holders may want to secure a fixed-price rewards seat this month (virginatlantic.com).

Get discounts with Dis-loyalty

There are no points to earn or levels to climb with Ennismore’s subscription membership, which launched last year and has just added a mobile app. With discounts across more than 90 hotels and 175 restaurants and bars from Ennismore brands such as 25hours Hotels, The Hoxton, Mama Shelter, Mondrian and SLS, it encourages members to try something new.

You get a 50% discount on stays in newly opened hotels; 20% discount on a first stay in a home; 10% discount on return stays and food and drinks; plus a free barista-made drink every day of the year. The card should be rolled out to the group’s Rixos and Our Habitas resorts soon.

Is it worth it? If you drink a lot of coffee, the £144 annual fee would pay for itself just with the daily free drink (dis-loyalty.com).