Aer Lingus to Continue Flights From Hartford to Dublin
News in brief:
What is a hypercollector?
Our industry readers may be interested in the latest edition of 'The Loyalty Podcast', where I was the main guest.
The core theme was 'hypercollectors' with a focus on how you can use miles and points to attract people to try your product or service. Once you've done that, however, how do you retain them? Does this approach work better in some sectors than others? (Answer: yes)
As usual with the public speaking I do, it is probably more 'open' in terms of industry insights and war stories than you would get from someone representing a big company. You've got to put up with my Northern drawl but if you can get over that then it is an interesting 29 minutes.
You can listen here. Ignore the email sign-up box at the top of the page and scroll down.
Amex halts applications for the International Currency Cards
American Express has, for many years, issued two cards for anyone globally who would prefer to bank in US$ or Euros rather than their home currency. This includes UK residents.
These cards are known as International Currency Cards, with the individual cards known as the International Dollar Card (IDC) and International Euro Card (IEC). Each is available in Green, Gold and Platinum versions. The cards are run from Brighton which is very convenient if you have any issues.
There was no sign-up bonus for the Gold or Green card. However,the Platinum International Currency Card offered a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points.
This was very handy, because you could get this bonus irrespective of any other American Express cards you held. It would also not impact your future applications for UK cards.
There was some small print, but it was manageable.
- The key downside was that 30,000 Membership Rewards points did NOT get you 30,000 Avios. The International Currency Cards have their own separate Membership Rewards programme. The conversion rate to Avios is 3:2 so your 30,000 point bonus is only worth 20,000 Avios or Virgin Points.
- The key upside was that the International Currency Cards have different Membership Rewards partners. These include Jumeirah One Rewards, Qatar Privilege Club (less useful now that Qatar has adopted Avios) and Malaysia Airlines. They also retain a 1:1 conversion rate with Singapore Airlines which beats the 3:2 rate offered by the UK programme.
This is all moot now, however. American Express appears to have (temporarily?) removed the International Currency Cards from the market. Potential customers are being told that you can only apply if you are a customer of one of the private banks which has a relationship with Amex to promote the cards to their customers.
Full details can be found here but you will see that application links have been removed.
We'll let you know if/when the cards are available again.
Aer Lingus resumes flights to Hartford, Connecticut
Aer Lingus is to restart its daily service to Hartford, Connecticut from Dublin as it continues to rebuild its transatlantic network.
This follows the recent announcement of a brand new route to Cleveland, Ohio.
Flights will start on 26th March 2023. As with Cleveland, Aer Lingus will be the only airline operating a direct flight from the city to Europe.
Aer Lingus is now back to 16 transatlantic routes from Ireland, plus the three direct flights from Manchester.
Connecting flights are available from 11 UK airports – London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Southampton, Leeds Bradford, Exeter, Newcastle.
As usual with Aer Lingus flights to the US, you can use US Immigration Pre-clearance in Dublin which allows you to arrive into the US like a domestic passenger, avoiding any lengthy immigration queues. My recent experience of doing this on an Aer Lingus flight to New York is in this review.
The Dublin-Hartford service will be operated by an Airbus A321neo. This is a single aisle aircraft, but still has fully flat beds in business class. My New York A321neo review shows how it works – I was, in general, impressed although clearly it isn't a BA-style private suite.
Avios seats will be available, or you can book for cash on the Aer Lingus website here.
Source: https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/10/08/aer-lingus-resumes-flights-to-hartford/