Apparently in India & Germany they earn points for every review done on Tripadvisor. I have been trying to see whether something similar exists in the UK with no joy. Has anyone heard of this and if so, do you have a link I can use to sign up please?
I investigated that but Tripadvisor in the UK don't offer it. However, Holidaycheck do! https://secure.holidaycheck.com/wcf/hotelreview/ You can see the miles awarded per review by hovering over each partner on the right. I have opted for Etihad as they offer 500 miles on sign up (InsideFlyer did an article on Etihad recently, and the signup bonus link is in there somewhere.
Awesome I have registered for Top Bonus as I am trying to build points with them and they offer 200 per review (Etihad 150, Lufthansa 100). Thanks for the heads up
Must have gone up - it used to be 150. The review might take a while to post. I am told it takes a maximum of four weeks to get the miles. I also hear that they occasionally ask for proof of stay so keep your email receipts handy. I have just posted one review so far.
Tripadvisor India offered Miles&More points for reviewing India hotels for a while, but that's now dead. As litefoot says, your best bet is Holidaycheck. Funnily enough I just scheduled a (reminder) blog post re Holidaycheck.
If you need to contact them for whatever reason, I have found they respond very quickly when you send them a PM on Facebook.
When you start off, expect HolidayCheck to want proof of stays about half your reviews. Over time, that will go down. I'm now at 56 reviews (and lots of Etihad points!), and my last batch of 5 hotel reviews went through without any of them needing verifying. As covered in the news story from November on HolidayCheck, reviewing with them is pretty quick, and with their 1-5 stars for lots of things, you don't usually need to write as much as you would do for TripAdvisor to make a meaningful review. As long as you have a decent number of hotel stays to review from, you can get a decent number of points from it
Aiming to combine it with the MBNA credit card to get a return to the UAE for much lower taxes than on BA. Nothing all that exciting!
Absolutely. Even after their heavy devaluation, the Etihad "GuestSeat" redemption option can offer excellent value. I wrote a post on it here. You can get an LHR-AUH First Class return, for example, at a bargain redemption rate. Just to be clear, my Etihad points haul does not come from writing hotel reviews alone! I transferred a load of Amex Membership Rewards points in when they were offering a 25% bonus (as they fairly regularly do).
Yes they do. They fly from Manchester and London and possibly some other destinations according to their flight map.
Only as a codeshare, I'm afraid. If you want to go from Manchester to Germany, the Air Berlin search engine will route you through Heathrow. They don't operate in the UK, except for a couple of seasonal routes to the Channel Islands.
That's very quick indeed! Still waiting for my Etihad points from weeks ago. Evidently Air Berlin's admin team have that typical German efficiency!
Correct. It's notable that one of the best value Avios redemption options (airberlin Business Class) is not available from the UK, although I suppose if it was, it wouldn't be such great value due to APD etc.
I actually did that last summer on a slightly circuitous route to Bangkok (short stop in Abu Dhabi as well), and can thoroughly recommend it - if time isn't an issue. I booked using Avios before the devaluation, so it was only 25k Avios and £35.00 from Berlin to Abu Dhabi, which was an absolute steal! I'd happily do it again, even at 37,500 Avios. Air Berlin were surprisingly impressive - and chauffeur driven cars to/from the airports are a great way to start/end. I was in Berlin on my birthday (by myself - that part of my brilliant travel plan wasn't so clever!), but the city is great and nice hotels are VERY reasonable compared to other european capitals.
