You'll have to excuse my ignorance here, as I'm not at all familiar with the MR scheme, but I'm asking on behalf of an even more unfamiliar friend...

My friend accumulated 500k MR points through a lot of stays a few years back. His account has been dormant for some time, but he has checked and the points are still showing online. He's not particularly well travelled (no FF membership, for example) and as he knows I travel a lot (and have varying elite status with BA and Priority Club), he's asked me the best way to use these points.

He's based in London and wants to travel somewhere with his wife. I've read here about these Travel Packages - are these 250k points awards (for 100 BA miles + 7 nights Cat 7 hotel) the cost for one person, or for a couple? Will he have to sign-up to a FF scheme to do this? Also, is there anyway to get to Perth, Australia, or is that just too far?

Even better, could anyone actually suggest a couple of different ways to redeem these 500k points so I can at least sow the seeds of a few ideas and get him to dig deeper on his preferred options?

Thanks in advance