Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: £1 BA ‘hold your fare’ offer, new Barclays credit card rules, Premier Inn ‘stay 3, get 1 free’

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

Hold the price of your British Airways flight for just £1

A relatively new British Airways feature is the ability to ‘hold’ the price of a flight for 72 hours for a fee of £10.  This gives you ability to lock in a price whilst you try to firm up other arrangements.

To be honest, I am sceptical about the value of this versus the cost – mainly because it does not apply within 21 days of departure, which is when prices are more likely to shoot up overnight.

To promote the service, until September 29th the fee is reduced to just £1.  If you find a British Airways fare that you like, you can lock it in for 72 hours for a quid.  At that price, you really can’t complain.

Full details are on ba.com here.

BA 747 Dunsfold Aerodrome landing

Barclaycard brings in new rules on card issuance

Barclaycard issues three of the most interesting non-flight reward cards I cover – the Hilton HHonors Platinum Visa (review here, EXCELLENT deal with a free night for spending £750) and the two IHG Rewards Club cards, which are currently on special offer as I wrote at the weekend.

As these are both pure Visa cards with no Amex element, they will be hit VERY hard by the new rules which will limit the charges that Visa and MasterCard can make to retailers.

In what may be a response to this, Barclaycard appears to have brought in some new rules on who can get a card.  These rules are not available in writing but have been discussed on the telephone with some HFP readers.

You cannot apply for a card if you have already had it in the previous six months (this is an old rule which remains)

You cannot have two Barclaycard-issued credit cards at the same time (this is new)

The latter means that you can no longer hold both the Hilton HHonors and IHG Rewards Club cards.  I can see the logic behind this – why pay for a sign-up bonus when the cardholder will simply shift spend from one Barclays card to another? – but it is annoying.  I held both the Hilton and IHG cards for a time earlier this year.

It will take a while before we know if these rules are being strictly enforced, but they are definitely meant to be in place.

Free night with Premier Inn

I don’t cover Premier Inn much on Head for Points but I do recommend them – I was in the Scarborough one on Saturday.  Whilst £78 per night was not a bargain, the room was large and spotless and I had absolutely no complaints.

From 21st September to 31st January, you can earn a free Premier Inn night if you complete three separate stays.

Your three stays must each be for a minimum of £39.

The free night must be used on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday before the end of February 2016.

You need to register for this promotion via this link.  Existing bookings count as long as you register before you check in.  

Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.
Category

British Airways and Avios, Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards

Comments (84)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Rob says:
    25 Sep25 September 08:40

    Please email SPG and suggest double points to them 🙂

    There is also an element of assuming that if you see a company logo every time you open your wallet, you will eventually gravitate towards them more. Marriott, especially, also likes to fill your statement envelope with special offers.

    • James67 says:
      25 Sep25 September 14:28

      SPGs a bit of an oddball, I’m note quite sure what we are paying £75 for as the card has nothing going for it except the 20k signup bonus for over 18 months if I recall correctly. Giver the versatility of SPG points though I happily signed up even for 10k.

      • Solo says:
        26 Sep26 September 08:15

        I’m hopping for a similar relaunch of this card as to whats happened in the States. Wishful thinking maybe haha

  • cheekychappie says:
    25 Sep25 September 09:11

    O/T bit https://offerenroll.americanexpress.com/enroll/EnrollmentSitePage?offer=0164781LondonRestaurantFestivel&om_rid=Nt1g9d&om_mid=_BWA9e4B9FpFTu.&om_lid=amex9

    Register your UK Card to get a £5 statement credit on a transaction of £20 or more on London Restaurant Festival Menus between 1 – 31 October. Valid up to four times per Card for the first 15,000 Cardmembers to register their UK Card . Terms apply.

  • Mark says:
    25 Sep25 September 09:33

    I have a Barclaycard Rewards Amex+Visa combo. Anyone know if I can also apply for the IHG card (again!!!)?

    • RIccati says:
      25 Sep25 September 12:19

      Might not come through but only left to try, especially if you are not applying for anything else.

      Make sure 6 months are passed from the time you closed IHG card.

      If you do, please tell us the outcome.

    • World Traveller says:
      27 Sep27 September 10:25

      Unfortunately not, it seems from their website it’s now only possible to take out a new Barclaycard issued credit card (Barclaycard or partnership card) if you don’t already have one. Partnership cards include Hilton HHonorsTM, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Littlewoods and Caravan Club.

  • Jerry says:
    25 Sep25 September 09:38

    The BA hold flights facility saved us wasting some flights the other week when a meeting changed during the 72 hour hold. If you don’t want to forfeit the hold fee if your plans change a trick is to go ahead and purchase the flights anyway and then use the 24 hour cooling off period to cancel the tickets. That way you get your (usual cost) £5 hold fee per passenger back (automatically) and the cost of the flights. Not worth the hassle for £1 and only really when there is more than 1 passenger. We did this. It worked, but phoning BA during the 24 hour cooling off window to cancel is a total pain and takes ages (20 minutes on hold).

    • JQ says:
      25 Sep25 September 13:03

      So BA effectively has a 96-hour cooling off period then? As long as your credit limit can take the hit?

  • Mark says:
    25 Sep25 September 09:51

    I thought the hold a fair was £5 well that’s what I paid last week.

    Can’t use it when doing part cash part avios though.

  • Andy says:
    25 Sep25 September 10:37

    Really glad I did online check-in for Premier Inn yesterday, grrrr!

    I’m curious Raffles, on average how many nights a week do you stay in a hotel?

  • Shelly says:
    25 Sep25 September 12:06

    I was a bit disappointed to read that Barclays are changing the rules on their cards and quickly applied for the Hilton card this morning. I’ve only had the IHG card for 2 months but have just received an email confirming I’ve been approved for the Hilton card.

  • Charloc says:
    25 Sep25 September 12:30

    Hi, is it true that sometimes if you look up flights to a certain destination on a certain date if you don’t book straight away the website will use cookies to put the price up next time (as they know you are interested in them)?

    • Ian says:
      25 Sep25 September 12:42

      Yes I’ve been told this is done by some LCCs but as far as I know not by BA. One way to avoid doing this (unless you want the hassle of clearing every cookie off your computer) is to use the Incognito mode if you use Google Chrome – or no doubt a similar facility exists with other browsers?

      • callum says:
        28 Sep28 September 21:38

        I refuse to believe this is true. I challenge people every single time the claim is made and not a single person has ever managed to demonstrate it.

        It doesn’t even make that much sense. You’re just as likely to be deliberating because you aren’t sure you want to spend that much, if they push up the price then you may not fly with them at all.

        • Rob says:
          28 Sep28 September 23:20

          Of the instances I have seen of this in other sectors, it is more about the ORDER prices are shown. For example, a hotel site may list results to iOS users starting with the most expensive whilst it may list them to Android users starting with the cheapest. The prices, however, remain the same.

    • JQ says:
      25 Sep25 September 13:04

      I don’t think any airline which publishes fares to a GDS can do this

      • RK says:
        25 Sep25 September 15:13

        My partner just got his Hilton Barclaycard, having had the IHG barclaycard for about 5 months now, so the rule on having two at same time obviously not in effect yet.

        • RIccati says:
          25 Sep25 September 17:28

          Barclaycard exercises a manual review on this policies. It’s not automatic. The application goes in as usual and passes credit scoring.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!