The new contract – combined with what appears to be a massive budget cut – has led to much passenger anguish, as I reported here.

I arrived at the Galleries Club North lounge at around 9.45am.  And, to be honest, what I found was pretty much unchanged from what was there before.

The cereals were still there:

The fruit and yoghurt were still there:

The bacon sandwiches had disappeared, but had been replaced by an expanded selection of pastries:

There was, luckily, no sign of the gloop, which I believe only emerges at noon:

So, all in all, it was what I expected and actually better than I was led to believe.

However, it is fair to say that:

Galleries Club catering has not been downgraded as much as Galleries First or the Concorde Room

Breakfast is the least changed meal of all

I also understand that the bacon rolls are available if you arrive earlier, but are now withdrawn at about 9.30am.  They were previously available for at least another hour.  It is also fair to say that bacon sandwiches are not necessarily a better or worse option than pastries!

You can continue to track the problems with BA’s lounge catering over at the BA Lounge Food website.

Tomorrow I will write about the purpose of my trip, which was to compare British Airways domestic services with the new Virgin Atlantic Little Red flights.

(Click on this link My experience with the new British Airways lounge catering throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

Amex is offering 2,500 Membership Rewards points (worth 2,500 Avios amongst other things) if you spend £250 on flights, hotels (pre-paid) or car hire before 1st August.

The Amex travel home page is here – you should see the ad for this promotion on this page.  The small print is here.

I am not sure if booking hotels via Amex Travel counts as a third-party booking or not and therefore takes away your chance of earning hotel points, stay credit and elite benefits.  It probably doesn’t, since Amex is not a rooms wholesaler like Expedia.  However, you may want to be careful here.

The best thing to book is probably a flight, since it will have no impact on the miles you will earn.

This is effectively a 10% rebate if you value Avios points at 1p and spend close to £250, so it is worth seeing if you can find a way to use it.

(Thanks to Dan)

(Click on this link 2,500 Membership Rewards points when you spend £250 at Amex Travel throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

Your boarding pass will now be stored directly in Passbook once you have checked-in online, and can be scanned as usual by the gate staff.

If you have still haven’t got around to using the BA app, then this may be the change you need to encourage you.

You can read (a bit) more about it at Apple Insider.

(Click on this link British Airways iOS app now supports Passbook throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

I used random.org to pick a winning comment, and it selected number 30.  Counting down from the top, the winner is Dave.  Congratulations!

(For the avoidance of doubt for anyone else called Dave, this is the Dave with an email address starting new**** !)

You will receive an email with the link to print off your tickets shortly.  Have a great night.

(Click on this link And the winner of the Taste of London tickets is throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

What are Hyatt Stay Certificates?

Here is the home page.  Put simply, they are vouchers which are valid for room-only accommodation, including all taxes, at Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and all other brands in the Hyatt portfolio.

All of the participating Hyatt properties (there are a couple of non-participants) are grouped into one of seven categories.  There are five different certificates you can buy, reflecting these seven categories:

Classic ($109 per night)

Choice ($152.22 per night)

Premier ($188.89 per night)

Elite ($260 per night)

Inspire ($325.55 per night)

Exclusive ($394.44 per night)

Ultimate ($461.11 per night)

Certificates can be delivered to the UK if you pay the $25 FedEx fee.

You can buy certificates for up to 5 nights.  However, for maximum flexibility (should you need to shorten your stay) you should just buy lots of one night certificates and book back-to-back nights.  There is no cost saving in buying a multi-night certificate.

Do I have to buy the certificates before I book?

No!  This is one of their greatest benefits.

You can redeem Hyatt Stay Certificates at hyatt.com before you have bought them.

You need to look up which category your chosen hotel falls into – the chart is here.

For each night of your potential stay, you need to check availability at hyatt.com by putting the code below into the ‘Gift Certificate or Special Offer Code’ box:

Classic – HSCLN1

Choice – HSCHN1

Premier – HSPRN1

Elite – HSELN1

Inspire – HSINN1

Exclusive – HSXLN1

Ultimate – HSULN1

To check availability for between two and five nights at once, change the number at the end of the code to 2-5 from 1.

Once you have successfully made your booking, you can order your certificates.  They must be presented at check-in.

How much money could I save?

The ‘game’ with Hyatt Stay Certificates is to stay at the most expensive hotel, at the most expensive time of the year - assuming they have made availability available!

Let’s look at a few examples.  Calculations exclude the $25 delivery charge, and I have converted room rates to US$ for easy comparison.

Hyatt Regency The Churchill, London – 11 Dec - Elite certificate $260, cheapest room $447

Park Hyatt, Tokyo - 23 July – Inspire certificate $325, cheapest room $501

Park Hyatt, Sydney – 23 July – Ultimate certificate $461, cheapest room $773

Hyatt Regency Palais de la Mediterranee, Nice – 28 October - Choice certificate $152, cheapest room $339

As you can see, all of these examples generate genuine savings using Hyatt Stay Certificates.  Unfortunately, they are not accepted at the Park Hyatt resort in The Maldives.

Note that certificate availability is blacked out during peak periods.

Anything else I need to know?

You will NOT earn Hyatt Gold Passport points on these rates, although you should get any elite status benefits you are due.

Rooms do not include breakfast, so if you want breakfast in the hotel then you should compare the cost of the certificate plus breakfast to the cheapest cash rate with breakfast you can find.

(Click on this link Use Hyatt Stay Certificates for potentially large hotel savings throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

There were many potential uses of this, but one of the best was being able to transfer your points to your partner in order to empty your account, allowing you to cancel your card.

I have written about this before.  On Sunday, a Head for Points reader rang up to do it.  He was allowed to, but was told that Amex is in the process of withdrawing the option.

Then, last night, another HFP reader emailed me to say that a friend of hers had tried to do it and was told that transfers between accounts had already been stopped.

Now, Amex telephone agents are often not 100% up to speed with what is happening.  However, if you were planning to transfer your Membership Rewards points to someone else, you should try to do it now.  A good agent may still be willing to do it for you, especially if you tell them that the Amex website is still offering this.

The webpage advertising this option is here.  However, this is a very old page as you can see from the layout, and I’m not sure if you can even access it via the main Amex website (I find it via Google when I need it).

It would be a real shame if this option was biting the dust, as it was a good way for couples to churn cards on a regular basis whilst keeping their Membership Rewards collection intact.

(Thanks to Amadeo and Amy)

(Click on this link Ability to transfer Membership Rewards points to other people ending (ended?) throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

Note that Tesco charges you immediately for pre-orders.  However, the upside is that you will also receive your bonus Clubcard points immediately!

The deals are:

150 Clubcard points when you spend £10 on pre-order DVD’s and 200 Clubcard points when you spend £15 on pre-order Blu-Ray disks (selection here)

100 Clubcard points when you spend £8 on pre-order CD’s (selection here)

There are no offers on books or games this time as far as I can tell.

Don’t forget to go via Quidco or TopCashBack before you order.

(Click on this link Bonus Clubcard points (= bonus Avios) for Tesco pre-orders are back throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

These tickets are for Thursday evening, from 5.30pm to 9.30pm.

I wrote a slightly scathing review of Taste here.  However, if you have a pair of free tickets, then you can’t go wrong.  This is especially true if you are a British Airways Silver or Gold card holder, as you can then enjoy free champagne and free food all evening in the British Airways Executive Club tent!

It is easy to enter.  Simply leave a comment, any comment, under this post, before midnight tonight (Monday) London time.  I will use a random number generator to pick a winner.

The rules are:

1.  Strictly one entry per person and per IP address (ie the unique code attached to your internet connection, which I see when you post).  I will check the winning entry for any duplicate IP address before announcing it!  If your partner wants to enter as well, (s)he will have to use a different internet connection.

2.  You need to have access to a printer, as I will be emailing you a link which you need to use to print your tickets at home – the organisers do NOT allow you to download the entry barcode to a mobile device.

The tickets are not transferable to another date, so please don’t bother entering if you can’t make it to Regents Park on Thursday evening.  Make sure you use a valid email address in your comment.

Good luck!

(Click on this link Win a pair of Taste of London tickets for Thursday evening! throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

For every two stays you make at a Ritz-Carlton managed hotel between July 1st and October 31st, you will receive a voucher for one free night. You can receive a maximum of two vouchers, requiring you to make four Ritz-Carlton stays.

Full details can be found on the Ritz-Carlton website here.

Outside Europe, there are a lot of impressive Ritz-Carlton branded hotels. What is less known, however, is that Ritz-Carlton also manages a lot of European hotels. However, due to trademark issues over the ownership of the ‘Ritz’ name, it is not allowed to put its name above the door. The Hotel Arts in Barcelona, for example, is a Ritz-Carlton property, as is the Penha Longha resort in Portugal (below) which I visited a couple of years ago.

Your free night vouchers are valid for a year, so you will have plenty of time to use them.

One snag is that you can only redeem your free nights at a Category 1-3 hotel (the Ritz-Carlton Rewards chart has five categories). However, there are a lot of decent properties in Categories 1-3.

You can see the tier list by visiting this page and clicking on the links at the bottom. In Europe, you would be able to redeem in Vienna, Istanbul, Berlin, Wolfsburg, Powerscourt (near Dublin), Tenerife and Moscow as well as the Barcelona and Portugal properties I mentioned earlier.

Overall, I like this promotion, especially as you have four months to manage your two stays. If you were planning a trip to Moscow, which has horrendously expensive hotels, it would even be worth going out of your way to do some Ritz-Carlson nights in order to get a free stay there.

Important – the difference between Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards

If you are interested in taking part in this promotion, then you MUST read this post first. Basically, Ritz-Carlton Rewards is operationally part of Marriott Rewards (Marriott owns Ritz-Carlton) and you are not allowed to be a member of both programmes.

If you want to take part in this promotion and you have a Marriott Rewards account, you will have to ring Marriott and convert it to a Ritz-Carlton Rewards account, or open a new Ritz-Carlton Rewards account using a different email and postal address to your Marriott account.

(Click on this link Ritz-Carlton Rewards ‘do 2 stays, get a free’ night promo looks very attractive this Summer throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

This gives me a good excuse to run a picture of their Hello Kitty planes again:

More seriously, if you have Star Alliance miles then you should be able to use them from tomorrow for routes to Taipei and onwards. EVA also flies directly from Heathrow to Bangkok.

Full details can be found in my recent post on EVA Air here.

(Click on this link EVA Air, the Hello Kitty airline, joins Star Alliance tomorrow throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

Even now, I am not convince that the answer I offer below is correct. Howeer, I have given it my best shot!

When buying petrol, you have various permutations of garage and credit card to choose from!

Garage options, presenting either a Tesco Clubcard or a Shell Drivers Club card:

(Ignores the potential of higher Avios per £1 from Tesco during a Tesco to Avios conversion bonus, ignores Clubcard Plus, ignores those grandfathered onto a higher Tesco to Avios conversion rate)

1.2 Avios per £1 spent at a Tesco-branded filling station (technically 1 Clubcard point per £2 spent)

2.4 Avios per £1 spent at a Tesco-branded filling station when you use your Tesco credit card AS A CLUBCARD (technically 1 Clubcard point per £1 spent)

2.4 Avios per £1 spent on Tesco Momentum fuel at a Tesco-branded filling station (1 Clubcard point per £1 spent)

4.8 Avios per £1 spent on Tesco Momentum fuel at a Tesco-branded filling station when you use your Tesco credit card AS A CLUBCARD (1 CC point per £1 spent)

0.8 Avios per £1 spent at an Esso filling station which has a Tesco convenience store attached (1 CC point per £3 spent)

1 Avios per £2.60 spent at a Shell filling station (technically 10 Avios per 20 litres)

2 Avios per £2.60 spent on V-Power fuel at a Shell filling station (technically 20 Avios per 20 litres)

Credit card options when paying for your petrol:

(Ignores cards no longer available to new applicants and cards paying under 0.5 Avios per £1)

0.6 Avios per £1 spent on Tesco MasterCard (technically 1 Clubcard point per £4)

2 Avios per £1 spent on Amex Gold (technically 1 Membership Rewards point per £1, but this is doubled on petrol transactions)

1 Avios per £1 spent on Amex Platinum, Starwood Amex, Lloyds TSB Duo American Express

1.5 Avios per £1 spent on British Airways Premium Plus American Express

1.25 Avios per £1 spent on Lloyds TSB Platinum Duo American Express

The most difficult thing to get your head around here is using your Tesco credit card as a Clubcard. If you have a Tesco credit card, you can use it as a Clubcard as well – you don’t need to carry around two cards.

Usually, a normal blue Clubcard gives the same points as a Tesco credit card used as a Clubcard. However – when buying petrol – the Clubcard element of the Tesco credit card gives you double points.

So, what is the answer? What is the best way to earn Avios when buying fuel?

Based purely on standard fuel (not V-Power or Momentum) the answer is:

Buy standard fuel at a Tesco-branded garage. Use your Tesco credit card as a Clubcard but use your Amex Preferred Rewards Gold card to pay!

For every £4 spent on petrol, you would earn:

4 Clubcard points (earning rate is 1 per £1 when using a Tesco credit card as a Clubcard) = 9.6 Avios

8 American Express Membership Rewards points (2 per £1 when buying petrol) = 8 Avios

That is 17.6 Avios points per £4, or 4.4 Avios per £1.

You may earn even more. Sometimes, when using an Amex Gold at Tesco to buy fuel, you will actually receive triple points. This is the 100% bonus for buying petrol and the 100% bonus for visiting a supermarket! In this scenario, you would earn 5.4 Avios per £1.

(Amex Gold is odd, though, but in a good way! One person I know receives 4 Membership Rewards points (= 4 Avios) per £1 when he uses his Amex Gold at any Shell garage!)

If anyone disagrees with my maths, feel free to post below. I happily admit I could be wrong as well!

Here is my full review of the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold if this post encourages you to get one!

(PS. Until 3rd July, as Clive recently emailed me to say, Shell is offering double Avios when you buy fuel there. This is not factored into the calculations above. Simply swipe your Shell Drivers Club card every time you fill up and your double Avios will be calculated automatically.)

(Click on this link PhD level Avios: Which is the best way to collect Avios when buying petrol?! throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)

And, way back in 1989 or so, the very first travel deal I snagged was with Hilton. They had just launched their nascent loyalty programme, which carried (I think) a £20 fee. However, joining up got you a free weekend night anywhere in the UK except for Hilton Park Lane. I quickly spotted the value of that one, especially as the Hilton Park Lane Mews had not been excluded. Whilst now run separately, the Mews used to be a de-facto extension of Park Lane – the back door was opposite the front door of the mews hotel – with cross-charging etc. My brother and I had a very pleasant London weekend for my £20!

What I like about the Hilton Visa card is that the deal is VERY simple and VERY easy to reach.

1. Get the card (it’s free)

2. Spend £750 on it in 90 days, which is not a strain

3. Get a free night at ANY Hilton Group property, anywhere in the world. Free night at the Conrad Maldives or Waldorf-Astoria Rome? No problem. Conrad New York? You’re in (as long as they have standard award availability). Easy.

The best way to get excited about ‘miles and points’ as a hobby to have a successful redemption under your belt.

What could be better than booking a European weekend away using Avios and Reward Flight Saver (so minimal taxes) and then staying in a top-end Waldorf-Astoria or Conrad hotel for free (or even a slightly worse Hilton, Doubletree or Hampton!)?

The whole flight and hotel thing – assuming one night away for two people – would only require 18,000 to 30,000 Avios plus £60 taxes in Economy, depending on where you went in Europe. You would be getting a package worth £500+ if you pick a suitably expensive hotel.

(And, of course, your partner could get their own Hilton credit card and get their own free night voucher. That would get you a 2-night stay and you could be pushing £750+ of value from your weekend away.)

Long term, I don’t recommend keeping the Hilton card unless you are a dedicated Hilton HHonors collector. You only earn 2 points per £1, so you would need a ludicrous £40,000 of spending to get one free night at the Conrad New York. If you occasionally need some Hilton points to top up your account from hotel stays, you could transfer American Express Membership Rewards points instead.

However, as a good ‘first card’ for newcomers to this hobby it has a lot to recommend it.

(Click on this link Why the Hilton HHonors Visa is the ideal starting point for the new miles and points collector throughout the day to read comments on this post from other readers, or to leave your own comment. To see all of our recent posts, visit our home page here.)