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Bits: new BA ‘Our Trip’ group booking tool, 2016 free Tastecards for 2-4-1 No1 Traveller access

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News in brief:

British Airways launches new ‘Our Trip’ group booking tool

British Airways is quietly trialling a new application called ‘Our Trip’ which will help groups of people travelling together, but booking separately, to co-ordinate.

The trial is ONLY valid for groups of five or more people travelling to the US, Canada and Mexico before 21st June.

As an incentive to try it out, every member of each participating group will receive a 10% – 15% discount voucher off a future British Airways flight.

What is clever is that you do not all need to be travelling on the same flight.   As long as each passenger is flying with BA and they all cross over for at least one day at the destination, you can link the bookings together.

It is not clear if there are any additional benefits to be had apart from the discount voucher.  It would be interesting, for example, if the status of one person allowed all members of the group to select a seat – but that does not appear possible, at least in this trial.

You can find our more on this special ‘Our Trip’ BA website.

No 1 Traveller Gatwick South

2016 free Tastecards – good for 2-4-1 No1 Traveller lounge access

Tastecard is a dining discount card, similar to Gourmet Society, which offers cardholders 2-4-1 meals in a large number of restaurants across the UK.

The reason I mention it on HfP is that another benefit of Tastecard is 2-4-1 access to No1 Traveller airport lounges.  (Gatwick South is pictured above.)  It is not strictly 2-4-1 since you are paying the ‘walk up’ rate which is higher than their promotional deals, but you would still make a saving.

Via moneysavingexpert, there are 2016 Tastecards to give away.  You need to fill in this form before 15th January.  With 2016 winners your odds are decent.

All entrants get a voucher for one month of free Tastecard membership.  This is a poor deal, however, as a quick Google search will find offers as generous as four months of membership for £1.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (April 2024)

Here are the four options to get FREE airport lounge access via a UK credit card.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Eurostar, Lufthansa and Delta Air Lines lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum instead.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with four free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here.

Additional lounge visits are charged at £24.  You get four more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free Priority Pass card, allowing you access to the Priority Pass network.  Guests are charged at £24 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (14)

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

  • harry says:

    Great – my Amex Travel flight £145 yesterday – waiting for £150 to get the statement credit – just jumped to £178 🙁

    Might as well just get her CE RFS redemption 15K.

  • harry says:

    Yep, came to same conclusion plus we’ll get a few Avios. I didn’t realise CE RFS fee was £25!

    So I saved £50 – but the comparison is a bad one ie ET (cash) vs CE (Avios), ie £125 net on Amex Travel vs (15K Avios + £25). (No RFS availability in ET as I nabbed them already!)

    Anyway, swings & roundabouts, shame she has a visceral hatred of organising her travel plans 355 days in advance! – unlike most of us here 🙂 – I could have got her seat for £90 or so when I got our RFS seats back in September…but hey-ho.

  • Andrew H says:

    O/T. Further to the discussion about Pointshound offering 10000 Finnairmiles on your first purchase:
    Conversion rate of 7:1 to Accor points is not great. You’d get 1.5k avios approx. It’s 2:1 for IHG points so you’d get 5k IHG points. That’s much better – but a minimum of 20k is required to convert. Same for IC hotels.

    Looking at other partner airlines but can’t find any good deals for 10k.Unless someone else finds a deal I’ll give this a miss. Thanks for your assistance though, gents!

    • Rob says:

      Whilst not great, you are getting €30 of Accor credit (albeit you need to get to 2,000 points to redeem) or 1,500 Avios if you can ‘force’ Accor to transfer to Iberia. Not a bad result for a very cheap one nighter somewhere.

  • Simmo says:

    Has anybody have any experience of booking for over 9 people on BA? is there some sort of incentive?

    Gathering ideas for a group of 20+ people.

    OK answered my own question:
    https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/group-travel

    What is group travel?:
    10 or more people* travelling in Economy.
    Seven or more people* travelling in Premium Economy or Business.
    Four or more people* travelling in First.

    Benefits of booking as a group:
    A dedicated team to look after you.
    Book flights with a small deposit for each passenger.
    We’ll always try to seat your group members together.
    You can change names in your group, free of charge, before tickets are issued.

    No mention of Avios, free flight for the organizer, discount, or use of status to secure seats etc though. 🙁

  • Gemma says:

    Will the 15%group discount work with the ex-dub flights mentioned yesterday?

  • harry says:

    Anybody needing to book parking for all those amazing flight deals: the Holiday Extras + MSE portal trick is still working fine. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-airport-parking

    Just booked £17 days Meet & Greet @ Heathrow in July/ Aug for £64 for 17 days, ie £3.76 a day (after statement credit).

    Already got the success email (HEx on Amex 15% statement credit).

    My 3 statement credits for car parks booked the other day have already appeared on my Amex a/c online.

  • Bob Willis says:

    “Via moneysavingexpert, there are 2016 tastecards to give away. You need to fill in this form before 15th January. With 2016 winners your odds are decent.”

    The MSE newsletter is sent to over 10 million email addresses. The website has over 15 million visitors per month.

    If only 1% of the newsletter subscribers apply for a Tastecard, you only have a 2.016% chance of winning – hardly “decent” odds (but admittedly, better than the National Lottery)!

    • harry says:

      Surely you don’t believe MSE’s self-publicity on numbers? You’d have to believe that their claimed 10 million represents 10 million different people. It’s pure hyperbole. 10 million emails, 15 million different users each month? Only a moron would accept that as close to the truth.

      The Tastecard is not even an attractive offer. I’d imagine nearly everybody who wants it through MSE can get one. Or just get any of many other free trials widely available.

  • Scott says:

    Sorry bit off topic. I have signed up for the 3000 Heathrow membership on a £100 spend. Going to Dubai next week and was going to get Dirhams anyway. Can I do this onlin and pick up in Heathrow or just do it there and hand my card over? Many thanks

    • Ricardo says:

      Given AED is pegged to the USD, I found that the rates were usually better for buying USD in advance and then changing that cash on arrival in DXB – the spread charged by the official airport bureaux de change or UAE Exchange outside the airport is negligible (2 or 3 AED)

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

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