News in brief:
Airport lounge passes for £15 for O2 Priority Moments customers
If you are an O2 mobile customer and are signed up to Priority Moments, you can currently buy airport lounge passes for £15 each.
The offer is here. You are buying passes for any lounge in the Dragonpass network, which is quite a large one – but do check their website first.
Across Heathrow and Gatwick, it includes the No 1 Traveller lounges, Plaza Premium and – interestingly – the Regus airside lounges! Thanks to Ross.
500 extra Avios crediting Avis rentals to Iberia
Iberia Plus has launched a new promotion with Avis. If you book a car for 2 or more days before 15th March, you will receive 1,000 Avios instead of the usual 500.
This is more generous than the offer for crediting to British Airways Avios, which is 3 Avios per £1 with a minimum of 500 for a 2 day rental.
Full details can be found on the Iberia / Avis website here.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
Not wishing to dumb down the Iberia Avis offer, but worthy of mention that BA offers 700 Avios minimum for rentals greater than 2 days, plus 250 bonus Avios if you pay by BA Amex, and 3 Avios per £ spent via your Amex statement – all added together results in a minimal bonus booking via Iberia and having to deal with their customer service if the points don’t credit.
http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/collecting-avios/car-rental
Plus I think 5x bookings via BA per annum and you get a bonus? plus the additional driver bonus for being BAEC. Mind I’ve not had the Gold benefit of the car waiting at arrivals… (It’s only upstairs and with Avis Plus you queue jump).
AMEX Plat holders benefit from preferential Avis rates as well as comprehensive insurance from AMEX.
My question thus: should one switch the AMEX Plat card stored on Avis Wizard profile for a BAPP AMEX, would one lose the rate and cover benefits of the Avis:AMEX Plat relationship?
Secondly, four bookings in 2015 – credited on BAEC statement with requisite Avios – appeared not to have triggered 750 Avios bonus (as per their t&c on Stu R’s link above) so worth double checking one’s statement.
A bit OT but Qantas will build a rather nice lounge at Heathrow T3 later this year, check out http://bit.ly/1QcYZQh
Another great choice for Oneworld members?
They are taking the former SAS London lounge space.
What would you recommend, No. 1 lounge, My Lounge or Aspire for Gatwick North at the moment? I recall one has been invaded by one world business customers since closing the BA lounge but can’t remember which! Thanks
At peak times, No 1 and My Lounge will be overrun by BA passengers. Never been in Aspire but apparently it is perfectly acceptable.
OT: sorry to go off topic but I need some help. We got our first free night Hilton certificate yesterday. Was going to use it for a night in Chicago but decided not to as we already have a great hotel booked for 5 nights and now reluctant to change it. So my question is – what is the best hotel for a free night in London. Alternately I was looking at the Hilton at Bankside which seems to be getting great reviews. We are looking at 3 nights in total. If we book two nights in my name (Diamond) then one weekend night in my husbands who has the certificte (Silver) can we link the booking together or would this jeopardise my points collecting for the first two nights? Also the Hilton site is charging £199 per night for a refundable room. Hotels.com is offering under ‘secret prices’ £259 for 2 nights refundable rate. Can I claim for best rate guarantee from Hilton. Don’t want to buy the cheaper non refundable rate if I can’t get a successful claim. You wouldn’t think getting a free night would be so complicated! Thanks.
Don’t think your claim against a secret price will stand as it is a secret price offered to you and not the general public.
Ok thanks – thought that was too good to be true.
Agree, Hilton can be difficult on BRG claims. Also you need to have the same cancellation terms and room descriptions for the two bookings and to have made your Hilton.com booking first.
I’d be wary linking the stays, in theory it should be fine as on 2 different accounts, however if by mistake they linked and put the third night in your name then as a mixed reward/cash stay you’d get nothing. You’d still want to check out from your two nights before checking in for his but perhaps see if the property is up for you not switching room (saves them on cleaning costs).
Any chance of your husband quickly earning a voucher too so you could have a Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun stay on vouchers? 🙂
My husband has the voucher on his account – I can’t get the Hilton card as I have the IHG. So what is the best top Hilton hotel for the certificate – we could do the secret price for £235 non refundable rate now for 2 nights as it is such a great price then move to a different hotel for the free night certificate.
Conrad hotel is also worth a look – this was an InterCon remember. I reviewed it on HFP.
OT again but do you still get benefits of being a gold e.g free breakfast, if you are using a free night certificate?
Yep, free breakkie on paid-for and reward nights as Gold 🙂
I agree about being careful with linking contiguous bookings.
I have just had a very long battle with Hilton and Barclaycard about 2500 Barclaycard bonus when my wife’s stay got moved to my account.
She got them in the end, but I would not bothered had I not been retired and become a Grumpy Old Man. She did get 3000 extra points from Hilton and £50 from Barclaycard but it should gave been more.
Ok think we will split it and do the Conrad and Bankside. If we buy a drink and charge it to the room on the free night certificate will we still get the 2500 HH points for using the credit card in the first year?
Possibly, no guarantee. You should get all the Conrad bonuses I list on the Hotel Promos page though.
Yep, should do the trick – make sure you add the card to your HHonors profile too, I’ve found.
I did Conrad end Jan free stay and got the 2,500 card bonus + 5,000 various other bonuses. Paid minibar on Hilton card.
Brill – will definitely have a drink to get some points!
Yep zero chance of success on a claim vs secret prices IMV
Regus has it cheaper at permanently £0 membership fee + £14.75 per lounge visit across the Dragonpass network, although you only get a digital card, no plastic 🙂
Not seen this, will have a dig.
Got a link or something please? I can’t seem to find anything
log in to myregus, go to Tools and then you can see airport lounges listed under Travel.
6 DP lounge cards for £13.50 (ie £2.25 each) if you time your Barclays Travel Plus pack for the 1 month you can use all 6 before cancelling, repeatable once every 12 months
Harry – I’m planning on doing that for a family trip in the summer. How long do I need to allow for the passes to come through? Don’t want to do it too early and have to pay a second month but don’t want to do it too late and the passes don’t arrive in time! Thanks.
They were q slow to post me the card. However, what you can do is get them to email you 6 lounge passes, they were very quick to do this when I asked and the passes worked fine. Just say you are travelling soon etc
does this replace the Airport Angel card? I have this but it seems to be defunct now – website not even working
correct
Sign up with Dragon/Barclays, go to apple/googleplay store and download the app to your smartphone. Virtual card and visit vouchers appear instantly, so you could leave joining until the day before you need access.
Is the telegraph dragonpass lounge code which was printed last year still valid (for non-subscribers)? It gave access to £15 entries at the time, but the website suggests passes have since increased to £16.50. It appears subscribers can access the offer year-round.
Another option would be to get an O2 PAYG SIM, however the offer ends soon.
Are any other reduced price lounge access options available for the solo traveller who isn’t a member of Regus, a telegraph subscriber, or wish to take out a Barclays account? Perhaps an opportunity for a HFP/Dragonpass offer?
https://www.headforpoints.com/2015/04/18/the-gourmet-society-airport-lounge-access-dragonpass/
easiest is via Avios.com – £20 No.1 lounge pass & fast-track with 750 Avios returned to you = £12.50
Thanks for reminding me about this, it seems like excellent value if you are travelling from a terminal with a No. 1 lounge!
I mean, at airport prices, how hard is it to knock back £12.50 of booze & snacks whilst you’re waiting? 🙂 I think in the open-to-all bars, beer is typically £6/ pint. I usually just line up the Sols in No.1 and I’ve never had the slightest hint of a raised eyebrow at multiple repeat orders.
Nice environment and extras like wifi, too.
I know No.1 isn’t coping with the BA hordes at the moment – I’m sure that will get sorted – but No.1 T3 is excellent, I use it all the time
I hadn’t heard of this before but can’t find the £20 option. Is there a specific booking page on avios to book cash, or do I book using ‘spend my avios’? I found a separate lounge pass page: http://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/spend/lounge-pass but the cost there is £36.
Use this link https://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/collect/no1-traveller?from=collectNav
Ie it’s in ‘Collect’ not ‘Spend’
hth
Thanks Harry!
Just got my first lounge pass for my first Virgin reward flight in June. Hoping it is worth the 15 quid. I’m not sure if the discount count works if you don’t click through the app, but the code is O2DP16 if anyone wishes to try.
I am with tesco and get o2 priority offers
Just tried to book a lounge in gatwick south but only landslide regus available
No.1 Traveller opened in Gatwick South airside today – via avios.com that would be £12.50 ie £20 but 750 Avios back on top.
I’m sure I could neck £12.50 of booze & scoff some grub in my waiting time, but perhaps you are not a similarly thirsty Lounge Lizard? 🙂
Just yell if you need a link