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EXCLUSIVE: Get £15 of free beer, in a Gatwick bar, with Priority Pass or Lounge Club

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OK, this is a weird one, but I can’t help thinking that it will be welcomed by some Head for Points readers.

Priority Pass and Lounge Club, the airport lounge access cards, have opened a new lounge at Gatwick South.  Remember that British Airways moved to Gatwick South two weeks ago, so this is very timely.

The new lounge is …. a bar.

To be precise …. The Grain Store Cafe & Bar.

Obviously this is not an airport lounge.  It’s a bar.  In an airport.

The terms and conditions are simple.  Turn up at The Grain Store Cafe & Bar, flash your Priority Pass or Lounge Club card, and you will receive £15 per person off your bill.  You can charge as many guests as you like to your pass, although you will obviously be recharged later on if you are beyond your guesting limit.

This is quite tempting.  I have an American Express Platinum card which comes with two free Priority Pass cards.  Each allows me a free guest.  If my wife and I turn up at The Grain Store Cafe & Bar with our kids, we will get a £60 discount on our bill.  And if we’re still hungry or thirsty, we can pop into the No 1 Lounge anyway …..

This is also a decent way of using the two Lounge Club passes that come with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  ‘Take out our card and get £30 of free beer’ – now that’s a selling point.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (99)

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

  • Henry says:

    Any idea if this works for LoungeKey?

  • Simon says:

    Massively O/T (sorry)

    Is anyone aware of any bonuses for UK Amex supplementary cards at the moment? Would like to give the other half one, but am waiting for a promotion!

    Thanks

    • Wally1976 says:

      I deliberately didn’t add my wife as a supplementary card holder when I applied for my gold card then a week or so later asked if there was an incentive to add her. I was told they would give me 500 MR points as a ‘goodwill gesture’ (or words to that effect). Not much but better than nothing! This was done via the secure messaging channel.

  • Waribai says:

    Quick question/Slight worry!

    Has the 20000 points reward for spending £2000 in the first 3 months gone from the Amex Gold card? I hit this a few days ago but have had no “congratulations” message when logging in.
    Also on the card webpage it has disappeared from the highlights section. It still appears on the cached page though…..

  • Waribai says:

    Panic over. I think it’s just how the page appeared to me as I had been logged in previously. Still not sure where my 20000 bonus points are though…..!

  • Alan says:

    OT but just received this from Bristol Airport….
    Soak up the sun in Spain and Italy

    From May, British Airways will begin direct return flights from Bristol to the beautiful Spanish destinations Malaga, Ibiza and Palma, as well as a brand new flight to the Italian city of Florence.

    These flights will operate on the modern Embraer 190 jet aircraft and will run once a week at weekends.

    Fly to Palma from £45 each way*

    Fly to Florence from £49 each way*

    Fly to Ibiza from £49 each way*

    Fly to Malaga from £59 each way*

    • David says:

      I just got this too, I hope it is the start of many more routes!

      • mark2 says:

        Thanks for the tip!
        Avios redemptions available 2+1.
        Shame the e-170 are not configured as in North America i.e. 2+1

    • Andrew M says:

      Perhaps the title London Airways is unfair now? How about English Airways or at least South of England Airways?

    • the real harry1 says:

      great news! 🙂

      • Genghis says:

        Easier to get to your Marbs pad from Cornwall?

        • the real harry1 says:

          ye gods I’d love to go back to Florence & now it looks dead easy – I spent a year there as a student and as you can imagine I walked/ took the bus absolutely everywhere & knew the place like the back of my hand. At the time students got in free to most of the galleries so I used to pop into the Uffizi about 2-3 times a week when there were no queues just to look at my favourites for perhaps 20 minutes & take in a few new ones – I must have gone there over 50 times plus my other favourites, the Accademia, the cathedrals etc. Money was always on my mind & we found ways to get the heavily subsidised student canteen vouchers so ate pretty well. At one time I was living with two girls (Swedish & Norwegian) then I eventually settled down with 3 Italian girls studying at the university but from Sicily, they invited me down which was brilliant as well, none of them girlfriends though 🙂 Got loads of Florence tips…

          • the real harry1 says:

            when I had a down moment, I once p!ssed off from where I was not liking it much, rang up Cetti in Rome (then), flew there & just camped out with her for a few days.

            Good to have friends 🙂

        • Nick says:

          Haha I thought we’d worked out Harry’s pad is Central Europe…?

  • Nick M says:

    This looks like a great option for us – family of 3 (soon to be 4)… £15/30 towards coffees/lunch will be much more useful than going to a normal lounge – might actually get some use out of the Gold passes (or do a Plat upgrade shortly before!)

  • Allan says:

    Anybody else having HFP pages jump to the advert at bottom of page for the Fifty Shades movie? Very annoying…

    • FlyingChris says:

      +1

      HFP is whitelisted on my adblocker, but the Fifty Shades autoplaying video advert at the bottom of the page is particularly annoying/intrusive with the page jumping to it automatically.

      • Rob says:

        Weird, it is only happening in Safari on certain machines. I still haven’t seen it. I will drop the ad agency an email.

        • Allan says:

          Yeah i’m trying on Safari

        • Rob says:

          Ok. We are going to turn it off for Mac users. May take 24 hours though. Ironically the agency is also PC based and cannot replicate it.

          • Joe says:

            Still happening 1:20am on Fri 10th.

            SO annoying! Please ensure the agency is aware that I will never watch this damn awful film on principle alone!!

  • Genghis says:

    OT Have there been any updates on when exactly in April (provided still on course) the BA First Wing will open at T5?

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

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