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Bits: 2400 Avios for £60 LEGO, BA cabin baggage requirements, UK lounge reviewers wanted

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News in brief:

Good ‘Avios for LEGO Friends’ deal returns

Tesco Direct is repeating their LEGO Friends promotion.  If you still haven’t filled up every bithday wish list for the rest of the summer, you will receive 1,000 bonus Clubcard points (worth 2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin miles) when you spend £60 of LEGO Friends before 27th March.

If you need a present for a young child or fancy giving yourself an eBay challenge earning to earn as many points as possible with the least financial loss, you should take a look at this offer.

The list of boxes available is here.

BA update – new UK cabin baggage security requirements

British Airways has updated their official statement regarding the electronics ban on certain flights.

As of this week the UK Government has banned all electronic equipment larger than a standard mobile phone from aircraft cabins on flights from (but not to) Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia or Saudi Arabia to the UK.

As British Airways offers a ‘hand baggage only’ fare on its flights to and from Istanbul, passengers will now have to take hold luggage if they wish to travel with a laptop or similar device.

Customers who made a booking before 22nd March for travel by 4th April 2017 are able to take a suitcase free of charge.  If the flight is after 4th April or has been purchased after 22nd March the passenger must pay the baggage fee either at the airport or online.

British Airways BA A380 flying

Help us review some lounges

As we are already halfway there, we want to plough on and try to complete the Head for Points directory of UK airport lounge reviews.

You can see what we have so far on this page. At some point we want to look at missing airline-specific lounges too, but for now we want to get the ‘pay to enter’ ones completed.

If you will be in any of the lounges below in the next month or so, and think you could take some photographs and write a short review for us (see Helena’s Inverness one here for an example), we’d like to hear from you.

Please register your interest first by email – rob [at] headforpoints.com – so you don’t duplicate anyone else’s efforts.

You don’t need to work for free.  There are two ways we will make it worth your while:

if you have Amex Gold and the lounge is in LoungeClub, we will reimburse you the £15 entry fee (assuming you have already used your two free entries for the year), or

if you can get in for free with a Priority Pass or LoungeKey card, we will sort you out with a few miles

This is what we are missing as far as ‘pay to enter’ lounges go:

  • Aberdeen – Swissport
  • Belfast City – Aspire
  • Bristol – Aspire (not AspirePlus)
  • Doncaster – Premium Lounge
  • Durham – Swissport
  • East Midlands – Escape
  • Exeter – Executive Lounge
  • Humberside – Swissport
  • Manchester – Escape T1, Escape T2, Swissport T2, Aspire T1
  • Newcastle – Aspire, AspirePlus
  • Norwich – Multiyork
  • Southampton – Breeze

Thanks.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (25)

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

  • Anon says:
    24 Mar24 March 06:46

    Is the ABZ lounge review really worth it at present, thought it was getting ripped out this summer?
    https://www.aberdeenairport.com/about-us/terminal-transformation/

    • Rob says:
      24 Mar24 March 09:38

      Good point – scrub that 🙂

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:
        24 Mar24 March 09:42

        If someone happens to be going it might be worth getting a review of the ABZ lounge anyway. Last time I used the Servisair lounge in ABZ was in 2011 (I think that’s the one bmi used) and it wasn’t very good then so it would be interesting to see it in the final days.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    24 Mar24 March 07:01

    I could do any of the Newcastle lounges: Aspire I can access for free with Priority Pass, Aspire Plus I’m not sure what the criteria is (I can only see a paid option for £34.99). I could also do the BA lounge at NCL and the VTEC railway station lounge at NCL if there’s any interest in that.

    I’m happy if others want to review any of these lounges but let me know if, at the end of the day, there’s still gaps in your Newcastle coverage.

    • Andy S says:
      24 Mar24 March 10:27

      Re. Aspire plus, in Bristol you can get in with priority pass plus 15 quid charge. I declined since the walk-up entry is 30 quid vs 20 for the normal aspire, so this isn’t a good deal.

      I shall be in Bristol next in 2 weeks and intend to visit the basic Aspire so could get some pics then if required Rob.

  • Crafty says:
    24 Mar24 March 07:41

    OT: I need to rent a car for 3 days, from tomorrow, in Cheshire. I’ve never rented a car before. Only restriction is my partner, who’s under 25, needs to be able to drive it.

    I see offers on here all the time, but nothing appears to be applicable, and we are seeing quotes over £100, which feel high. Are we missing an obvious trick?

  • Alan says:
    24 Mar24 March 08:01

    Damn, could have done BHD a few weeks ago for you if I’d known! Decent lounge, food/drink spread similar to other Aspire lounges.

  • h1tvd says:
    24 Mar24 March 08:43

    O/T I have just received my 250 joiining bonus avios from Aer Lingus AerClub after many tweets and twitter messages 🙂

  • EvilGazebo says:
    24 Mar24 March 11:38

    OMG is the Norwich one really called the Multiyork Executive Lounge? That may be the most #AccidentalPartridge thing I have ever heard!

  • Anon says:
    24 Mar24 March 12:40

    BTW – just to be a tease, I drafted my review of the Conrad Seaplane lounge last night, it’s very nice…. 🙂

    • TGLoyalty says:
      24 Mar24 March 17:23

      Just read the review, the place looks amazing. Sounds like you had a great holiday.

      That’s what the points game is all about

  • Rajesh pandey says:
    24 Mar24 March 14:06

    Good

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

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