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It’s 20 years since Heathrow Junction railway station closed

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News in brief:

It’s 20 years since Heathrow Junction railway station opened (and closed)

For those of a certain age, this article published last week is worth a look.

In January 1998, Heathrow Junction railway station was opened in record time following the partial collapse of the tunnels being built for the Heathrow Express.  You would travel from Paddington to Heathrow Junction and connect to a waiting bus to be transferred to the terminals.

Six months later, with the collapsed tunnel rebuilt and full services able to begin, it was closed.

Get a 75% bonus when you buy IHG Rewards Club points

Until 28th February, you can buy IHG Rewards Club – the InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza etc scheme – points with a bonus of up to 75%.

The page to buy points is here – log in and see what is available.

This is not the most generous offer IHG has had, and it is also staggered:

  • Buy 5,000-19,000 points, get a 50% bonus
  • Buy 15,000+ points, get a 75% bonus

I wouldn’t buy speculatively with a 75% bonus as I am fairly sure that a 100% bonus for everyone will be along in a few months.  If you need to top up your account in advance of a planned redemption, however, you might as well do it whilst the bonus is on.  It is also worth buying if your IHG Accelerate promotion has a ‘buy points’ target you need to hit.

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IHG One Rewards news

IHG One Rewards update – April 2025:

Get bonus points: IHG is not currently running a global promotion.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

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IHG One Rewards

Comments (73)

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

  • Annabelle says:
    22 Jan22 January 05:20

    OT but has anyone recently successfully received an amex referral bonus by referring themselves for a new card? ( ie PRG holder referring themselves for BAPP card )
    Thank you

    • Louise says:
      22 Jan22 January 06:20

      I’ve read plenty of people have

      • Annabelle says:
        22 Jan22 January 07:01

        Thanks Louise. Although I can refer my husband for new BAPP card I was thinking he could refer himself as he has platinum card so will get an extra 9k MR points! Not sure whether to risk that and not get any referral points at all! Decisions!

        • Mike J says:
          22 Jan22 January 11:45

          I’d be very interested to hear any positive results with this working. I currently have an AMEX platinum and was contemplating taking out a BAPP.

          If I can gain another 18k MR for referring myself that would be amazing!

  • Delbert says:
    22 Jan22 January 06:09

    Well, the bonus Avios have tracked as received an email this morning from Iberia informing of 174 Avios pending. That’s a start, I suppose.

  • Tilly says:
    22 Jan22 January 06:52

    Early OT – considering the gold to plat upgrade as so many on here have suggested.

    Looking at the benefits, from reading the terms of the travel insurance it seems that most cover only if you pay for your booking on the plat card meaning if I use my BAPP we wouldn’t be covered so would have to purchase travel ins anyway?

    Have a few Hilton stays coming up in the next 4-5 months. One of which is a 5th night free reward stay in Toronto. Only silver honors at the moment but if I get the plat card will be gold Hilton honors. Do you get gold benefits on reward stays? So room upgrade and comp brekkie?

    The lounge access for a ET booking in May will be useful I suppose. Other trips do not matter as in CE, F and CW.

    TIA

    • Tilly says:
      22 Jan22 January 08:11

      Thanks Genghis!

      Important stuff for me is medical and legal. Nice though to be covered for baggage, lost items, delays amd cancellations.

    • mark2 says:
      22 Jan22 January 08:12

      Assuming that you mean the main downtown Hilton.
      We stayed there two years ago as Gold. We did get an upgrade and free breakfast. They said it should be in Executive Lounge but as it was weekend we could use the normal restaurant which was good. On Monday we were relegated to the Exec Lounge where the food was poor: like a Hampton without the waffle machine. But YMMV.

    • Grimz says:
      22 Jan22 January 12:50

      Genghis did you know this?
      Iv just been told by the Amex call centre that if I have referred from Plat and my friend takes out the gold card then I only receive the 9000 bonus? You only get the 18000 bonus if you refer from plat and the person you have referred takes out plat!

    • AndyGWP says:
      22 Jan22 January 13:12

      There’s another website that was promoting a link for free Hilton Gold status the other day… they did say it was targeted to certain credit card users, but appeared to be working for anyone.

      Apologies if I shouldn’t mention it here (or if its no longer working!) :/

      • Mike J says:
        22 Jan22 January 13:47

        @Grimz:

        I can confirm from recent experience that you get 18,000 MR for referring from Platinum to Gold – I did this a few weeks ago…

        • Grimz says:
          22 Jan22 January 15:20

          Great thanks for the info – 9000 posted for me just after I upgraded to plat and I did the referral. I have since done some other referrals and I await the bonus points.

          I didn’t argue too much as I wasn’t sure what the actual rule was!

  • Anna says:
    22 Jan22 January 07:57

    OT – anyone else having issues with points posting at avios.com? I’ve had several purchases which haven’t posted within the specified time frame, including a hotel stay which was completed 144 days ago! CS seems to have ground to a halt with it taking weeks to receive anything other than the ato-generated email response.

    • Paulm says:
      22 Jan22 January 08:55

      In my experience, anything with hotels seams to take ages. Just waited about 8 months to get Hilton points. Just keep emailing them!

      • Anna says:
        22 Jan22 January 09:07

        I am, but it’s time consuming and they also seem to be breaching their own terms which state that hotel stays will credit within 90-120 days from completion (though I don’t understand why it should even take that long if businesses can do it within 35 days!).

  • Joe says:
    22 Jan22 January 08:05

    Groupon / Iberia voucher went though no worries this morning so I take it all ok now .. Happy Days.

  • Jan says:
    22 Jan22 January 08:14

    yes- all Iberia purchases worked fine this morning

    • blenz101 says:
      22 Jan22 January 09:14

      Still not working for me.  Either goes around in a loop or get the “Este cupón ya ha sido usado” message.  Very frustrating. 

      • Karen says:
        22 Jan22 January 11:38

        Try a different browser and type in the numbers – Chrome and copy and paste wouldnt work this morning but it all worked on Firefox when it was typed in

  • Alan Young says:
    22 Jan22 January 08:32

    O/T but IHG related, isn’t the 5,000 points thingy due soon?

  • Robbie says:
    22 Jan22 January 09:25

    What a great blog that is (The one about the Heathrow Station – Ian Visits) I may have to add it onto my list of regular blogs (After HFP obviously)

    • Rob says:
      22 Jan22 January 10:07

      I was quite impressed with it, I must admit.

    • Nick Burch says:
      22 Jan22 January 12:17

      If you like Ian Visits, you may also like Diamond Geezer. A bunch of us spent a bit of time chatting about both of those two at the HFP christmas party towards the end 🙂

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

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