News in brief:
Back in the Plaza Premium lounge in Terminal 5
Back in March I ran a full review of the new Plaza Premium lounge in Heathrow Terminal 5 – click here.
I like it. It is small BUT it is very exclusive. This is because you cannot get access with a Priority Pass or Lounge Club membership card.
The only realistic ways to get in – unless you have certain obscure Asian credit cards – are:
By showing an American Express Platinum charge card (Plaza Premium has a global deal with Amex, a guest is allowed for UK issued cards, foreign Platinum cards may vary)
By showing a DragonPass lounge club card, but these are rarely seen in the UK – Barclays is the main issuer
By paying cash (on the Plaza Premium website here)
In March I was there during breakfast. On Wednesday I popped in at 5pm – using my Amex Platinum card – to check out the evening food selection. It was pretty decent. Importantly there were fewer than 20 people in the lounge.
There were BBQ chicken wings and potatoes:
There was tortellini in mushroom sauce:
And in the other pans:
….. were chicken tikka masala, beef stroganoff and steamed rice. There was also a large selection of wraps and a salad bar.
And if you wanted dessert, there were special cupcakes to celebrate Plaza Premium’s recent Skytrax awards! Photo below. If you want to see photos of the lounge itself, read my March review.
Bonus Avios and Virgin miles from Tesco via Pay+
I wanted to flag up this offer again today as it is a few months since we mentioned it and it is valid until the end of the year.
Tesco has a smartphone payment app called Pay+ (previously PayQwiq, a name that was dropped when they realised no-one could remember how to spell it).
It is Tesco’s payment app which let’s you pay your shopping and automatically collect Clubcard points. Pay+ works a bit like Apple Pay or Android Pay, but with the added benefit of automatically adding your Clubcard number to the transaction so you don’t need to dig out your blue card.
To encourage people to try Pay+, until 31st December 2018 you will get 1 extra Clubcard point for every £4 spent in Tesco. This is a decent offer, worth an extra 0.6 Avios per £1 or 0.625 Virgin Flying Club miles for every £1 of Tesco shopping you do. It is a bit of a faff to set up Pay+ but once you’ve done it you’re good to earn bonus miles for the next five months.
You can read more about Pay + here. You will still receive all your usual loyalty points from your credit card too.
(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
I buy Amazon gift cards at Morrison, getting Morrison points. Works out a couple of % back.
signol
If you time it right, Amazon cards @ Morrisons = 13.5% discount.
I think Mark2 does this as well, v surprised more people haven’t cottoned on 🙂
Same here – also with the Amazon app you can now scan the GC to save time entering the code to redeem.
Talking of waitrose, a sjell garage not so far from me now has a waitrose shop. Anybody know if transactions in tgese places track as shell or waitrose?
Do the lounges know if you’ve stayed more than your time? I’ve used to Premium Plaza lounge at HKG with a Priority Pass and had a 5 hour gap between flights. Never charged for more than 1 visit.
Interestingly this morning a friend of my used his Black Amex to gain access to the No 1 lounge at GTW and was told he should have pre-booked. He was told to go to Starbucks instead! I told him to try the Granary.
Ooohhh have we gone back in time to 2009 when Holešov airport in the Czech Republic was still open…? And there’s a busy No1 Lounge…?
If you’re going to be smart and use airport codes, at least get them right 😉
It’s the correct code for the train station ????
But we are talking about an airport lounge not a waiting lounge at a train station! haha
Oddly enough, after coming back into LGW a couple of weeks ago I had been typing in GTW for the train app trying to find a service to LBG (which none where showing!!), hence my use!
@flyforfun – they probably rumble you if you’re like me! 🙂
Back at the bar for a refill far too often & making jokey conversation (well, that’s the intention!) with the barmaid.
Of course they know if you overstay, I guess most of the team don’t give a monkey’s
The ONLY good thing about this lounge is that it’s very quiet. Everything else is just ok. No crisps. The “large selections of wraps is so big it couldnt fit in the photos ???? (anyway, they’re tasteless). It’s difficult to call the salad bar a salad bar. The bread is crap. The food is good if you visit once – if you’re a regular there, you realise how crap it is. The drinks are ok – don’t expect a “bar”, and you may be asked to pay depending what yo drink. If you want a shower $$.
as I said, it’s a pleasant place to chill before taking off, with a drink and some nibbles. Nothing special and I wouldn’t spend a single panny to get in.
+1. Overrated in my opinion.
They have far nicer bacon and sausages than the BA GF lounge though at breakfast. The lounge seems to be quite full each time I visit…quite a few Americans in there whose voices seem to carry over quite a distance.
O/T my wife and I are splitting up how best can we split the avios as they are mostly in my name?
I am pretty sure they just have to stay where they are, there is absolutely no way they can be transferred from one person to the next.
At least that is what I would say if i were in your position.
Used to be able to split Avios.com accounts – if you still have one and can transfer in and make/break a HHA then might still be do-able but option rapidly closing (if still even possible). For a BA redemption it doesn’t matter if you’re in a HHA anyway, they’ll just be taken pro-rata from each.
Best just to agree a figure that she can spend and give her access to her account so she can redeem that many. Alternatively buy her out at a suitable low offer!
Use enough Avios to buy her a one way redemption to a place in the sun so she can find a new toyboy?
OT:) I have an Plat Amex offer spend 150 pounds on hilton, get 5000 MR points. There is a list of hotels (UK+ Western Europe) Do you know if I can split the 150 among two hotels?
Mine is spend £500 to get the same number of points as you.
Not gonna bite.
Yes it usually works
Thank you John.
Waitrose only sell their own cards which are, of course, also useable at John Lewis stores.
there’s the answer 🙂
OT, I’d like to fly business class to Durban in September for a week. I’ve been looking at flights ex-Europe but unable to find anything less than £1800 from Amsterdam to Johannesburg on BA as there are no direct flights. Prices out of London typically exorbitant. Does anyone have any advice for how to get a better price and route? When can we expect a Qatar sale, there doesn’t seem to have been one for ages? Any help appreciated.
I’d say £1800 is pretty reasonable to be honest, especially as Amsterdam is very convenient and quick.
Maybe I’ll have to bite the bullet then but was hoping to do better. I now see for about £4058, I can get 5 nights at Hilton Durban included and fly to Durban, not Joburg, so that seems like a good deal.
I would be trying a random selection of Qatar departure cities – Lisbon, Cardiff, Scandi, all the tiny ones ….
Looking on google flights bru cpt in september with ethiopian is to be had for around £1350? Might want to look at that…..
I would always avoid travelling to South Africa via Qatar or Dubai, regardless of class because your time is worth something and you are adding hours and hours of unnecessary travel time. Virgin and SAA are decent enough to Joburg even in economy, and Virgin a premium economy/upper class always beat BA. If you’re doing a connection Ethiopia makes more geographical sense and they’re not bad now, modern fleet and good service.
Sorry for another O/T – I recently took out a SPG Amex card 3 months ago and have banked the 10000 SPG points for meeting the minimum spend target. Is there any reason that I should keep this card any longer or am I better to cancel and obtain a pro-rata refund. I find that I put most of my spend on BA Amex and Platinum cards and that there is not much value in earning SPG/Marriott points when Hilton is my preferred brand.
Some people have been offered double points when calling to cancel, if not offered you can always back out. A lot of us have cancelled already in hope of a further churn before year end. You would be looking at January for that now.
O/T
Avios redemptions from Cuba
Has anyone any experience of doing these? I thought it would be possible to do AA redemptions to US e.g. Miami but can’t find that option on BA.com
Am aware of Iberia and Virgin options.
Fairly typical offer from MBNA. Better options on both interest fee transfers and spending elsewhere.
Obviously wouldn’t use for transfers as they have 3.5% fee, but given I’ve got ~£30k limit between MBNA accounts (which they’re happy to combine), it’s a significant chunk that could be locked away at 0%.