Heathrow Rewards, the Heathrow Airport shopping loyalty scheme, has an interesting partnership with hotel booking site Rocketmiles which can earn you 2,000+ easy Avios or other airline miles.
What is Rocketmiles?
Rocketmiles – if you are not familiar with it – is a similar website to PointsHound, Agoda and Kaligo.com. You can earn airline miles and other loyalty points in a wide variety of schemes when you book your hotel stays via rocketmiles.com.
The one downside of Rocketmiles is that your stays will be treated as ‘non-qualifying’ by the hotel. This means that you won’t earn points in the hotel’s own loyalty programme and you probably won’t get your status benefits either. Rocketmiles, Kaligo.com etc are best used when booking a stay at an independent hotel or at one where you don’t actively collect their points.
Before I get to this new deal, let me repeat why I like this partnership.
Why is this new Heathrow Rewards partnership interesting?
Usually, when you earn miles via Rocketmiles, they are sent directly to the partner of your choice – Avios, Virgin Flying Club, Etihad Guest etc.
However, if you credit to Heathrow Rewards instead you will get substantial extra flexibility.
Why? Imagine a hotel stay booked via Rocketmiles which would earn 2,000 miles or points. Send those to Avios and you get 2,000 Avios. This is fine but of course you’re not getting any flexibility. Send those to Heathrow Rewards and you would have the choice of:
- 2,000 Avios
- 2,000 Virgin Flying Club miles
- 2,000 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles
- 2,000 Royal Brunei RoyalSkies miles
- 2,000 Emirates Skywards miles
- 2,000 Aegean Miles&Bonus miles
- 2,000 Miles & More miles
- £20 Heathrow Airport shopping voucher
- £40 Heathrow Airport parking voucher
…. and you could even mix and match across the various redemptions. You can leave your points sitting in Heathrow Rewards until you are firm about where you need them.
(Note that Etihad Guest is no longer a partner with Heathrow Rewards.)
There is also the opportunity for a transfer bonus
Heathrow Rewards has been running some aggressive transfer bonuses recently. We have seen, for example:
- 100% bonus on redemptions for Heathrow shopping vouchers
- 50% bonus on transfers to Virgin Flying Club
- 50% bonus on transfers to Avios
- 100% bonus on transfers to Miles & More
Even if your only interest from Rocketmiles is earning Avios, it may well make more sense to credit your stays to Heathrow Rewards and wait for a transfer bonus. If there is no bonus, you can still convert at the standard rate and you aren’t any worse off.
You can learn more about the partnership on the Heathrow Rewards website.
Get 2,000+ Heathrow Rewards points with your first Rocketmiles booking
Via this special link, you will earn 2,000 bonus Heathrow Rewards points, on top of your base Heathrow Rewards points, when you make your first booking through Rocketmiles.
Note that this offer is NOT valid for Premium member of Heathrow Rewards or for existing Rocketmiles customers.
You have until 22nd April to book and the stay can be at any point in the future. There is no minimum spend.
Think this through. You will pick up 2,000+ Heathrow Rewards points which – at the very worst – you can, at a time of your choice, move into either 2,000 Avios, Virgin, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Royal Brunei, Aegean or Emirates miles. You could also take a £20 Heathrow shopping voucher or a £40 Heathrow parking voucher.
However ….. if Heathrow Rewards keeps running transfer bonuses ….. you would get somewhere between (as a minimum) 3,000 and 4,000 airline miles depending on the size of the bonus when you transfer! Alternatively, if they repeat the ‘100% bonus on conversions to Heathrow shopping vouchers’ offer, your 2,000 points would be worth £40 to spend at Heathrow.
And, with no minimum spend, you could do this on a £50 hotel room if you can find one. Even without a transfer bonus, you could redeem the points for a £40 Heathrow Airport Parking voucher and almost break even.
The special booking site is here. Remember that you must be a first time Rocketmiles customer.
About Head for Points
When I looked for a hotel in Manchester last week it was very restrictive which hotels were eligible for the bonus. Although the terms may say no min spend it appeared to me that only higher end (expensive) hotels counted which all far exceeded my corporate limit.
Disappointing that they exclude Premium members. That just seems a bit mean.
Premium members get 3000 points!
No bits – OT
Virgin £1 PE competition back again.
https://virg.in/GoldenTicket
Rob states that Premium Members are excluded, full stop! This does seem an unnecessary exclusion. That said, like all of the other agencies listed, RM’s prices are way above those found on Hotels Direct or Trivago…..
Premium members get 3000 points …
Hi Nigel,
Mostly, yes.
i find with independents that’s not always the case.
And if course, if someone else is paying your bill a slightly higher charge might not be an issue
Hi,
What is the best way to earn avios when booking a fly and park hotel at Heathrow?
Currently booking through holiday extras to earn cashback and paying on an Amex.
Any better ways?
Thanks,
Other reward currencies are available! Crediting hotel stays to Avios is generally NOT the best value.
I have found the best stay and park deals at Heathrow have been at the Doubletree, earning lots of Hilton points. IHG have packages too.
The BA e store has a new partner for booking airport hotels and parking, can’t recall the name!
Off-topic.
I need to spend about £500 on my Amex fairly quickly to trigger a voucher.
Does buying travellers cheques still count? Used this a few years ago, bought them then just deposited into bank account.
That route via Amex travel no longer exists.
Damn, never realised that.
Is there any other good ways to manufacture spend? Gift vouchers or something?
Gift vouchers yes. If your council takes Paypal like mine does you could make an early payment of your council tax.
Interesting post – i use RM fairly frequently when staying in London and client gives me a fixed budget for hotel.
Is there any other brands that can link back to Heathrow Rewards points?
OT.
4 days in USA. 2 in New York. Where should I spend the other 2?
Plenty to do in NYC for 4 days! Must visit USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum.
If you must go elsewhere – drove down to Atlantic City for a night in mini-vegas.
Altantic City is not like Vegas. Especially during winter months!
Philly, Washington, Boston are all easy to get to and I would favour them in the order listed.
If travelling in the Summer there is the Hamptons or significantly better is Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard but 2 days would be a stretch.
Lots of good resorts on the Jersey Coast in the summer too and reachable by train.
If you were to stay in NYC for 4 days, you could take a day trip on the train to DC