Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Interesting HfP articles you might have missed whilst on holiday – and reviews coming up

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

For most of us, today will be the first full week back at the work – or at the least the first week with all of your colleagues around – for some time.

If you found sitting on a beach more interesting than reading Head for Points during August – although you can do both you know …. – here are links to the key stories we ran and which you may have missed.

September is usually the peak period for new offers and deal, so keep checking HfP daily to see what is new.

Purely in terms of reviews, seat previews and public speaking, September should see:

Rhys visiting Vietnam for a week, as we take a look at Vietnam Airlines

I am giving Qatar Airways Qsuite a try.  Hard to believe but I have never actually got around to flying it before, despite having sat in the seat numerous times at press events and, once, on the plane itself when I was invited onboard for lunch!

Anika has a review of SWISS Business Class written and queued up!

Rhys will be on one of the very first flights to New York to feature the new Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Suite

We are getting to see United’s Polaris seat up-close in a press event ….

…. and the very impressive looking new ANA business class seat too

I will be hosting a couple of sessions at World Aviation Festival in London this week, including ‘Battle of the (airline booking) Apps’ and an interview with the head of India’s Jet Privilege

….. and chairing a panel discussion at Loyalty Summit in London later in the month

We can’t talk about any of the offers and promotions which are coming up, unfortunately.  There is a lot going on though including, of course, the BA pilot strike.

Key Head for Points articles you may have missed during August:

We launched a competition with online bank Monese to win 1 million Avios.  See here

We have been all over the British Airways pilot strikes.  See our latest coverage here and main article here.

Emirates Skywards football redemptions, including Arsenal, Real Madrid and AC Milan, are now bookable.  See here

We did a major review of Norwegian Premium to Rio, which you can read here

You can now register for Hilton’s new ‘double points’ promotion for September to January.  Article here, register here

IHG launched its latest batch of heavily discounted PointBreaks redemptions, and it was the biggest for a while.  See here

You can now register for IHG’s new ‘Accelerate’ promotion for September to December.  Article here, register here

Capital On Tap is changing its Avios-earning SME payment card to Visa and it will no longer be accepted by HMRC for free.  The 20,000 Avios sign-up bonus remains though.  Article here

In a slightly different flight review, Anika flew Virgin Upper Class whilst six months pregnant.  Article here

British Airways added some October A350 training flights between Heathrow and Madrid if you want to try the new Club Suite. Article here

The slightly weird Atrium Hotel opened at Heathrow (well, Hatton Cross).  Article here

We ran an offer with Revolut (still going) to waive the £4.99 delivery fee if you open an account via our link.  Article here

Virgin and Delta announced a number of route changes from Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester.  Article here

Hilton Honors made its status match harder to obtain – but it’s still a decent deal.  Article here

Club Eurostar made it harder to earn top tier Carte Blanche status.  Article here

BA and Amex launched a competition for #BA100 with 100 prizes for cardholders.  Article here

Norwegian is closing all of its long haul routes from Ireland.  Article here

Alan Boswell Insurance has relaunched as an Avios partner – you can now earn 10,000 Avios with your household, landlord or business insurance.  Article here

We did a full overview of Club Eurostar.  Article here

Hilton launched a fascinating Beatles experience, bookable on points, at Abbey Road Studios.  Article here

The Virgin / Air France / KLM / Delta joint venture received preliminary approval from the US Government, meaning that final approval – any day now – should be a formality.  This unlocks cross-earning and spending of miles.  Article here

We did a major feature on how to book ‘open jaw’ flights with Avios.  Article here

Rhys flew on the very first British Airways A350 commercial flight, in Club Suite!  Article here

We reviewed the LNER First Class Lounge at Kings Cross.  Article here

LateRooms.com and Super Break went into receivership.  Article here

We did possibly our weirdest lounge review ever when we visited ART & LOUNGE in Heathrow Terminal 4.  Article here

There is obviously a lot more too.  It is worth spending 10 minutes scrolling back from our home page to see what else you may have missed.

Category

General

Comments (27)

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

  • NigelthePensioner says:
    2 Sep2 September 07:47

    I looked up the loyalty summit programme and would make the following observations –
    1) I didn’t know that Flybe had a loyalty programme now
    2) Andreas Koch – Trusted Advisor, Andreas Koch CRM! This chap is presenting and appears to simply be a chap who trusts himself!!
    I may well slip along to Islington for the Festival as Ill be in town most of this week…

    • Rob says:
      2 Sep2 September 08:23

      Flybe has a head of loyalty (who many of the readers have met at HFP parties) who is working on the new offering ….

  • rams1981 says:
    2 Sep2 September 09:22

    Re capital on tap, given they have changed their offering can you get a pro rata refund on their fee if cancelled?

    • Rob says:
      2 Sep2 September 09:26

      We need to see what documentation is sent out. As the card is technically changing to a ‘proper’ credit card from a prepaid card there may be a way of getting out.

  • ankomonkey says:
    2 Sep2 September 09:55

    Looking forward to the Vietnam Airlines material. Will there be any coverage of Vietnam itself (hotels, destinations, etc.)? And Rhys always seems to get stuck in to the local food offerings, which I enjoy reading about. No ‘safe’ chicken & chips; it’s all beef rendang, durian and natto.

    • Rhys says:
      2 Sep2 September 10:31

      Yep, Vietnam will be an extensive series. I’m VERY excited for the Pho – I adore it!

      • AndyGWP says:
        2 Sep2 September 14:25

        I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Vietnam (and a few days in Hong Kong), and am able to confirm that personally, you CAN have too much Pho! :/ haha #NoMoPho

      • Lady London says:
        2 Sep2 September 17:23

        I dare you to bring back a durian in your hand luggage.

        • ankomonkey says:
          2 Sep2 September 17:37

          I been in hotels with signs outside the lifts banning guests from taking durian into the lift.

      • ankomonkey says:
        2 Sep2 September 17:38

        Great! Looking phoward to reading the articles.

      • Crafty says:
        2 Sep2 September 21:58

        Are your travels taking you to Danang? Brand new Hilton opened beginning of this year and we were treated very well there indeed.

    • Nate1309 says:
      2 Sep2 September 10:52

      I would crawl over hot coals for some beef rendang right now.

  • Julian says:
    2 Sep2 September 11:06

    Looks like not enough readers have been clicking through on some of these recent articles if there is seen to be a need to remind them.

    But remember that readers will only bother clicking through from the email subjects on articles that seem interesting to them and not just because an offer’s click thru revenue is especially financially remunerative to HfP……

    • Rob says:
      2 Sep2 September 11:13

      Eh? We do this article on the first Monday in September in most years. It is purely a catch up benefit for readers, and the number of clicks it generates to the articles is a sign it is found useful. Not sure about the average HFP reader but I was away for 20 days in August out of 31.

      There are 26 articles listed. The only ones that directly generate any money for us are COT and Revolut, and Revolt is a whopping £3.

      • Julian says:
        2 Sep2 September 11:28

        A lot of non school age childed people are also away in September in my experience too though… So I suppose an article for that month could also be justified.

        Only point I’m making is if one gets too many HfP articles that don’t seem insightful enough about aviation travel and just promotional of the many similar ongoing hotel and card offers that tend to repeat then one can become punch drunk and stop reading them. Its the old cry wolf problem…………….

        • Rob says:
          2 Sep2 September 11:31

          The hotel and card offers are actually the whole, erm, point of the site though 🙂 The general aviation stuff is just an extra layer on top, and most of that (not all of it, admittedly) is primarily there to help you decide how to spend your points.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    2 Sep2 September 12:54

    Any more of Rhys’s Rio articles left? OT for this site I know but surely you can sneak one in about his Brazillian food adventures and Rio after dark?

  • Lady London says:
    2 Sep2 September 17:21

    Great roundup Rob. Even though i was here i missed some stuff so good idea to do this after any major break.

    You missed “And Rhys said he went to Rio and didn’t get mugged” off the list.

  • Matt says:
    2 Sep2 September 19:39

    OT- has anyone with the 1000 bonus point accelerate target had it update into something a little more exciting and enticing?

    • Peter P says:
      2 Sep2 September 21:36

      No. I complained and have had the brush off.

      Doing my one night tonight and having got Spire for next year already (for what it’s (not) worth!) I am switching to Hilton again – both hotel spend and to Hilton credit card from IHG credit card. Maybe £3k a month is not much for IHG, but multiply by the number of people who seem to have received this paltry offer and it will start to add up

      • Lady London says:
        4 Sep4 September 20:43

        I think someone said the 1000 for a stay is a boo boo and you are all going to get a better offer in the second round.

        That’s if you’re all still there, you Spire members !
        Speaking of nonexistent rewards for the very expensive to acquire Spire top level, and the apparently chaotic management of Accelerate, wonder if IHG is planning on recruiting a loyalty manager?

    • Alex Sm says:
      4 Sep4 September 19:07

      Not really – both my partner and I have this but it is not that bad after all and easy to achieve. Still gives you some free money off

  • Joe says:
    2 Sep2 September 21:54

    Re revolut, from what I can tell reading other comments topping up with IHG has cash limits on transaction fees/frequency, but no cash fees, is that right?

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!