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A few photos from the reopened British Airways Concorde Room at Heathrow

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The British Airways Concorde Room lounges in London and New York, for ticketed First Class passengers, reopened on Wednesday.

Reader Daniel was in the Heathrow lounge and sent a few pictures to show how it has been refurbished (since, ahem, much of the artwork was sold off at auction).

Click to enlarge slightly:

British Airways Concorde Room Heathrow Terminal 5

and

Concorde Room Heathrow Airport

and

British Airways Concorde Room Heathrow Terminal 5

The sleep pods which are now in Galleries First have also made an appearance:

British Airways Concorde Room Heathrow Terminal 5

Here is the Concorde nose cone which used to be at the Waterside head office and is now on the Concorde Room terrace:


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (37)

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

  • Phillip says:

    My frustration with BA Holidays continues… for the past 10 days I’ve been trying to make a simple flight and car booking for December. I keep getting:

    “ We’re very sorry, there has been a problem confirming your booking. Rest assured we have not taken any payment.

    We’d like to help so please call 0344 493 0787 in the UK or 1-800-247-9297 in the US”

    And of course, they’re too busy/reduced staff (shock, horror) so the line cuts out no matter what time of day I call!

    • Graham says:

      I got through in 5 minutes on Monday for a new booking around 5pm. Surprised you’re having bother for a new booking. All the best of luck!

    • Dave says:

      Try first thing in the morning at 8 when they open. I got through a few days ago straight away.

      • Alex Sm says:

        I spent 1.5 hours on the line the other morning waiting and trying to amend the existing booking. So there is no silver bullet… but the outcome was good: I got a better flight and a room upgrade and 15 pounds back off the original price! So if you have an existing booking you may try to reprice it

  • David Cliff says:

    Phillip, i spent 5+hours on the phone to BA to simply upgrade a cash booking using Avios. The staff are great, but their Website is beyond useless! This was a simple transaction… but its impossible to do online, most frustrating and more pressure on the staff !

    • Rob says:

      You couldn’t do that online? Unless it is a travel agent or corporate booking it is usually a Manage My Booking thing.

      • StillintheSun says:

        It seems not. I just tried to upgrade a flight on a BA holidays booking for which I can see next cabin availability on their website. MMB tells me to call and provides a number. Anyone know if BA Twitter will work? I’ll give it a go anyway but I’m not hopeful!

        • Daftboy says:

          BA Holidays is technically a travel agent booking (even though its their in house travel agent) – hence you would need to call, annoyingly

        • Phillip says:

          I got no response to my tweet/DM from Tuesday, if that answers your question.

  • Michael C says:

    The nose cone looks like a sculpture by the KLF!

  • ChrisA says:

    Have the dining cubicles had a refresh at all – I haven’t been since Feb 2019 but found the seats to be a bit tatty then.

  • Nigel says:

    Which would one consider to be the better offering at T5, BA Galleries or Plaza Premium?

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      If you have access why not try both? Pre-COVID I thought the Plaza Premium was slightly better than Galleries Club (business and silver) mainly because when I tried it the Plaza Premium wasn’t too busy. If you have access to Galleries First (gold) then that is the better lounge.

    • Alex J says:

      I had a pretty mediocre experience at Galleries the other week on my first return to T5 in nearly two years, the table service was terribly executed, so will try Plaza Premium the next time I’m there.

  • HBommie says:

    Is the mooi horse still around?

  • Aron Simon says:

    I have a 2 visit PPL pass to use in my next trip. Can I use that with this T5 lounge that re-opened with Plaza Premium? The way the wording mentions confused me a little. I am a newbie to all this. Sorry for the dumb question.

    • Rhys says:

      Yes, should work. What’s the wording?

      • Aron says:

        Hi Rhys – I might’ve misread it. It mentions paying for it with cash, so I suppose the Passes fall under that too, right? Thought it might be excluded from the Pass for some reason – oops!

        • Rhys says:

          Your lounge pass will only get you into the lounge so they often have a disclaimer that some items (eg. champagne) incur an additional expense.

          If you’re still worried I would reach out to Plaza directly!

  • Dawn says:

    Is there any lounge I can access as a BA silver member in Gatwick North terminal at the moment? I’m flying in a week from there. Any OW lounges?

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

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