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What benefits does Heathrow Rewards Premium membership get you?

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Heathrow Rewards, the loyalty scheme for the shops and car parks at London Heathrow, has a little known ‘Premium’ tier. 

If you are planning a shopping spree at Heathrow in the coming months, it is worth knowing about the benefits.

How do you earn Heathrow Rewards points?

We wrote a full review of how Heathrow Rewards works in this article.

Heathrow Rewards Premium tier review

In summary, Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in Heathrow (1 per £10 on foreign exchange) or on Heathrow Express tickets (online bookings only).  There is also a partnership with Rocketmiles to earn points from your hotel bookings.

Once you’ve earned points you can exchange them for miles or shopping vouchers.  The airline transfer partners are:

  • Aegean Miles+Bonus
  • Asia Miles
  • British Airways Executive Club
  • Aer Lingus AerClub
  • Emirates Skywards
  • Lufthansa Miles & More
  • Royal Brunei Royal Skies
  • Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  • Virgin Flying Club

The minimum transfer is 250 Heathrow Rewards points = 250 miles.

As the alternative is swapping 500 points for a £5 Heathrow shopping voucher (or a £10 parking voucher), you are effectively ‘paying’ 1p per airline mile.  This is still a good deal in most cases but bear the alternative in mind before you transfer.

The smallest voucher redemption is for 500 points, so if you only have 250 points and are unlikely to earn any more, airline miles are your only redemption option.

Heathrow Rewards Premium tier review

What is the Heathrow Rewards Premium tier?

Heathrow Rewards has always had a Premium tier.  You used to need to spend just £500 in a calendar year to qualify and would then receive double points (2 per £1) on all of your Heathrow shopping, parking and Heathrow Express tickets.  There was also a small bonus of 100 points when you first qualified for Premium.

Four years ago, the airport decided to jazz up the benefits of Premium whilst raising the qualifying threshold to £750.  Travelex and Rocketmiles spend is not included in the £750 target.

When you hit £750 of spending, you will receive Premium status for the remainder of the current calendar year and all of the following year.

The core benefit of being a Heathrow Rewards Premium member is double base points.  You will earn 2 points (so 2 airline miles) per £1 spent, rather than 1 point per £1 spent.

You also receive:

  • 5,000 bonus Heathrow Rewards points with your first Rocketmiles hotel booking after achieving Premium (new customers only)
  • One-off £10 discount when you spend £100 at World Duty Free

That’s about it, unfortunately.

When the Premium tier launched, there were other benefits such as four Heathrow Express Business First upgrade vouchers per year.  These now appear to have been withdrawn.  You also qualified for premium wi-fi, but this is now free to all in the airport.

Premium members do receive additional points on some other services. This list is no longer available online but, if nothing has changed recently, you will receive:

  • 750 points for referring a friend to Heathrow Rewards (500 points for standard members)
  • 150 bonus points when you book Heathrow Porters (not available for standard members)
  • 150 bonus points when you book Shop & Collect (100 points for standard members)
  • 150 bonus points when you use Reserve & Collect (100 points for standard members)
  • 150 bonus points when you use Home Delivery (100 points for standard members)

Is Heathrow Rewards Premium worth having?

It isn’t worth pushing for, no.  There is some value to it – mainly an extra 1% return on your spending for the rest of the current and all of the following year – but this isn’t worth much.

The Rocketmiles offer (5,000 points on your first booking after hitting Premium) sounds attractive, but Rocketmiles runs identical ‘open to all’ offers every now and then. 

Of course, if you can hit Premium naturally via your airport spending then you should definitely ensure you claim your points.

When Premium launched there was one additional perk.  When Heathrow Rewards ran a transfer bonus to an airline, Premium members would get a 100% bonus whilst standard members only got 50%.  This WAS a valuable benefit.  However, transfer bonuses have been thin on the ground recently, even before the pandemic, and those we have seen have not offered special deals for Premium members.

Comments (17)

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

  • Phillip says:

    Once upon a time Premium members got enhanced airmiles transfer rates when there was a promotion in place, but we haven’t seen any transfer promos in over 3 (?) years!

  • Tom says:

    The UK Duty Free rules changing I imagine have hit Heathrow Premium pretty hard. I used to spend a lot at Heathrow, now there is basically no benefit to buying at most airside shops. I also find it odd Heathrow didn’t extend Premium status during the pandemic, I was about £100 short of the spending threshold last year and have been dropped to basic tier, which means I will probably spend even less this year as a result.

    • FlightDoctor says:

      Exactly the same for me. I was just shy of hitting the threshold this last year and have been downgraded to basic membership, despite having Premier since the scheme started. I agree it’s not worth chasing given the poor returns and there are better deals to be had outside of the airport

    • Paul says:

      I spent almost £5000 in 2019 and got no extension. I was in market for a Swiss watch and watched of Switzerland offered 5% off list but it was not enough. VAT refunds from Europe and bigger discounts in Asia, combined with Heathrow’s total disregard for their customers means I actively avoid shipping for anything now.

  • Rob H says:

    Can you transfer Avios Into Heathrow rewards to redeem on parking at Hesthrow,

  • Wally1976 says:

    The beauty of discovering ‘free’ ways into airport lounges (via this site) means I now hardly ever set foot inside an airport shop 😁! Suits me just fine.

  • Geoff says:

    I’m nowhere near premium and only use my HR points for parking. Unfortunately, although it is relatively easy to redeem them, it is never easy to get the points refunded when you cancel your ‘fully refundable’ booking.

    Previously you had to phone to get them back but now that Heathrow Parking is a subset of the generic Heathrow telephone number you can never get through. I managed it recently via Twitter but we should not really have to rely on social media messaging when the IT should be able to sort it out.

  • Jonathan says:

    I didn’t know Lufthansa Miles & More has a UK based earning partner !

    I think I recall hearing that there’s an ongoing court case to decide whether or not it’s a cryptocurrency ?
    If I’m right, anyone with some news on the case at all ?

    • Stu_N says:

      Its not a very useful one as HR points are difficult to earn in any significant scale. You used to be able to transfer into HR from some airline schemes (I think M&M was one, and Emirates) but those points were ring-fenced so couldn’t be transferred out for airline miles IIRC.

      • Rob says:

        You can still do that but, yes, ring fenced. Half decent deal if you use them for Heathrow parking, weak deal if used for Heathrow shopping.

        • Steve says:

          Do we know if a Miles & More credit card will be re-appearing in UK market?

          • Rob says:

            It’s unlikely as of today and I think you’ll find it will be even more unlikely next month.

  • Sean says:

    Heathrow rewards did something to the back end during the pandemic. In the old days you would see your transaction seamlessly on the app instantly. Now it is not only very clunky but it doesn’t update often, if at all and you have to chase for anything to credit. It is t really worth having any more and, since there have been no transfer bonuses at all, I’m thinking of just transferring them to an airline program. Im struggling to see why Heathrow bother with this.

    • Scott says:

      I can’t remember the last time I used it.
      Shopping wise, a couple of times a year I may buy a drink or meal deal from WHSmiths or Boots, or some random toiletry I forgot.

      Parking is generally far cheaper off site, or it’s more cost effective to connect from NCL into LHR.

  • flyforfun says:

    I used to use HR a lot, but this was 2 decades ago!! You used to get free/discounted Heathrow Express tickets quite easily if I remember right. But tickets weren’t as stupidly priced as they are now. I think it was only £8, but you could get the tube from Zone 1 for £3ish. My company had a weekend do at a hotel out there and some of the execs were saying they wouldn’t sigh off on the expense of the HEX tickets when the tube was cheaper. After a skinfull and needing to be out of the room by 10am I didn’t fancy 40 to 60 mins on the tube and used my free ticket to slide onto the HEX while the others endured a hung over and tired tube ride back into town.

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