Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

What you missed on Head for Points last week

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Welcome to the Head for Points weekly newsletter, full of the latest Avios, travel loyalty and travel credit card news, hints and tips.

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THREE DAYS LEFT: GET 45,000 AVIOS WITH THE BA AMEX SMALL BUSINESS CARD

A great new bonus of 45,000 Avios launched last month on the British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card. It ends on Monday night.

This card is aimed at small businesses and sole traders. You can get the bonus even if you have a personal British Airways Amex card. The only people who are excluded are those who have had an Amex Business card in the past year.

This is a VERY generous offer if you run your own business, however small. You can find out more in our article here.

You can apply here.

British Airways BA Amex American Express cards

THREE DAYS LEFT: HIGHER BONUSES ON THE BA AMEX PERSONAL CARDS

As a reminder, here are the limited time credit card sign-up bonuses on the personal British Airways American Express cards which are about to end:

British Airways American Express

Until 28th February, you will receive 10,000 Avios when you apply for the free BA Amex credit card. Click for our full article or apply here.

British Airways Premium Plus American Express

Until 28th February, you will receive 40,000 Avios when you apply for the BA Premium Plus Amex card. Click for our full article or apply here.

The latest travel and aviation news:

BIG NEWS! Qatar Airways has announced it will be adopting Avios as its loyalty currency. Details so far are scant, but the switchover will happen in the next few weeks. There are some very exciting plans ahead, and it may change how you choose to spend your Avios – more to be revealed before the big switch happens in late March.

Always be on your guard: scammers are increasingly targetting loyalty schemes and travel companies. This week a reader was very nearly fooled by a fake flight refund scam due to a cloned Vueling Facebook page.

British Airways and Avios news:

HGV drivers at BA catering supplier DO&CO have announced a strike over a pay dispute for the first week of March. Who will back down first? BA flights are likely to have no catering if the strike goes ahead.

Aer Lingus Avio redemptions are now bookable via ba.com, albeit with a £50 surcharge over avios.com pricing. Here’s how to avoid being overcharged.

There is a bug on the BA website that all Gold members should know about when booking Avios redemptions in Economy.

British Airways has added a new day flight from Newark – but it leaves very early.

Next time you’re in Spain you can earn 400 Avios by using the Cabify rideshare app for the first time.

Credit card and payments news:

Amex FX International Payments is offering a 30,000 Membership Rewards points bonus for anyone making three large FX transactions in the next month.

Our annual review of UK rewards credit cards ended this week with the final review, which covered the American Express Platinum Cashback cards.

Hotel news:

Marriott Bonvoy is finally bringing the St Regis luxury brand to London in 2023. It will involve a £90 million renovation of an existing hotel.

We have been working with IHG to bring you details of 10 new IHG Rewards hotels opening in 2022 which would resonate with a UK audience. Thailand, Italy, Austria and the UAE are some of the destinations to get exciting about.

This week, Rhys reviewed the brand new Westin London City hotel located in the Queenshithe dock. The hotel features river views plus has one of the best Club lounges we have ever seen.

Rob heads to the new-ish Moxy hotel at Heathrow Airport and concludes that low cost doesn’t equal low quality.

Does converting hotel points to air miles ever make sense? We take a look and do the maths.

St Regis London
Soon-to-open St Regis London

Other interesting articles:

Virgin Atlantic is currently offering its biggest ‘buy points’ bonus ever of up to 70%.

You can earn Virgin Points on your next restaurant meal when you book via a new partnership with SquareMeal.

What benefits does Heathrow Rewards Premium membership get you?

Offers you missed:

No deals came and went quickly this week.

Our round up of deals ending soon is here.

Interesting threads from our forums this week:

The full forum index is here.

See you next Saturday.

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