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News: British Airways adds Grenoble flights, get 10% off Enterprise car rentals

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News in brief:

British Airways adds flights to Grenoble

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve covered the launch of the British Airways ski schedule from London Gatwick, primarily to Salzburg and Geneva. It has also added Heathrow flights to Innsbruck.

If you jumped in when we announced the flights, you could have picked up the guaranteed Avios seats for peak weeks and saved yourself a small fortune.

British Airways has now added a new Gatwick ski route – Grenoble.

Flights start on 3rd December and operate at weekends only, on Saturday and Sunday.

Avios availability is excellent. As of 10pm last night, you could even get a family of four away for February half term as long as you flew out on the Sunday.

Save 10% on a UK Enterprise car rental for the Bank Holiday weekend

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is running a special offer for anyone who has decided to stay in the UK over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Via this link – and only this link – you can save 10%+ on rentals starting on Thursday 25th, Friday 26th or Saturday 27th August.

Enterprise sites in the North West (Manchester / Liverpool area) are not participating but the rest of the UK is fine.

Your rental will also earn points and miles in selected loyalty schemes including Virgin Points and Hilton Honors.

Enterprise now has over 400 rental sites in the UK so there is likely to be one near you, wherever you live. What I didn’t realise until recently is how much Avis in particular has pulled back from non-airport sites, with only a couple left in Central London.

You can get a quote via the special microsite here.

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards (April 2024)

If you hire a car in the UK, you can get special benefits (discounts, upgrades, free additional drivers etc) if you have elite status with a car rental programme. You can get elite status for free via certain American Express cards.

The Platinum Card and American Express Business Platinum

The Platinum Card from American Express and American Express Business Platinum come with two free car hire status cards. Your supplementary Platinum cardholder can also receive status in their own right.

From Avis, you receive President’s Club status in Avis Preferred. This gets you up to 25% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a guaranteed one class upgrade. For weekend rentals you will receive a two class upgrade, subject to availability.

From Hertz, you receive ‘Five Star’ status in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. This gets you up to 15% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a one class upgrade, subject to availability.

Hertz also offers Platinum cardholders a 4 hour grace period on rentals. Your final day is treated as 28 hours, so a 1pm pick up with a 5pm return the following day is only charged as one day, not two days. We wrote about the Hertz / Platinum 4 hour grace period here.

The Platinum Card also comes with full car hire insurance with no obligation to pay for the rental via American Express. You can refuse any attempts to sell you additional insurance at pick up. This benefit has substantial value if you rent on a regular basis.

You can find more details on the two Platinum cards, and apply, in our full reviews linked below. You can apply here for the personal card and here for the business card.

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

American Express Business Platinum

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

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is an excellent card in its own right. You receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up (convert to 20,000 Avios amongst other things), four airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit. Even better, your first year is free.

There are two car rental benefits:

  • you receive Preferred Plus status in Avis Preferred
  • you receive a special package with Hertz – 10% off best available rates at participating locations, a one class upgrade for rentals of 5 days or more, subject to availability, and no additional driver fees

Find out more about the benefits of American Express Preferred Rewards Gold in our review. You can apply here.

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

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (21)

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

  • Go197 says:
    21 Aug21 August 05:27

    I have Millennium Copthorne £70 off £200

  • wolf says:
    21 Aug21 August 08:41

    Watch out: I learnt the hard way last weekend that if you book a car through Enterprise, and get a confirmation email, and an online check-in email, and complete online check-in, it STILL doesn’t mean they actually have a car for you

    Apparently the online system doesn’t have accurate live availability from the branch, and will let you have a car that doesn’t exist

    An hour before the start time the branch phoned to say they had to cancel because no fleet for me.

    And it turns out the website terms allow for this – unless you prepay they can cancel any time for any reason, even after they’ve confirmed the booking.

    (And I’m Enterprise executive elite status. Though it shouldn’t be happening to anyone!). I’m very wary of booking through them in future.

    I know others (e.g. Europcar) do treat a confirmed booking as a valid contract in their terms. I’ve had them cancel me too for lack of fleet, but at least then there’s legal recourse / S75 to go get the equivalent from another company.

    • Comment says:
      21 Aug21 August 09:02

      This is shocking and a good reason not to book with Enterprise…

    • HH says:
      21 Aug21 August 10:23

      I’d booked the smallest / cheapest car to go around Napa Valley. When we turned up, all they had for us was a Dodge Ram that’s more truck than car-like… We had to decline it and Ubered from Oakland to Berkeley to another branch that luckily had a suitable car.

  • Robbo says:
    21 Aug21 August 09:00

    How do you earn Virgin or Hilton points with Enterprise, I don’t see anywhere to enter a loyalty number during booking?

    • Rob says:
      21 Aug21 August 09:07

      There is a dropdown when you book – I saw it last night!

      • Roboo says:
        22 Aug22 August 17:35

        Yes you’re right I can see it on this microsite but on their normal website there is no option to enter it.

  • Richie says:
    21 Aug21 August 09:35

    I don’t trust enterprise because they cancelled an enterprise car club booking without telling me and didn’t offer me a sensible alternative. The service was very poor with cars occassionally in the wrong place. I didn’t renew my £60 membership. Never had problems with Zipcar.

    • Rob says:
      21 Aug21 August 10:11

      I’ve had Zipcars in the wrong place. Not much the car club can do if someone returns a car and someone else has stolen the spot ….

      • Richie says:
        21 Aug21 August 14:06

        I’m not a techy person, but if each car has a gprs emitter thing, then they may know where their cars are at any given time, so if a driver parks the car in the wrong place, ends the trip, then can’t the software be programmed to recognise a wrong location and then advise the next trip driver where the new location of the car is and if they want to pick up at the revised location? Perhaps my expectations are a bit too high.

  • RussellH says:
    21 Aug21 August 10:14

    I imagine that there is no way of getting points retrospectively, especially when the hires were last autumn?

  • Charlie says:
    21 Aug21 August 10:37

    Grenoble is terrible – I went there last year and they had only two border guards on passport control – as a result the baggage hall was overcrowded and they couldn’t get the bags delivered. I have an EU passport even and was 2 hours from getting off the flight. Then car hire was a disaster too.

    Would definitely avoid and go to Geneva / Lyon if possible.

    • Rich says:
      22 Aug22 August 22:35

      Wait till you’ve tried Chambéry 😉 Makes Grenoble look like the poster boy for efficiency.

  • Ben says:
    21 Aug21 August 11:47

    Cancelling Seoul, Bangkok or Seychelles but adding Grenoble?! I get it’s not the same crew or plane type but being French I’m wondering who might want to go to Grenoble… Switzerland is already served by lots of BA routes and ski is far better on that side of the border.

    • Lady London says:
      21 Aug21 August 15:54

      Hitting short haul school holidays & peak periods is probably a lot more profitable per mile flown for airlines right now. I’m not surprised BA has cancelled Bangkok and swooped in on Salzburg etc. for school hols.

      After all, nearly £900 was not unknown for an Easyjet seat, for Friedrichshafen on a school ski hols Saturday, and Easyjet would have made more on that seat than BA did to Bangkok

    • Marcw says:
      21 Aug21 August 19:30

      That’s what happens when you have a CEO that only knows how to count olives.

    • Rich says:
      22 Aug22 August 22:41

      Brits go to France to ski. Whether it’s supply or demand, or a bit of both, I don’t know. But you could lay on a fleet of magic A380s to Sion and the only question would be “how do I get a transfer to Val d’Isere?”

  • Joe says:
    21 Aug21 August 23:34

    Cheers Rob, I booked 3 avios return Grenoble flights this morning for the Sunday of Feb half term and delighted with that…!

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