What you missed on Head for Points last week

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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Top deals of the week:

Earn 5 Avios per £1 you spend at Pret! A new offer has appeared for a 2-month trial period that should sweeten your lunch breaks.

Get a 50% rebate on ALL Virgin Atlantic redemptions. An impressive new offer from Virgin Atlantic means that you can save 50% of the Virgin Points required for redemptions in economy, Premium and Upper Class to the US and Caribbean.

The latest travel and aviation news:

Heathrow lifts its passenger cap from the 30th October. Airlines should be free to operate full aircraft again, although in practice the winter period tends to be quieter. Heathrow is also threatening to reinstate more targeted measures during particularly busy days in the run up to Christmas.

Priority Pass increases fees by 20%. The lounge access operator has raised prices to £24 for customers who buy a pass directly, and will likely follow through with similar rises for Amex cardholders. LoungeKey will be impacted too.

The government has decided to drop plans to curtain flight compensation on domestic routes. That means you are still protected under EU261 rules should there be cancellation or delay.

Aer Lingus has dropped Belfast to Heathrow flights …. but the route is being picked up by British Airways. It’s all down to Brexit.

Virgin Atlantic extends its codeshare agreement with IndiGo. The Indian airline now offers over 20+ different connecting flights to other cities from Delhi and Mumbai.

Avios news:

Book 20 new Gatwick routes for next summer. British Airways has finalised its summer 2023 schedules which means that Avios seats should be widely available – if they haven’t been snapped up by other readers already!

Get up to 10,000 Avios with household, business, medical or landlord insurance. Alan Boswell is a long standing Avios partner and reader feedback is generally very positive.

Nectar is giving away 10,000 points, worth 6,250 Avios, to 100 people in a free draw. Enter via the Nectar app.

Credit card news:

How does the new Barclaycard Avios Plus lounge access benefit work? Barclaycard has partnered with DragonPass Premier+ to offer discounted lounge passes to cardholders. We take a look at how it works in practice.

Get 10,000 Nectar points (6,250 Avios) with the free Sainsbury’s Nectar Card. Regular shopper at Sainsbury’s? You can boost your Nectar (and Avios) balances. Just don’t use the card for any day to day spending ….

You can £50 cashback via American Express when you buy a £200 D&D Restaurants gift card, valid for 12 months. Sites include the old Conran Restaurants empire.

Hotel news:

Redeem IHG One Rewards points for concerts. IHG One Rewards has uploaded its latest batch of concerts to its events platform IHG Access. Concerts in Birmingham, Manchester and London are available.

When do your Hilton Honors points expire? We take a look at the Hilton terms and conditions and what you can do to stop points expiring.

And when do Accor Live Limitless points expire? Here’s how it works.

MeliaRewards reveals how big hotel loyalty programmes work. A peek behind the curtain suggests there are 20 Silver and 5 Gold members for every Platinum member, with some other interesting data on ‘stays by tier’.

Review: the refurbished Sheraton Amsterdam Airport. It’s a transformation, with an impressive club lounge to boot (image above).

Get a 25% bonus when you buy World of Hyatt points. Worth it? (Buy via this link)

Other interesting articles:

Review: Finnair’s Platinum Wing lounge in Helsinki. On a recent Finnair press trip Rhys enjoyed one of the only airside saunas at any airport worldwide in Helsinki! How does it compare to UK lounges?

Get a 60% – 70% bonus when buying Virgin Points. Need to top up your account? Now’s the best time to do it – Virgin never exceeds 70% bonuses.

You are already buying points, even if you don’t realise it. Here’s how loyalty schemes are quietly paid for by the consumer – you.

Next on Netflix: “Pepsi, where’s my Jet?” In 1996, Pepsi launched a brand new campaign that let you collect points to redeem for prizes. The top prize? A Harrier Jump Jet priced at 7 million points – which Pepsi execs though was unachievable ….

What you missed:

The 60,000 bonus on the American Express Platinum Card came to an end this week.

IAG Loyalty asked us to find people to be paid to join a market research panel for cardholders of the new BA Prepaid Mastercard.

You missed your last chance to win exclusive theatre experiences with Amex.

Our latest roundup of miles and points offers closing soon is here.

Don’t forget to visit our forum if you have any questions relating to frequent flyer or hotel loyalty programmes or loyalty credit cards.

See you next Saturday.