Bits: £50 Amex cashback on £150 NH Hotels spend, fly to Rabat on Royal Air Maroc on Avios

News in brief:

Get £50 American Express cashback on £150 NH Hotels spend

Whilst British Airways and Iberia have, over the years, harmonised their partners, there are still some oddities.

NH Hotels, for example, is the only major chain which works with Iberia Plus but not British Airways Executive Club.

A new £50 Amex cashback deal may mean you want to give them a try.

Earn Avios with NH Hotels

NH Hotels is one of those niche European hotel chains that is rarely seen in the UK (the London one is now closed, as Business Traveller reports here) but crops up quite frequently on the continent.

As well as the main NH Hotels brand, the group also includes the funky nhow chain which does have a London outpost, in Shoreditch – see here.

The standard Avios earning rate with NH Hotels and nhow is shown here at iberia.com.  You earn between 200 and 450 Avios per night depending on the quality of the hotel. To earn Avios at NH Hotels, you need to open an Iberia Plus account at iberia.com and give that number to the hotel.  British Airways Executive Club numbers are not accepted. 

Once the Avios arrive in your Iberia Plus account, you can transfer them to British Airways using the ‘Combine My Avios’ feature online.  This HfP article explains in detail how ‘Combine My Avios’ works.

NH Hotels and nhow are now part of Global Hotel Alliance

It is also possible to book NH and nhow hotels via Global Hotel Alliance. We looked at GHA in detail here and interviewed CEO Chris Hartley here.

The GHA Discovery loyalty programme has an interesting quirk as we explain here.

• Platinum status can be earned via $5,000 of spend but also by staying at just two different GHA brands

• Top tier Titanium status can be earned via $15,000 of spend but also by staying at just three different GHA brands

If you had been looking at Global Hotel Alliance status, the cashback offer we are about to discuss offers a cheap way of ticking off another brand. Note that NH and nhow are treated as the same brand for the purposes of this offer.

Earn £50 American Express cashback too

NH Hotels has just launched a new cashback deal with American Express, and it is very generous.

You will earn £50 cashback on £150 spend before 25th August.

It is valid at participating hotels (click here, PDF) across Europe, including the nhow hotel in London. A few European Anantara and Tivoli hotels are also included, since NH now controls these.

You can find out more about NH Hotels on their website here.

Royal Air Maroc brings back its Rabat route

Royal Air Maroc is to bring back its seasonal route from London Gatwick to Rabat for Autumn 2023.

Flights start at the end of October with the switch to the winter airline timetables. There will be three flights per week on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

These are ‘one class’ Economy only flights.

You can book with Avios, as Royal Air Maroc is a member of the oneworld alliance alongside British Airways. Flights show as available on ba.com but I was getting error messages when trying to get a final price so you may need to call the Executive Club to book.

If you’re looking for somewhere to stay, Hilton’s luxury Conrad brand opened a hotel in Rabat last year – website here.

Hat-tip to @SeanM1997 on Twitter.