The weekly Head for Points travel trade newsletter
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Welcome to your weekly trade round-up of UK business travel and travel loyalty news as well as our latest reviews and features.
This newsletter is the successor to Malcolm Ginsberg’s Business Travel News which Head for Points acquired. If you are not a subscriber, you can sign up here to receive this free newsletter in your inbox every Monday. Please forward it to any colleagues who you think may be interested.
Malcolm’s new monthly forward-looking Travel News Update is available at travelnewsupdate.co.uk.
Airlines 2023:
We are attending the Airlines 2023 conference today (Monday) – please say Hi if you see us.
The latest UK business travel news:
Exclusive: Virgin Atlantic cancels Sao Paulo before flights even start (for the second time!) It will try again in 2025.
Can ‘all business class’ to the Maldives work? Rhys tours Beond before its inaugural flight
Virgin Group wants to run Channel Tunnel trains to Europe
We try Wheely’s ‘Perfect Airport Pickup’
easyJet is offering home luggage collection for Gatwick customers – FREE for FLEXI customers
Here’s the full schedule for lounge closures and refurbishment at Luton Airport
citizenM has launched a hotel sale, with six months of mycitizenM+ for all bookers
Which? magazine reveals the best and worst UK hotel chains
JetBlue is offering some good value (£1,650ish) business class fares from London to New York
We’ve been shortlisted for three industry awards
Stories we recommend from other sites:
Norse Atlantic flies first-ever Dreamliner to Antarctica (UK Aviation News)
British Airways’ sustainable fuel project gets £9 million cash injection (TTG)
Heathrow rail links suspended next weekend (Travel Weekly)
Competition regulator warns Norwegian it is considering blocking Wideroe merger (FlightGlobal)
Dutch government scraps plans to cut flights at Amsterdam Schiphol (Business Traveller)
Our latest reviews:
After 11 years, we’ve finally updated our review of the British Airways Galleries First Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5. If you book the last flight of the night it turns out that you can take pictures without the crowds! Image above.
Further afield, Rhys concludes his Hong Kong trip with a Cathay Pacific The Pier Business lounge review.
He then headed to Taiwan (he did have a couple of days in London in between!) to review Hotel Resonance Taipei, part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection.
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
Redeem Avios on transatlantic JetBlue flights with ZERO surcharges (for now) – you can also redeem Avios on JetBlue domestic flights in the US. Image above.
Qatar Airways has opened up a LOT of Avios availability for autumn 2024
Get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG One Rewards points – click here to buy
American Express Shop Small returns in December
Amex brings back the British Airways Accelerating Business Card for small businesses. Get 30,000 Avios for signing up. Having a personal BA Amex is not a problem. You can apply here.
Get 2,500 Virgin Points by activating Tesco Clubcard auto-convert
Why does Nectar’s shopping portal perform so badly?
Thank you for reading
Please drop me a note at rob@headforpoints.com with any feedback. See you next Monday.
Rob, Rhys and Sinead @ Head for Points
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