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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This week’s top travel news stories:

Leaked: Iberia’s new A321XLR business class seat, image above

BA Cityflyer’s first densified Embraer E190 started flying this week with a new seat and less legroom

Virgin Atlantic relaunches flights to Toronto

The Marriott Glasgow hotel is being refurbished with the public areas now complete

ebookers.com is to close down in September

The UK Government brings back the 100ml liquids rule at airports with new security scanners

One Key will replace Hotels.com Rewards and Expedia Rewards from 8th July

Lufthansa launches an SAS status match

Lufthansa announces more routes with the new Allegris seat, image below

Travel deals of the week:

Get 5,000 Virgin Points for activating Tesco Clubcard auto-convert

British Airways & Avios news:

Avios CEO talks about expanding the currency to more airlines and even hotels …. and devaluation

Can you cancel the return leg of an Avios ticket if you have flown the outbound leg?

British Airways First Class Avios redemptions are cheaper than mixed Club/First flights! Honestly.

Credit card news:

Why the Marriott Bonvoy 60,000 points sign-up bonus is a great way to (re)start with Amex

Our series of credit card reviews continues:

• Review: British Airways American Express Premium Plus card
• Review: British Airways American Express card
• Review: HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard
• Review: HSBC Premier Mastercard

Reviews:

Rhys reviews the Arts Hotel Porto, in Portugal, part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection. Image above.

Hotel news:

Virgin Hotels comes to London as Mondrian Shoreditch rebrands

Holiday Inn Winchester rebrands and refurbishes

Hilton launches a new 100% ‘buy points’ bonus – click here to buy

Other travel news:

How to redeem Virgin Points at Greggs!

EL AL flights will be bookable with Virgin Points from next week

What will the business class seats of the future look like?

How to earn Avios, miles and points from Europcar rentals

STILL RUNNING: Get a 30,000 points bonus (converts to 30,000 Avios) with ‘free for a year’ Amex Gold

American Express is running a special sign-up bonus on American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – apply here. The bonus is increased from 20,000 to 30,000 Membership Rewards points which converts to:

• 30,000 Avios
• 30,000 Virgin Points
• 30,000 Emirates, Etihad, Flying Blue, Asia Miles, Delta, Finnair, Qantas or SAS miles
• 20,000 Singapore Airlines miles
• 60,000 Hilton Honors points
• 45,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
• 90,000 Radisson Rewards points
• 2,000 Club Eurostar points

….. and many other non-travel rewards.

You receive 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending £3,000 in three months. You will receive a further 5,000 points if you keep the card for 15 months.

Even better, you get:

• four passes for any airport lounge in the Priority Pass network

• 24 x £5 credits to spend at Deliveroo (max one per order and two per month)

• up to 12,500 bonus Membership Rewards points each year based on your spending (2,500 points per £5,000 spent)

The card is free for the first year. If you keep it beyond the first year there is an annual fee of £195. You receive a further four airport lounge passes and more Deliveroo credits on renewal.

Our main article on the 30,000 points bonus is here. Make sure you read the bit about whether or not you qualify for the bonus.

You can apply for American Express Preferred Rewards Gold with the special bonus on this page of the Amex website.

The representative APR is 87.3% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases, and in the first year which has no fee, is 30.0% variable.

That’s all, folks

Our latest round-up 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,

Rob, Rhys and Katie @ Head for Points