‘The Travel Brief’, the weekly Head for Points travel trade newsletter
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Welcome to The Travel Brief, your weekly trade round-up of UK business travel and travel loyalty news as well as our latest reviews and features.
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We’ll be at Farnborough this week, with the two key events – from our perspective – being the launch of the new Qatar Airways Qsuite Next Gen seat (noon today) and Virgin Atlantic’s rumoured Airbus A330neo order (tomorrow). More on these next Monday, or take a look at headforpoints.com during the week.
The latest UK business travel news:
Hyatt is in talks to buy The Standard hotel chain, image above
Virgin Atlantic drops Shanghai flights, its last East Asian destination
British Airways introduces Grind coffee to short-haul flights
Virgin Atlantic launches a new American Express cashback offer worth up to £250
Look inside Finnair’s new Schengen Lounge at Helsinki Airport
British Airways adds London Stansted to Geneva flights
Mandarin Oriental launches a new American Express cashback deal
Virgin Limited Edition joins Preferred Hotels
IHG’s Kimpton BEM Budapest opens
Stories we recommend from other sites:
Qantas launches nonstop Perth-Paris service (Business Traveller)
What’s driving the resurgent M&A interest in the travel sector? (TTG)
Ryanair wins screenscraping case against Booking.com (Travel Weekly)
Robin and Judy Hutson to retire from The Pig (Boutique Hotelier)
EASA certifies new Airbus A321XLR (Simple Flying)
Our latest reviews:
We head to the launch party of the new Edinburgh Marriott Hotel Holyrood hotel. What has £10m done to this ex-Macdonald hotel? Image above.
In London, we check out the Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel, a modern property which includes an executive lounge
In Brussels, Rhys reviews the Eurostar Business Premier lounge at Brussels Midi/Zuid
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
British Airways devalues Club Europe Avios redemptions, image above
This wasn’t the first devaluation of the week: Avios flights on American Airlines, Alaska and LATAM get pricier
Got BA status? Get SkyTeam status now – and Star Alliance status later – via ITA’s new BA status match
Emirates follows Singapore Airlines in cutting its American Express transfer rate
Virgin Atlantic offering double points on some USA routes for a week
Get a refund to your American Express card? Here’s how it impacts your vouchers and bonuses
What new Avios earn and spend partners did Qatar Airways bring?
How to turn off the annoying Amex ‘Do you want to pay with points?’ pop-up window
Are the four Amex Platinum hotel status cards worth having? If so, the current ‘40,000 points + £400 travel credit’ bonus is worth a look.
How to redeem Emirates miles from Milan or Athens to New York
Thank you for reading
Please drop me a note at rob@headforpoints.com with any feedback. See you next Monday.
Rob, Rhys and Katie @ Head for Points
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