‘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.
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.
The latest UK business travel news:
Qatar Airways introduces caviar in Business Class as the quality gap keeps widening
Wizz Air launches £429 All You Can Fly subscription …. but what’s the catch?
Avios Group at risk for £600 million of unpaid VAT in HMRC investigation
Expedia Group halts the rollout of One Key, but it’s too late for the US and UK
Czech Airlines to cease operations after 100 years
What are American Express Centurion Lounges, and where are they?
Singapore Airlines adds more flights to the UK
Luton Airport launches its own loyalty scheme
Virgin Atlantic extends Cape Town flights to April 2025
How does the British Airways ‘new parent’ status extension work?
NoMad London now bookable on Hilton.com – with a good 4-4-3 cash deal available
Stories we recommend from other sites:
Leeds Bradford Airport unveils Vision 2030 strategy (Business Traveller)
Passport staff at Heathrow set for peak time strike (TTG)
Air Canada to resume non-stop flights between Heathrow and Ottawa (Travel Weekly)
Ascott to debut The Unlimited Collection in the UK (Business Traveller)
Our latest reviews:
Katie heads to Domes Novos Santorini, one of two new Domes resorts in Greece – image above
Rhys heads to, erm, south London to visit The Hoxton Southwark
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
REGISTER NOW: Hilton launches its new bonus points promotion for September to December stays – click here to register. Hilton Park Lane pictured above.
Get a mystery bonus when you buy Marriott Bonvoy points – click here to buy
Is ‘wait and see’ a better points strategy than ‘earn and burn’? We get philosophical ….
What’s inside the new Virgin Red Room VIP suite at The O2? We went down to take a look
Redeem Virgin Points for December events at The O2, including Paul McCartney
Time is running out: Get 40,000 points + £400 travel credit with the Amex Platinum card
Get 200 free Club Eurostar points, worth £15 – virtually no effort required
Big changes are coming to the Aer Lingus credit card in Ireland
Here’s how BA and Amex should improve their cobrand credit cards – at least, we like the idea!
Where can you spend your £300 Amex Platinum dining credit?
NEW: Get 10,000 Avios with the FREE Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit card!
Barclaycard has launched a special promotion if you sign up for the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit card by 26th September.
The sign-up bonus is doubled – you will receive 10,000 Avios instead of the usual 5,000 Avios.
If you’ve not had any Barclaycard products for the last two years then you will definitely get the bonus if you spend £1,000 in three months. If you have/had other Barclaycards, the full rules about whether you qualify are in our article here.
This is the ideal credit card to use when American Express is not accepted. You will earn 1 Avios for every £1 spent.
It is also worth using as your primary credit card if you currently have the free British Airways American Express card but don’t spend £15,000 per year to trigger the Companion Voucher. You might as well use the free Barclaycard Avios credit card and just have one credit card for all your spending.
If you spend £20,000 per year on the card you will also earn an upgrade voucher, valid on any Avios redemption. Full details of how that works are in our article here.
You can apply for the free Barclaycard Avios credit card by clicking here.
The representative APR is 29.9% variable.
Head for Points receives a commission if you apply via our link – thank you.
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
PS. If you were forwarded ‘The Travel Brief’ by a colleague, you can sign up for a free subscription by filling in the form here
