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‘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 the latest reviews and features from the Head for Points team.

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W Kuala Lumpur

The latest UK business travel news:

British Airways drops flights to Kuala Lumpur just four weeks before the route was due to launch

The Park Hyatt London River Thames hotel is open – we went down for a look

Aer Lingus launches Nashville as its first A321XLR route

A Louis Vuitton cafe opens in Heathrow Terminal 2

British Airways has started offering ‘hot deals – the first has already ended but you could have got £1,500 Club World return flights to India

Get £75 back on a £300 spend at selected UK hotels as ‘Amex Stays’ returns

Excellent £100 Hyatt / American Express hotel cashback deal launched

American Express in Spain has sharply cut Priority Pass visits via The Platinum Card – you’re now allowed just 20 per year

The new ba.com website is now accessible via a special URL

Holiday Inn Winchester has now rebranded as voco Winchester after a full refurbishment

Four UK Sleeperz hotels rebrand to Marriott’s Four Points Plus chain, image below

…. which, as we covered separately, is the new name for Four Points Express

Stories we recommend from other sites:

Privilege Club members can now redeem Avios on Qatar Executive charter flights (Business Traveller)

European Union confirms further delay to Entry-Exit System (BBC)

Emirates unveils new experiential Travel Store in London (Emirates.com)

Dalata opens Maldron Hotel Shoreditch (Business Traveller)

Our latest reviews:

Our reviews section will return next week

The latest UK travel loyalty news:

Become a points millionaire …. by taking 15 SkyTeam flights. SAS has launched a crazy promotion, worth a huge £10,000 of points to everyone who completes it, to celebrate its move from Star Alliance to SkyTeam ….

…. but the rules have already had to be tweaked once

The British Airways American Express companion voucher spend target rises to £15,000 in three weeks – what can you do?

Should you cancel your free British Airways American Express if you can’t spend £15,000?

Get 3,000 Virgin Points AND 12 bottles of wine for just £66!

How could you spend the 80,000 Amex Membership Rewards points you can currently earn for signing up to Amex Business Platinum?

Get 250 Avios for joining Marriott Bonvoy – no hotel stay required!

See an NFL game in Munich from VIP seats with Marriott Bonvoy points

How does the Skywards+, the Emirates PAID loyalty programme, work?

Use Avios for VIP Champions League packages via Qatar Airways Privilege Club

Amex Platinum makes a permanent increase to its sign-up bonus – now 50,000 points, which converts to 50,000 Avios

We ran two articles looking at American Express supplementary cards and how they work:

Special bonuses launched for adding free Amex supplementary cards to your account

Can you get an Amex sign-up bonus if you already have the same card as a supplementary?

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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