‘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.
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.
We are at Airlines 2024 today – please say ‘Hi’ if you see us.
Interview of the week:
We interview Con Korfiatis, CEO of Oman Air – oneworld, fleet changes, dropping First and more
The latest UK business travel news:
NEW: British Airways unveils elite benefits when you fly with Aer Lingus
and in return …. Aer Lingus AerClub members now get elite benefits when flying BA and AA
British Airways adds a new Bergerac routes from Stansted
Bahrain is reprieved as British Airways reverses its decision to close the route
Avios app adds basic – but FREE – reward seat availability notifications
Small Luxury Hotels launches a new loyalty programme, SLH Club
easyJet launches flights to Cape Verde and a round-up of other new routes for 2025
Finnair launches business class food pre-ordering on short-haul European flights
Eurostar lets you bid for upgrades to Eurostar Plus
IHG launches its Black Friday sale early ….
…. whilst Marriott tells us what will be coming up next week
YOTEL London Shoreditch becomes a Four Points Flex hotel
IHG launches ‘IHG Destined’ with extra benefits at 180 of its upscale hotels
Priority Pass launches a sale for buying its airport lounge access cards
Virgin Atlantic publishes official Cape Town rebooking guidelines
Did you know you can’t ‘Part Pay With Avios’ if you lock in a BA fare for 72 hours?
Have you walked the tunnel between Heathrow Terminal 5, T5B and T5C?
The story of the forgotten West London and Imperial Airways Empire air terminals
Stories we recommend from other sites:
BA invests at Cardiff Airport to facilitate A350 maintenance (Business Traveller)
Aurigny adds additional flights for Summer 2025 (UK Aviation News)
How Travel Counsellors “will be a £2 billion business within seven years” (TTG)
Ken McCulloch, founder of Malmaison and Dakota hotels, passes away aged 76 (Boutique Hotelier)
Our latest reviews:
Rhys visits the new Qatar Airways Al Mourjan The Garden lounge in Doha. With a Louis Vuitton cafe and a Dior spa, has Qatar Airways raised its game even further?
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
Get up to 10,000 Heathrow Rewards points with jewellery, watches and technology
Get double Virgin Points with Virgin Trains Ticketing
Get 5% cashback on your BA spend with various non-Avios non-Amex credit cards!
Get 3,000 bonus Avios with The Wine Flyer
How to transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to another person ONLINE, for free
When do your World of Hyatt points expire? How can you stop it?
American Express launches a cashback deal with Official Heathrow Parking
NEW: Got a Limited Company? Get points worth 20,000 Avios!
If you have a limited company or LLP, we are running an exclusive special offer with Capital on Tap and its small business Visa credit card.
This is a hugely powerful card. You earn points worth 1 Avios or 1p of cashback for every £1 you spend and it comes with no FX fees and no ATM fees.
Until 9th December, you will receive 5,000 points (worth 5,000 Avios or £50) for making your first purchase, and a further 15,000 points (worth 15,000 Avios or £150) if you spend £15,000 within three months.
This means you will receive a total bonus of 20,000 points (worth 20,000 Avios or £200) if you hit the £15,000 spend target. You will also receive your standard ‘1 point per £1’ as well.
The £15,000 spend target is lower than the £20,000 target which applied when we last ran this offer. If you felt you couldn’t hit the target last time, you may be able to do it now.
There is an annual fee of £99.
You can find out more in this article. You must apply via this exclusive HfP link to get the bonus. You should select the £99 ‘Business Rewards’ card and not the ‘Pro’ card.
Your interest rate is based on your business profile and can be as low as 14.95% APR variable.
Head for Points receives a small 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, Sinead and Katie @ Head for Points
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