Heathrow Rewards gives five hours notice of downtime and partner losses

Back in December, Heathrow Rewards, the loyalty programme for shoppers at the airport, emailed members with details of some changes to the scheme.

(If you’re not a Heathrow Rewards member and don’t know anything about it, take a look at our introductory guide here.)

There was no exact date given for the changes. However, at 6.30pm last night, Heathrow Rewards emailed members to say that the scheme would go offline at midnight – and that unflagged changes were coming.

What is changing with Heathrow Rewards?

If you’ve ever accessed Heathrow Rewards online, you’ll have noticed that the airport website has two log-in areas. The rewards programme has always been kept separate from the airport customer database.

This is now changing.

When Heathrow Rewards comes back on line on 31st January, you will access Heathrow Rewards, Official Heathrow Parking and Reserve & Collect via a central log in.

After the switch, you will need to create a new password and set up 2FA. If you have separate accounts with different parts of Heathrow under the same email address, they will be merged.

Virtually nothing was meant to change:

• you would continue to earn 1 point per £1 spent at the airport, on Official Heathrow Parking or on Heathrow Express

• points would continue to be redeemable for shopping vouchers or airline miles, including Avios

We were told of a few tweaks:

Rocketmiles points would no longer be transferable

Heathrow Rewards has a partnership with hotel booking site Rocketmiles which lets you earn points on your stays. This has been attractive because Heathrow Rewards has multiple airline partners and it made sense to credit Rocketmiles bookings here rather than directly to an airline.

From early 2025, Rocketmiles points were to be ring-fenced. You will only be able to use them for Heathrow shopping vouchers and not transfer them to an airline partner. This would mirror the current situation if you transferred Emirates or Lufthansa miles into Heathrow Rewards.

Transfers in from Emirates Skywards would extend the life of your points

You had always been able to transfer Emirates Skywards miles into Heathrow Rewards points at the rate of 6,000 Skywards miles to 2,000 Heathrow Rewards points.

This wasn’t hugely attractive because you were only getting £20 of value for your 6,000 miles.

These transfers had not, historically, counted as ‘activity’ when it came to stopping your points balance from expiring. This was due to change, allowing you to extend the life of your points via an Emirates inward transfer.

It appears that transfers in from Lufthansa Miles & More already counted as ‘activity’ so nothing was to change here.

What happened yesterday?

Heathrow Rewards sent out an email at 6.30pm last night highlighting two key changes which would kick in at midnight last night when the site was to go offline for three days.

These are the total opposite of what we were promised:

Emirates Skywards is no longer a partner

Yes, forget the email you received about Emirates Skywards transfers now counting as activity to extend the life of your Heathrow Rewards balance.

As of midnight last night, you cannot transfer Emirates Skywards miles to Heathrow Rewards OR transfer Heathrow Rewards points to Emirates Skywards.

Lufthansa Miles & More is no longer an inbound partner

You can no longer transfer Miles & More points into Heathrow Rewards. This is despite the fact that the December email confirmed that such transfers would continue.

What is going on here?

I’ve no idea, and couldn’t find out given the time that the email was sent.

However, there is one glimmer of hope. The email said:

From 27 January 2025, Emirates Skywards will no longer be a conversion partner for Heathrow Rewards. Members will not be able to convert points and/or Skywards Miles between the two programmes. Additionally, Miles & More members will not be able to convert miles into Heathrow Rewards vouchers. We will notify you of any future updates to this arrangement.

The final few words imply that this may not be a permanent change. Is it possible that the new IT platform isn’t capable of storing points in two pots (transferable and non-transferable) so inbound transfers had to stop? This wouldn’t explain why outbound Emirates Skywards transfers are being stopped though.

There was also nothing in the email yesterday about Rocketmiles points starting to be ring fenced, alongside Emirates and Lufthansa transfers, despite what we were told in December.

Conclusion

Heathrow Rewards will be back online on 31st January, so we may get a better sense then of what is happening.

The email last night left a lot of questions. Why has Emirates Skywards suddenly gone from offering an improved benefit to leaving the programme entirely in just a month? And why was Lufthansa Miles & More still featured in the ‘new’ T&Cs if inbound transfers were ending? And why just give five hours notice of these changes? It’s all very odd.