What benefits does Heathrow Rewards Premium membership get you?

Heathrow Rewards, the loyalty scheme for the shops and car parks at London Heathrow, has a little known ‘Premium’ tier. 

If you are planning a shopping spree at Heathrow in the coming weeks, it is worth knowing about the benefits.

How do you earn Heathrow Rewards points?

We wrote a full review of how Heathrow Rewards works in this article.

In summary, Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in Heathrow (1 per £10 on foreign exchange) or on Heathrow Express tickets (online bookings only).  There is also a partnership with Rocketmiles to earn points from your hotel bookings.

Once you’ve earned points you can exchange them for frequent flyer miles or shopping vouchers.  The airline transfer partners are:

• Aegean Miles+Bonus
• Asia Miles
• British Airways Executive Club
• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Lufthansa Miles & More
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Virgin Flying Club

The minimum transfer is 250 Heathrow Rewards points = 250 miles.

As the alternative is swapping 500 points for a £5 Heathrow shopping voucher (or a £10 parking voucher), you are effectively ‘paying’ 1p per airline mile.  This is still a good deal in most cases but bear the alternative in mind before you transfer.

The smallest voucher redemption is for 500 points, so if you only have 250 points and are unlikely to earn any more, airline miles are your only redemption option.

What is the Heathrow Rewards Premium tier?

Heathrow Rewards has a Premium tier. 

You need to spend £750 in a calendar year to qualify. Rocketmiles hotel spend is not included in the £750 target.

When you hit £750 of spending, you will receive Premium status for the remainder of the current calendar year and all of the following year.

What are the benefits of Heathrow Rewards Premium?

The core benefit of being a Heathrow Rewards Premium member is double base points.  You will earn 2 points (so 2 airline miles) per £1 spent, rather than 1 point per £1 spent.

The T&C specifically state that the transaction which takes you over £750 of spending does NOT earn double points. You only benefit of subsequent purchases.

There is no bonus added to points earned from Rocketmiles or from any other external source.

What about other benefits?

Before Heathrow Rewards was merged with the ‘My Heathrow’ member platform last year, there were a number of other perks for becoming Premium.

The website does not now list any specific Premium perks. However, if you hover over the annual spend tracker in the app it says:

• 750 points for referring a friend to Heathrow Rewards who spends £200 in a single transaction

• Additional points with Travelex (I believe this is double points)

• Additional points with your first Rocketmiles hotel booking (was historically 150, not clear what it is now)

Is Heathrow Rewards Premium worth having?

It isn’t worth pushing for, no.

There is some value to it – an extra 1% return on your spending for the rest of the current and all of the following year – but this isn’t worth much. Premium did have some interesting benefits when first launched, such as Heathrow Express upgrade vouchers, but these have fizzled out.

Of course, if you can hit Premium naturally via your airport spending then you should definitely ensure you claim your points.