Bits: Wizz Air accepts Amex, get 10 Avios per £1 with HEx, IHG’s Garner opens in Edinburgh

News in brief:

Wizz Air now accepts American Express

After Loganair signed a deal with American Express, Wizz Air was apparently the last ‘major’ carrier flying internationally from the UK which did not accept the card.

This has now been fixed. American Express is now accepted by Wizz Air, both for flight bookings and in-flight purchases.

As a carrot to give Wizz Air a try, you are promised ‘exclusive offers and discounts’ for booking Wizz Air via the Amex Offers platform in the next few weeks.

Before booking, you may want to check-out Rhys’s memorable Wizz Air review. We forced him to fly to Vienna on a £1.79 ticket without spending anything extra – no large hand baggage, no checked baggage, no reserved seat, no nothing ….

Get 10 Avios per £1 with Heathrow Express

This offer has been running for a few weeks but slipped through the cracks. You still have until 31st July to take advantage.

Most British Airways American Express cards have an offer for 10 Avios per £1 on spending with Heathrow Express.

You can, of course, already earn 5 Avios per £1 when you book Heathrow Express tickets via the special Avios microsite here. This only applies to fully flexible tickets, however.

The American Express offer applies to ALL Heathrow Express ticket types, even the £10 advance tickets.

The only small print is that you must book via the Heathrow Express website or app. Purchases made at ticket machines in the stations or via other rail operators will not count.

Tickets booked for travel after 31st July will count, as long as the payment is made by that date.

We published this article on the best ways of saving money on Heathrow Express tickets.

The Heathrow Express ticket booking website is here.

IHG opens a Garner hotel in Edinburgh

IHG has opened the second UK outpost of its nascent Garner chain in Edinburgh – website here.

This hotel was originally the ultra-budget Tune Hotel Edinburgh. The Malaysian brand failed to take off in the UK and now only the Liverpool site remains.

It became the Haymarket Hub hotel, advertising ‘195 basic rooms with necessary comforts’ before it decided to focus on the ‘temporary accommodation’ sector.

Garner is described as a ‘midscale conversion brand’. In hotel world, ‘midscale’ means ibis (Holiday Inn Express is ‘upper midscale’), not Holiday Inn. It is IHG’s equivalent of Hilton’s Spark brand.

£2 million has been spent refurbishing Haymarket Hub to relaunch it as Garner. Looking at the bedroom image above, it has an ibis Styles vibe.

In terms of location:

Strategically located directly opposite Edinburgh’s Haymarket Station and with excellent public transport connections, the hotel will be the ideal location for visitors and business guests alike. Haymarket is a vibrant, well-connected area, making it the perfect launchpad for leisure guests eager to explore the bustling West End or indulge in the wide variety of nearby restaurants and bars.

The good news for IHG One Rewards members is that Garner hotels are not discriminated against in the loyalty programme. You still earn 10 points per $1 and one elite qualifying night per night stayed. This is a big advantage over Marriott’s Four Points Flex which earns half points (5 per $1) and half elite credits (0.5 per night, rounded down).

You can find out more about Garner Hotel Haymarket Edinburgh on its website here.

We might pop up to do a review, but the difficulty with reviewing a ‘conversion’ brand is that – by its very nature – each hotel was originally built for someone else and your experience of one will not necessarily translate to another.