What you missed on Head for Points last week
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Welcome to the Head for Points weekly newsletter, full of the latest Avios, travel loyalty and travel credit card news, hints and tips.
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NEW: Get a 40,000 points bonus (converts to 40,000 Avios) with ‘free for a year’ Amex Gold
American Express is currenctly running a special sign-up bonus on the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card – apply here.
Remember that this card is free for your first year!
The bonus is increased from 20,000 to 40,000 Membership Rewards points. This would convert to:
- 40,000 Avios
- 40,000 Virgin Points
- 40,000 Etihad, Flying Blue, Asia Miles, Delta, Qantas or SAS miles
- 30,000 Emirates Skywards miles
- 26,666 Singapore Airlines miles
- 80,000 Hilton Honors points
- 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
- 120,000 Radisson Rewards points
- 2,666 Club Eurostar points
…. and many other non-travel rewards.
You receive 40,000 Membership Rewards points after spending £5,000 within six months of approval. This is only £833 per month, and would include the (high spending!) Christmas period.
Even better, you get:
- four passes for any airport lounge in the Priority Pass network
- 24 x £5 credits to spend at Deliveroo (max one per order and two per month)
- up to 12,500 bonus Membership Rewards points each year based on your spending, albeit this reduces to 10,000 points from next month
The card is free for the first year. If you keep it beyond the first year there is an annual fee of £195. You receive a further four airport lounge passes and more Deliveroo credits on renewal.
Our main article on the 40,000 Membership Rewards points bonus is here. Make sure you read the bit about whether or not you qualify for the bonus.
You can apply for the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card with the special bonus on this page of the Amex website.
T&C apply, 18+ only.
The representative APR is 86.8% variable, including the annual fee. The representative APR on purchases, and in the first year which has no fee, is 29.7% variable.
This week’s top travel news stories:
The old Jersey Airport lounge is to close after BA moves to the new No1 Lounge. Image above.
Hilton Honors devalues its luxury hotels, now as high as 250,000 points per night
Plaza Premium’s Heathrow Terminal 3 arrivals lounge has reopened
Mandarin Oriental drops its Venice hotel before it has even opened
Doncaster Sheffield Airport will reopen following a £160 million council investment
Austrian Airlines tests low cost short haul flights to Dubai – will customers go for it?
‘Combine My Avios’ is back with a new, improved, centralised system
Marriott opens a new Moxy hotel in Belfast
Why won’t British Airways refund your seat selection fees if you cancel your flight?
Royal Jordanian is offering a status buy-back if you’ve just been downgraded following a 2024 status match
You can now book redemptions on Emirates in premium economy, image below
Top travel deals this week:
Got one of the Virgin Atlantic credit cards? You can still get the new, higher bonus on the other one – and this means 36,000 Virgin Points on the paid card or 6,000 on the free card
Get 3,000 Tesco Clubcard points with Tesco Pet Insurance, convert them to Virgin Points or Hotels.com credit amongst other things
Save 15% on IHG One Rewards hotel redemptions – but only if you have status
Get a 70% bonus when buying Virgin Points – is it worth it? Click here to buy
Get a 100% bonus buying IHG One Rewards points until tonight (Saturday) – direct link
British Airways and Avios news:
Which British Airways economy tickets can be upgraded with Avios?
Save £570 on some Finnair Avios redemptions by booking via Finnair and not ba.com
Our latest reviews:
Rhys steps inside the iconic Qantas First Class lounge in Sydney, with a la carte dining and a unique spot perched above the rest of the terminal. Image above.
What are the best lounges at Heathrow Terminal 2? We give our rankings after visiting all nine of them
Conny visits the luxurious new Saltmoore hotel on the Yorkshire coast. Image below. There’s no loyalty angle, but we went anyway because everyone has been talking about it!
Hotel news:
How to earn and spend GHA DISCOVERY Dollars from your hotel stays at The Wolseley and its sister restaurants. We went down to Piccadilly to try it out.
NEW: Get a 30% bonus converting American Express points to Marriott Bonvoy
Credit card news:
Get 120,000 points (= 120,000 Avios) with the current Amex Business Platinum card offer – we look at the deal in detail
…. and get 60,000 points (= 60,000 Avios) with the American Express Business Gold offer. If you have any self employment or small company income you should jump on one of these offers.
Other interesting articles:
Earn Virgin Points or Hotels.com credit by recycling ink cartridges with Tesco
That’s all, folks
Our latest round-up of miles and points offers closing soon is here and will be updated on headforpoints.com on Sunday morning.
If you are booking a hotel this weekend, click here to read our summary of the best bonus points offers for September from the big chains. Pickings are slim, unfortunately.
Don’t forget to visit our forum if you have any questions relating to frequent flyer or hotel loyalty programmes or loyalty credit cards.
See you next Saturday,
Rob, Rhys, Sinead and Katie @ Head for Points
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