‘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.
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.
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
Marriott opens a new Moxy hotel in Belfast
What are the best lounges at Heathrow Terminal 2? We give our rankings after visiting all nine of them.
Stories we recommend from other sites:
Swissport opens a lounge at Venice Marco Polo Airport (Business Traveller)
Jet2’s ‘pragmatic’ winter capacity move ‘reflects uncertainty in market’ (Travel Weekly)
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons to close in January 2026 for 18-month redevelopment (Boutique Hotelier)
Our latest reviews:
From Sydney to Whitby this week ….
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.
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!
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
Hilton Honors devalues its luxury hotels, now as high as 250,000 points per night
I earn my first 500 Nectar points from a Marriott hotel stay
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.
You can now book redemptions on Emirates in premium economy
Royal Jordanian is offering a status buy-back if you’ve just been downgraded following a 2024 status match
Comped Radisson Rewards VIP status holders are extended to 2027 if they had a recent stay
‘Combine My Avios’ is back with a new, improved centralised system
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 120,000 points (= 120,000 Avios) with the current Amex Business Platinum card offer – we look at the deal in detail
Save £570 on some Finnair Avios redemptions by booking via Finnair and not ba.com
Save 15% on IHG One Rewards hotel redemptions – but only if you have status
NEW: Get a 30% bonus converting American Express points to Marriott Bonvoy
Which British Airways economy tickets can be upgraded with Avios?
How does Virgin Red differ from Virgin Flying Club?
Get a 70% bonus when buying Virgin Points – is it worth it? Click here to buy
NEW: Get a 40,000 points bonus (converts to 40,000 Avios) with ‘free for a year’ Amex Gold
American Express is currently 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 in 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.
Head for Points receives a commission if you apply via any of the links above – thank you.
Thank you for reading
Please drop me a note at rob@headforpoints.com with any feedback.
If you are booking a hotel this week, click here to read our summary of the best bonus points offers for September from the big chains.
See you next Monday,
Rob, Rhys, Sinead and Katie @ Head for Points
PS. If you were forwarded ‘The Travel Brief’ by a colleague, you can sign up for a free email subscription by filling in the form here.
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