Head for Points

If you have Titanium status in Marriott Bonvoy, which requires 75 Elite Night Credits per year, you’re in luck. You can claim free Crystal status in the Japan Airlines frequent flyer programme. This is treated as oneworld Ruby status across the oneworld alliance, which means that you get the same benefits as a British Airways Club Bronze member when flying on BA.

After much discussion and delay, the game is on. The consolidation of the European airline industry moved closer yesterday when Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Group both submitted binding offers for TAP Portugal. IAG, the owner of British Airways and Iberia, chose not to continue in the process due to competition concerns. Both companies have submitted binding bids for a 44.5% stake in the airline. This follows the submission of non-binding indicative offers in April.

This is our review of the Heathrow Rewards loyalty programme. Is it worth joining Heathrow Rewards? What are Heathrow Rewards points worth? How can you transfer them to Avios or other programmes? Let’s take a look. Heathrow Rewards is the loyalty scheme for the shops, restaurants and bars at London Heathrow airport. In general, you can only earn points when you are at the airport. Head over to the Heathrow website and register for ‘My Heathrow’.

The new British Airways spend-based system for earning status seemed to signal the end of the tier point run. With BA flights earning 1 tier point per £1 of net spending, a Silver card (£7,500 of net spend) would require around £15,000 of gross spend on economy flights or around £10,000 of spend on business class. This is totally out of reach for most leisure travellers or small business travellers.

News in brief: The new Pret A Manger in Heathrow Terminal 5’s Arrivals area – directly opposite where you emerge from the airside area – is now open. The build process seemed weirdly long for what was presumably a fairly simple project, but it got there in the end. The shop replaces the Costa Coffee which occupied the same spot for many years and is the ninth Pret to open at Heathrow.

Hilton has extended its popular ‘3 for 2’ and ‘4 for 3’ offer for its most luxurious hotels. Things are a little different this year but the deals are up and running, if less generous overall. You CANNOT book these offers on the Hilton website. You need to use a travel agent which can access ‘Hilton for Luxury’ benefits – details of our partner are below. As you will see, hotels in the United States have mainly moved to a percentage discount, often 15% to 25%.

This is my review of the British Airways First Class lounge at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal. This is part of our series of reviews of airport lounges across the UK. You see all of the reviews here. Whilst I use this lounge a few times per year, we haven’t updated our review since 2022. On my way to Dubrovnik last week (hotel review to follow) I thought I’d take a fresh look. The reception photos are re-used from 2022 because I couldn’t get a better alternative.

Emirates has followed Virgin Red and launched its own rail booking plaform. It’s a new way of earning and burning Emirates Skywards miles. The upside is that it offers Europe-wide rail bookings, which Virgin Red does not, but there are also some downsides. Actually, I’m being polite. It’s a complete disaster. Let’s take a look. You book tickets via skywardsrail.com. There is no app, which is a little frustrating.

Small Luxury Hotels of the World has launched a new cashback offer with American Express. This is the first deal we’ve seen with SLH for a year, and there is strong global coverage. You will receive £100 cashback on a spend of £300+ at participating SLH hotels worldwide. Cumulative spend is OK. Amongst my family cards, I have it on my Business Platinum card. Amex is now offering hotel cashback deals to Business Gold and Business Platinum cardholders. The offer is not well explained, unfortunately.

Two years ago I wrote that Business Plus seats – front row business class seats with extra space – were the next big thing in premium travel. Since then, we’ve seen lots of airlines introduce the concept or announce that they will roll it out as part of future cabin upgrades. Long haul business class cabins have seen a rapid improvement over the past three decades as lie-flat seating and direct aisle access has become mainstream.