The Travel Brief, your weekly business travel and loyalty round-up - 23rd September
Rob Burgess
Editor, Head for Points, the UK's biggest frequent flyer and business travel website with 2.6m monthly page views
Welcome to 'The Travel Brief', your weekly trade round-up of UK business travel and travel loyalty news as well as?links to the latest reviews and features from headforpoints.com.
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This is the 100th edition since we acquired and rebranded Business Travel News from Malcolm Ginsberg. Thank you for your support.
Special report:
British Airways has an A380 problem - we look at the reliability issues plaguing the fleet (Simon Calder used our article as the basis for this column in The Independent)
The latest UK business travel news:
Emirates opens its new lounge at London Stansted, reducing pressure on the Escape Lounge, image above
Hilton adds the final 100 Small Luxury Hotels to its booking system - we look at the UK options
British Airways increases flights to North America - next summer will see 400 flights per week at the peak!
Global Hotel Alliance adds 32 more hotels as four small chains join
Stories we recommend from other sites:
Manchester Airport unveils line-up of shops, bars and restaurants for Terminal 2 (Business Traveller)
Cornwall Airport Newquay continues growth with busy summer season (UK Aviation News)
Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady to get makeover (Virgin Group)
SAS to bring back Business Class on European regional flights (Simple Flying)
STARLUX Airlines seeks oneworld membership (Business Traveller)
Our latest reviews:
Rob reviews the (ex-Macdonald) Manchester Marriott Hotel Piccadilly, fully refurbished and with the largest standard rooms in the city.
领英推荐
Meanwhile, in Istanbul, Conny and family check into the Ciragan Palace Kempinski Istanbul hotel (Global Hotel Alliance). Image below.
The latest UK travel loyalty news:
Get 100% American Express cashback - up to ￡100 - with Virgin Atlantic - we look at what should count
Get 15,000 Membership Rewards points by spending ￡600 at Leading Hotels of the World, and for once the list of hotels for an Amex cashback deal is truly global
Which Amex sign-up bonuses are you still eligible for? We've updated this article with the new rules.
Dive into the world of Virgin Points redemptions as our introductory series continues:
LAST CHANCE: Get 10,000 Avios with the FREE Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit card!
Barclaycard has launched a special promotion if you sign up for the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard credit card by Thursday 26th September.
The sign-up bonus is doubled – you will receive 10,000 Avios instead of the usual 5,000 Avios.
If you’ve not had any Barclaycard products for the last two years then you will definitely get the bonus if you spend ￡1,000 in three months. If you have/had other Barclaycards, the full rules about whether you qualify are in our article here.
This is the ideal credit card to use when American Express is not accepted. You will earn 1 Avios for every ￡1 spent.
It is also worth using as your primary credit card if you currently have the free British Airways American Express card but don’t spend ￡15,000 per year to trigger the Companion Voucher. You might as well use the free Barclaycard Avios credit card and just have one credit card for all your spending.
If you spend ￡20,000 per year on the card you will also earn an upgrade voucher, valid on any Avios redemption. Full details of how that works are in our article here.
Head for Points receives a small commission if you apply via our link - thank you.
Thank you for reading
Please drop me a note at [email protected] with any feedback. See you next Monday.
Rob, Rhys 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