Welcome to the weekly Head for Points business travel newsletter - 19th December

Welcome to?your weekly round-up of UK business travel and travel loyalty news?as well as?links to the latest reviews and features from?headforpoints.com.

I have decided to publish our weekly email trade newsletter on LinkedIn to allow more people to access it. This is the 4th edition available here. If you would prefer to receive it by email every Monday,?you can sign up here. It's free, obviously! You can also subscribe via LinkedIn and get new editions in your feed.

The latest UK business travel news:

Iberia has started flying its new business class seat a year ahead of schedule. The first aircraft entered commercial service last weekend with zero fanfare. Photo above.

Heathrow and Birmingham Airports won't cancel flights due to Border Force strikes.

British Airways is allowing free changes to flights arriving into Heathrow on 23rd, 24th, 25th, 28th, 29th and 30th December.

Lufthansa is launching new routes to London Gatwick and Belfast City.

The former Park Hyatt Hamburg is joining Hilton. The hotel will reopen as a Conrad in 2024.

A new Radisson RED hotel has opened in Liverpool. It occupies a redeveloped Victorian railway hotel by Lime Street.

Aer Lingus has swapped an A321LR for an A330 on its Manchester - New York flights. The change increases seat capacity by 72%.

Conrad Rabat has opened in Morocco.

The famous lobby aquarium at the Radisson Collection Berlin hotel exploded injuring two people and releasing 10,000 fish.

Business travel stories we recommend from other sites:

CAA raises concerns over Wizz Air's failure to pay passengers who win Alternative Dispute Resolution cases against it (CAA website)

Meliá and Rafael Nadal launch ZEL, a new hotel brand (Hotel Business)

ABTA’s Luke Petherbridge gives evidence to House of Lords committee on impact on travel since UK left the EU (ABTA website)

UK Government tells airports to install new CT scanners to speed up passenger security lines by Summer 2024 (Simple Flying)

Wizz Air's first London Luton to Amman flight takes off (Business Traveller)

Virgin Atlantic to carry out pioneering net-zero transatlantic flight in 2023 (FlightGlobal)

Interview of the week:

We meet the Chairman and owner of private jet charter group AirX, John Matthews, as we visit their maintenance hanger at Stansted. Image above.

Our latest travel reviews:

We review American Airlines Flagship business class from Heathrow to New York.

We also visit the American Airlines Admirals Club lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3. Is it better than the Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges? (Er, no, obviously.) Image below.

The latest UK travel loyalty news:

Save 30% on a SeatSpy membership. Our exclusive offer makes it even cheaper to find reward seat availability and set alerts.

Get a 100% bonus when buying Hilton points. Click here to buy.

Our coverage of how British Airways has repriced long haul Avios redemptions continues:

• Low-tax redemption loopholes have been closed
• Anyone with non UK, US and EU Executive Club accounts now faces increased Avios and fees
• Anyone with old-style BA Amex companion vouchers will need a lot more Avios
• Bizarrely, mixed First / Club redemptions are now more expensive than 'pure' First / First redemptions!

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading. Please drop me a note at [email protected] with any feedback.

Head for Points?is the UK’s largest business travel and frequent flyer website with 2.3 million page views per month. The majority of readers are London-based professionals who travel heavily for business and leisure. We have won five?Business Travel Journalism Awards?including ‘Editor of the Year’.

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See you next Monday.

Rob, Rhys and Sinead @ Head for Points

PS. You can sign up for a free email subscription to this newsletter, sent every Monday morning, by?filling in the form here