News in brief:
Update on the BA Amex ‘1,000 Avios’ offer
On Thursday we covered a new British Airways American Express offer. This gives all cardholders an extra 1 Avios per £2 spent until late October, to a maximum of 1,000 bonus Avios.
The original version of our article said that it applied to all BA Amex cards. This was wrong – it does NOT apply to British Airways Premium Plus American Express cards.
Amex told us that ‘the offer applies to all British Airways American Express cards’ which, in retrospect, can be interpreted in two ways. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Save an extra £100 in the BA Holidays sale
BA Holidays is offering a further discount on bookings made in the current British Airways sale. If you book a flight + hotel or flight + car holiday before 8th September you can make the following additional savings:
- £100 extra discount with a minimum spend of £2,500 per booking
- £50 extra discount with a minimum spend of £1,250 per booking
- £25 extra discount with a min spend of £650 per booking (flight + Car only)
The discount is valid on selected destinations for 2020 and ALL destinations for 2021.
The British Airways ‘Book with Confidence’ guarantee means that you can change your booking date and destination if you wish (obviously you need to pay any difference if the new holiday is more expensive) or even cancel completely for a Future Travel Voucher.
BA Holidays is offering complimentary access to the Galleries Club lounges at London Heathrow Terminal 5 when booking an economy flight + hotel package. You must travel for seven nights or more, before Christmas Eve. Minimum spend criteria apply.
You can find out more on the BA Holidays sale page here.
Eurostar to withdraw from Ashford and Ebbsfleet
Eurostar has announced that it will not be reinstating services from Ashford International or Ebbsfleet until at least 2022.
Eurostar has continually been the most pessimistic / realistic of the travel companies. It has already scrapped its Summer services to the south of France until 2022, and there will be no ski trains this year.
The decision to end services from Kent for at least two years has not gone down well with local politicians and the wider business community. Given that the trains are passing through the stations anyway, it appears a strange decision. I accept that the need to operate immigration and security facilities means that running costs are not cheap, however.
Hampton Blackpool hotel gets permission for major expansion
I wouldn’t normally run this story, but it ties in with my review of the Holiday Inn Express Bodmin in Cornwall from earlier this week.
In that article I said that three-star hotel operators like Holiday Inn Express, Courtyard by Marriott and Hampton by Hilton were facing an open goal at UK seaside resorts. They are up against the low quality and high cost of independent coastal bed and breakfast establishments.
The Hampton in Blackpool, on South Promenade, has just been granted planning permission for an extra 74 rooms to add to the existing 130. The demand is clearly there from people looking from clean, reliable and good value accommodation.
You can read more on Lancs Live here.