What benefits does the Heathrow Rewards Premium tier get you?

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Heathrow Rewards is launching a revamp of its ‘Premium’ tier today. To promote it they are launching a transfer bonus to Avios and most of their other airline partners.

Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in Heathrow (1 per £10 on foreign exchange) or on Heathrow Express tickets (online bookings only). Once you’ve earned 250 points you can exchange them for miles or shopping vouchers.

Heathrow Rewards

Let’s start with the airline transfer bonus. You will see that you get a higher bonus if you are on the Heathrow Rewards ‘Premium’ tier – this may be the start of a new pattern for Heathrow Rewards promotions.

Between today and 31st January you will receive:

A 50% bonus on transfers to BA / Avios / Aer Club if you are a base level member of Heathrow Rewards

A 100% bonus on transfers to BA / Avios / Aer Club if you are a Premium member of Heathrow Rewards

The bonus also applies to transfers to:

Emirates Skywards
Lufthansa Miles & More
Royal Brunei Royal Skies
Singapore Airlines Krisflyer
Virgin Flying Club

It does not apply to Etihad Guest.

The standard transfer rate is 250 Heathrow Rewards points = 250 miles. Under this promotion you will receive 375 or 500 miles per 250 points depending on your Heathrow Rewards status.

Please do not make a transfer until the offer is live on their website later today or you risk not getting the bonus.

Introducing the new Heathrow Rewards Premium tier

Heathrow Rewards has always had a Premium tier. You needed to spend £500 in a calendar year to qualify and would then receive double points (2 per £1) on all of your Heathrow shopping, parking and Heathrow Express tickets. There was also a small bonus of 100 points when you first qualified for Premium.

The airport has decided to jazz up the benefits of Premium whilst raising the qualifying threshold to £750.

Starting today, this is what you will receive:

Double points on all of your spending

Up to four Heathrow Express Business First upgrade vouchers per year

3,000 bonus Heathrow Rewards points with your first Rocketmiles hotel booking after achieving Premium

Premium wi-fi at Heathrow Airport

£10 discount when you spend £100 at World Duty Free

You will also receive:

750 points for referring a friend to Heathrow Rewards

150 bonus points when you book Heathrow Porters

150 bonus points when you book Shop & Collect

150 bonus points when you use Reserve & Collect

150 bonus points when you use Home Delivery

‘Enhanced’ bonus points and points conversion offers

There will also be an annual competition to win one million Heathrow Rewards points (so 1 million Avios!). All Premium members will receive one entry for every purchase they make at Heathrow.

When you hit £750 of spending, you will receive Premium status for the remainder of the current calendar year and all of the following year.

What if I am already a Premium member for spending £500?

If you are an existing Premium member, you will be upgraded to the new package. This will remain valid until the end of 2018. You will need to spend £750 during 2018 to retain your status for next year. You will not receive a new membership card, but if you update your card in Apple Wallet or the Heathrow app it will show you as a Premium member.

Note that the offer of free Premium tier membership for holders of the MBNA Etihad Guest credit card has been withdrawn.

Overall …..

I think this is a decent set of enhancements, especially as Heathrow Rewards has also been working hard on adding new airline partners over the last year. The jump to a £750 spending requirement is the first rise since Heathrow Rewards was launched, so part of the increase is just inflationary.

There is real potential here to earn a lot of points. With a Premium member getting double points and potentially receiving better terms (100%?) in future transfer bonuses, you could be picking up 4 miles per £1 spent. That’s not a bad extra return on your spending.

Full details of these changes will appear on the Heathrow Rewards website during today.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Emirates and Emirates Skywards, Heathrow Rewards, Lufthansa and Miles & More, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Pawel Siewko says:

16 Jan16 January 09:25

You can also buy John Lewis Gift Cards at WHSmiths to get Heatrow rewards…then go via BAshop or avios to get extra 4 Avios you can pay with giftcards online at JohnLewis shop….
- Cate says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 13:11
  
  Are they valid at Waitrose Pawel?
  - mark2 says:
    
    16 Jan16 January 13:47
    
    yes they are; I just bought a load at Morrison’s with 12.5% discount
    - Cate says:
      
      16 Jan16 January 14:26
      
      Thank you mark2! I’m often up at Heathrow but never bought anything so never signed up. RESULT!
      
      Thanks Pawel and Harry.
- the_real_a says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 14:16
  
  .. or sell them on zeek in return for zeek credit and swap them for some cards you actually want.
RussellH says:

16 Jan16 January 10:19

Any ideas on how to get 64 Heathrow points during a couple of changes of plane there? The only place we have ever seen where we would want to spend more than £5+£10 is Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant, and even there we would only spend about half the necessary. Plus we are unlikely to have enough time for that anyway.
- EwanG says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 10:31
  
  Some ideas Russell:
  Buy some gift cards?
  Change some currency at Travelex (prebook to get a decent rate)
  Collect double points on Reserve & Collect or 100 bonus points on other transactions (see https://rewards.heathrow.com/web/lhr/heathrow-shopping-services)
  - RussellH says:
    
    16 Jan16 January 10:49
    
    Thanks for the thoughts.
    
    I had no idea that you could get gift cards at LHR; I shall look into that. Book tokens or Tesco would be the most helpful.
    
    But:- Currency, no need for that. Plenty in banks in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.
    
    Reserve and collect:- I have never seen anytghing in LHR shop that I want, other than a newspaper or a book.
    
    That is why it is so difficult to get the points!!
nat says:

16 Jan16 January 11:08

For Heathrow Rewards Premium Travelex, is it still £10 to 1 point?
- Rob says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 12:15
  
  Presumably it is £10 for 2?
CC says:

16 Jan16 January 11:15

Apologies for OT:

BA first on a 787-9 should be 2 rows of 4 seats I thought, but doing a dummy booking its showing 4 rows and 14 seats like the A380?
- Matt says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 11:20
  
  Which route/date? A lot of 787 flights are being subbed to 777s due to engine issues at the moment.
  - CC says:
    
    16 Jan16 January 13:49
    
    Thanks, wasnt aware of that. Was searching throughout the year LHR to LAX.
    
    However after searching some more I think its BA website playing up or Chrome. No matter what plane I look at they now all show as having 2 rows! Logging in again sorts it out.
Jack says:

16 Jan16 January 12:17

Does anyone know if you can transfer HR points into Skywards to top up a balance then transfer the Skywards miles back into HR points?

(I have just under 6000 Skywards miles left which I won’t / can’t use so want to transfer them to HR to spend instead; did a one-off bout of travelling with EK last year but back to BA CW flights this year.)

Thanks
- Rob says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 15:26
  
  Yes, that’s not a problem at all.
Andy S says:

16 Jan16 January 13:12

Slightly OT, any idea how long it takes for Heathrow express to credit Heathrow rewards, I bought a couple of ticket back in December and there’s no sign of the base points let alone the 250 bonus!
- Save East Coast Rewards says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 13:40
  
  Mine have credited instantly. However I think they don’t actually credit until you’ve used them. Flexible tickets are valid for something like 3 months and they don’t appear until they’ve been used as I think they’re refundable.
  
  I’m not sure if the advance tickets have the same issues.
  
  If you’ve already travelled send your email confirmation to Heathrow Rewards Customer Relations – they tend to be good at crediting missing points.
  - Andy S says:
    
    25 Jan25 January 17:35
    
    For the record the bonus points have posted for two bookings but not the base points. One trip has been taken, the next is coming up. After the next trip I’ll chase them both up, but the bonus points are the most useful, worth 750 avios !
AndyBAFlyer says:

16 Jan16 January 13:23

I think I’m missing a trick here: Whenever I check, goods at Heathrow could be bought a lot cheaper elsewhere so I only spend on food for the journey and the occasional alcohol. Do people spend a lot just for the convenience, or have they found Heathrow to be cheaper for certain goods?
- Save East Coast Rewards says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 13:38
  
  Some things can be cheaper. I seem to recall Apple products were cheaper, but I’ve not bought any lately.
  - Rob says:
    
    16 Jan16 January 13:46
    
    It is cheaper for Apple, not by much but it is. The key is designer goods. These are never discounted except in sales – a Prada bag costs the same in Harrods as it does in Selfridges as it does in a Prada boutique – so you are getting a genuine saving there as long as it isn’t cheaper where you are going (and a Prada bag in theory leaves you liable to pay duty on your return).
    
    Anyway, you slightly miss the point. How often does your senior executive have time to waste half a day trotting down Bond Street? Heathrow offers convenience and lets retailers reach wealthy customers who otherwise have little free time to visit them.
    - Jack says:
      
      16 Jan16 January 13:53
      
      Interesting, I’ve generally found Apple products to be identically priced to the Apple website – the savings are tend to be made when buying accessories to go with the main product (e.g. I got a leather iPhone case for free when buying the phone and a pair of Bose headphones).
      
      Rob, you don’t happen to know about the Emirates / HR points question per above comment do you?
- Jonathan says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 19:41
  
  I found a Mulberry purse from the Mulberry shop at Heathrow for the Mrs £50 less then anywhere else. And Prada Sunglasses £70 less.
  - Alex W says:
    
    16 Jan16 January 21:37
    
    I got one in Shanghai for a fiver!
- Bagoly says:
  
  16 Jan16 January 19:46
  
  For hitting the GBP150 trigger, 3 double packs of champagne at GBP50 on arrival, assuming it is a maker that I like.
  One can sometimes get champagne cheaper than that, but not by much.
  Certainly not by the value I put on the bonus miles.
  
  And Rocketmiles credited to HR is most useful, especially for Lufthansa Miles.
- RTS says:
  
  17 Jan17 January 12:40
  
  Significantly cheaper for Chanel handbags………
Rich says:

16 Jan16 January 15:38

It looks interesting. I’ve just noticed that the details of what it includes are here on their website, https://rewards.heathrow.com/web/lhr/member-benefits, or after I log in to my account, there is also a ‘my premium’ tab on the left menu, with even more info (I guess you have to be premium to see that one?). Rob do you think a HfP reader will win the 1 million points? R