Small Luxury Hotels stops giving Avios points after launching its INVITED loyalty scheme

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Small Luxury Hotels of the World is a consortium of 520 luxury hotels in 80 countries. These are primarily independent properties, many of which are well known in their respective markets.

Last Autumn SLH decided to beef up its own loyalty offering. The previous scheme,called The Club was replaced by INVITED. The details of how INVITED works are here.

Clearly taking their cue from the stupid tier names used by the new World of Hyatt programme (Discoverist, Explorist, Globalist), SLH now calls its tier levels Invited, Inspired and Indulged.

What is interesting is that you get decent benefits just for joining. As an ‘Invited’ level member, which is what you get for signing up, you will receive free continental breakfast, early check-in if available, late check-out if available and free wi-fi.

If you are not already a member of INVITED, this link for American Express cardholders lets you join at ‘Inspired’ level. This usually requires one previous stay so it is useful if you only have a one-off Small Luxury Hotels trip. ‘Inspired’ gets you all the benefits of ‘Invited’ plus a birthday gift and a one-category room upgrade if available at check-in.

Whilst there has been no announcement, it seems that the launch of INVITED has led to Avios – and other airline partnerships – being dropped. You can no longer earn 500 Avios per stay when you visit a Small Luxury Hotels property.

The full list of remaining British Airways hotel partners is here.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

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

Save East Coast Rewards says:

19 Feb19 February 04:00

If you have a lounge pass can you use the arrivals lounges with no boarding pass? Sometimes if I use the T2 arrivals lounge they ask for a boarding pass and other times they don’t. When I was at the airport meeting someone (whose flight turned out to be delayed) it would have been handy to use the lounge but it just happened to be someone on the desk who insisted on a boarding pass (I think it’s to stop airport employees getting a PP card and getting a free lunch every day).

As for SLH the early/late check-in/out and upgrades all have the subject to availability clause. Is Bon Vivant able to get decent benefits with most SLH properties?
- JamesB says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 07:51
  
  Some readers have reported accessing landside lounges with priority pass before, I think it just comes down to whether they ask for a boarding pass or not. Is there an app for lounge pass? If so, I recommend you use it. I have found with priority pass that if you show them your app barcode, or even just a screenshot of it, they just quickly scan it and let you go without even asking for a boarding pass. If they have to start handling a physical card they probably expect you to be handing over a boarding pass too and porobably think it odc if yoh don’t.
Anna says:

19 Feb19 February 07:55

Early OT sorry. Long story short my travel plans were disrupted by BA and I have had to book alternative flights. The original flights have been cancelled, however just to be extra awkward, BA are insisting on refunding the fees back to the payment card, which is a basic Amex I cancelled some months ago. I have just spoken to Amex chat and they say the refund won’t affect the avios as these were posted to my BAEC account last October. I have taken a screenshot of this, however if they are wrong, do I stand to lose the base avios plus the 5000 sign up bonus which would have been triggered by the original payment?
- Anna says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 07:56
  
  There have been previous posts on this site about avios being clawed back when refunds are made to Amex accounts.
- JamesB says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 08:41
  
  To be on the safe side request a refund via a cheque as opposed to a credit against another amex card. However, in my own experience, you have no cause for concern. Last year I was in a similar situation and refunded about £900 from BA, credited it against another card without any effect on my avios or the new card points. I also used the £100 amex BA offer on the transaction and they did not even adjust my refund for that so no complaints from me. I think it’s best you say as little to amex as possible, avoid the chat service, just call in a few days and simply request they send you a cheque, don’t ask about avios etc.
  - Anna says:
    
    19 Feb19 February 09:16
    
    Thanks – yes it’ll have to be a cheque anyway as a transfer can only be made onto the same type of card which I don’t have just now. I wouldn’t have minded if I’d decided to cancel my flights because it suited me but this was all BA’s doing!
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      19 Feb19 February 09:40
      
      If you have another AMEX open there’s no issues having credits transferred against an outstanding balance regardless of which family it is. For example Had my BAPP credit transferred to my SPG no effect to points earned.
    - JamesB says:
      
      19 Feb19 February 09:42
      
      The credit can be made against any card in my experience. I have done it several times but the BA refund was the first substantial sum.
  - Anna says:
    
    19 Feb19 February 10:09
    
    The chat rep said it had to be the same type of card, but I’m going to take JamesB’s advice!
    - JamesB says:
      
      19 Feb19 February 14:53
      
      TGLoyalty is categorical and consistent with my own experience, I’m sure it will be fine.
Anna says:

19 Feb19 February 09:21

Just to add – BA were insisting that I would forfeit the RFS fee on my 3 LHR-MAN seats, even though they were forcing me to make the changes! I pointed out that they are currently selling those seats for £343 one way and said that if I was going to lose the fees I would just keep the seats so they wouldn’t be released back to BA. The CS lady then went off to speak to her supervisor and when she came back they had suddenly agreed to refund the avios and the fees!
- LB says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 09:31
  
  Is that Julian Assange hiding behind the door? 😉
- Jimmy says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 11:09
  
  Is it just me or have we all been reading about your LHR-MAN £343 woes for some time now?
  - Anna says:
    
    19 Feb19 February 15:16
    
    Well I do apologise, I just thought it might be useful to know they can be negotiated with on occasion!
    - Anna says:
      
      19 Feb19 February 15:18
      
      Though as far as I know, no-one’s actually forcing you to read anything.
Kirill says:

19 Feb19 February 10:43

OT

I would like to make an avios Qatar booking to fly around Christmas time, do you know when they are likely to release the award space (CPH-DOH-MNL)?
Alan says:

19 Feb19 February 11:15

OT Bits – new Curve Terms out today, most look fine but beware of new expiry setting for Rewards – “Unredeemed rewards will expire 6 months from the date they are added to your virtual Curve Rewards card in your Curve app (you can view your current Rewards balance anytime by scrolling to your Rewards card in the Curve app).” I’ve asked them to see if something could be added to the app to make it clear when points are due to expire.
- Lumma says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 15:05
  
  As soon as I get rewards points they’re getting used as an Amazon top up from now on.
Darren says:

19 Feb19 February 13:15

I’ve been using SLH for some time now and had positive experiences with upgrades in the UK, breakfast is also nice. Less upgrade success in Thailand and the US and late check out at the last place was refused even though the hotel occupancy was not high.

I still value the benefits and check out hotels in an area I’m looking to stay.
meta says:

19 Feb19 February 14:52

O/T Did Heathrow Rewards drop Etihad Guest as transfer partner? I just wanted to transfer some points, but didn’t realise they were gone.
- JamesB says:
  
  19 Feb19 February 15:00
  
  Yes, but I don’t know who droppec who.
  - Rob says:
    
    19 Feb19 February 15:36
    
    Thanks, hadn’t seen that.
    - meta says:
      
      19 Feb19 February 18:43
      
      I guess back to earning more MR or SPG points.
  - JamesB says:
    
    19 Feb19 February 19:04
    
    There has been quite a few changes at Etihad Guest so it was probably from there end. I had some points and miles I wanted tidying up and used. That was when I discovered changes relating to gift cards and HR. In the end I blew my remaining miles on on the January mega Apple bundle lottery, needless to say I din’t win.
Robin says:

19 Feb19 February 16:11

off-topic – i rented an Avis hire car under the Black Friday with BA promotion, which should have earned me an additional 5,000 bonus Avios points. I have not received the bonus Avios and the eight week period since the rental has now passed. Has anyone received their bonus Avios from this BA Avis promotion? i always have difficulty triggering the receipt of the bonuses, even though i’m sure that I have met all the terms and conditions of the promo.