Avios launches generous partnership with No1 Traveller lounges – and win 18,000 Avios

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• Olivula says:

  3 Jun3 June 06:30

  I have just been in contact with Gatwick no1. I have Priority Pass but if you want to get in you are strongly advised to pay £5 for a reservation fee as well. They claim to honour walk up entry but regularly refuse visitors on the grounds they are too busy. I have watched them send travellers away despite the lounge being below half full. It might appear they are trying to leverage another five quid off PP visitors.

  • Rob says:

    3 Jun3 June 06:37

    I doubt it – if they don’t have guests, they don’t make any money! Assuming that Priority Pass pay them £15, it would be foolish to give that up for the sake of another £5. Some airlines now use it as their official lounge (eg Garuda) so they know when they are expecting an influx of guests who are guaranteed entrance.

    The one time I used it was with a Priority Pass and that was for a walk-up.

    • Olivula says:

      4 Jun4 June 13:34

      They just refused access again at 13.30 on a Thursday so it is rarely walk up these days. I don’t think my Amex Platinum delivers much for the £450 fee and is past being value for money

• Andy says:

  3 Jun3 June 07:18

  The LGW N is a decent deal as it includes priority security, if you value an avios at 1p that makes the lounge fee £12.50 Inc guaranteed entry unlike priority pass.

  Mr only issue is the likes of LGW N and EDI could get very busy.

• Trevor says:

  3 Jun3 June 08:03

  Hi folks
  It must be me but if I go to book LGW Nth Lounge it shows £25 per person. Is that correct?
  Thanks
  T

  • Lionel says:

    3 Jun3 June 08:08

    It’s £25 but since they advertise it as £20 earlier on the website, you could phone later & get a £5 refund (screenshot advised).

• John G says:

  3 Jun3 June 08:05

  This is the same deal you get with VS gold so it is pretty good that Avios are offering this to anyone.

  • Lionel says:

    3 Jun3 June 08:19

    Barclays Premier would charge £15/ visit (Airport Angel scheme) so it’s not that exceptional. Good value, agreed.

• Nick Haley says:

  3 Jun3 June 08:36

  Travelling through T5 in a few weeks time. Will that new lounge be open? Priority pass is no good for Servisair is it?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jun3 June 09:02

    It should work at the new lounge.

• Simmo says:

  3 Jun3 June 08:44

  Slightly off topic.

  I have a British Airways economy flight from Gatwick in the next few months, its a 9.30am weekday flight, 2 passengers.
  I am BA Silver, and also have a Priority Pass – What are the chances of the BA Lounge being full (there was a caveat when I booked, saying silver lounge access is based on capacity), and being turnt away? Ideally I’d check out the BA Lounge, and then No1.

  • Rob says:

    3 Jun3 June 09:01

    9.30 should be ok, main business wave has gone

• takke says:

  3 Jun3 June 12:21

  The risk of the No1 lounge being ‘full’ extends beyond Gatwick – I got turned away from the BHX one with a PP last week on the basis that they were awaiting their airline contract pax. I had to go to the Aspire instead which wasn’t actually that bad.

  • Waribai says:

    3 Jun3 June 15:42

    I think Simmo is talking about the risk of the Ba Lounge being full and getting turned away which I would say is extremely low. I’ve been in there quite a bit even on the first Saturday of the summer holidays and while it has been full I didn’t see anyone turned away. It wasn’t very pleasant though with everyone crowded round the food and we soon nipped back along the corridor to the F lounge which was a lot less quiet albeit without a kids playroom!

• 23Mav says:

  3 Jun3 June 12:36

  OT – I am looking for some help fellow readers.

  My landlord has stated that he would be willing to accept a paypal payment for rent ( he lives in NZ and the flat is in London. I worked out i would be paying about an extra £22 per month to cover the fees. My rent is £670 a month

  So with a BA Amex 1.5 avios for £1 spend – would it be worth me paying him this way ? I want to fly business / First and would mainly love to take my retired dad on a trip of a life time.

  Thanks for your help. I love this blog. 🙂

  • Lionel says:

    3 Jun3 June 12:56

    You can choose your exchange rate as suits your circumstances. 1 Avios = 1p works fine for me as I always get more value than that (mostly flights).

    So your £22 = 2200 Avios

    You’d earn (you say) (670 x 1.5) = 1005 Avios

    Might still make sense if you factor in the costs of sending him the money by other means. Do you intimate you are sending him money to NZ? In NZD? & he expects you to bear currency exchange and funds transfer costs?

  • jenecho says:

    3 Jun3 June 12:59

    Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me- you would be paying £22 for the privilege of receiving 1000 avios. Which would only be worth £10 tops. And you would only get 12k over a year. At a cost of £264. They aren’t even that much to buy, I don’t think, and certainly not if there is a buy avios sale on. Much better to look at getting avios some other way- credit cards etc. Even a subscription to the economist which gets you 12k is much cheaper than that!

    • Danksy says:

      3 Jun3 June 13:31

      It’s an expensive way *unless* you can get a supercard and fund via your Amex card!

  • James67 says:

    3 Jun3 June 14:09

    If you are in a position to do then it might be more beneficial to develop a strategy of applying for a new cc every three months and taking advantage of your rent to hit target spends and release more generous signup bonuses. This will result in a much greater return for your £22 fees than passing it all through BA amex. To top up the avios you are obviously collecting you have quite a number of options. Rob has summarised all these in one post so you can search for it. However, timing is a,so important in that ylj have to go for the right cards at the right time. For example that would be virgin and etihad at the moment. This would result in a diversified portfolio with smaller amounts of miles in different schemes. However, you did say that your goal was a trip of a lifetime. To me that often equates to a multisector itinerary so those smaller pools of miles can prove useful for regional one ware flights or even transcontinental flights. At some stage you want to add PRGor SPG cards because they have very useful bonuses and the points are flexible in that you can transfer to many airlines to top up balances to more useful amounts. As always, be sensible with credit. Good luck.

    • Simmo says:

      3 Jun3 June 14:48

      Yes, this is the route I would take.
      With sign up bonus’ you would be able to make a few Avios in lump sums every few months with guaranteed spend.

      However, I also guess the £10,000 spend on a BA AMEX for the companion voucher is worth say £700-£1000 depending on how it is used.

      AMEX Gold = 22,000 if referred on £2000 in 3 months, £150 fee pro rata refund on cancel
      AMEX Plat = 35,000 if referred on £2000 in 3 months, £450 fee pro rata refund on cancel
      AMEX SPG = 11,000 if referred on £1000 in 3 months, £75 fee pro rata refund on cancel
      (plus any offers for supp cards?)

      Then of course this is just Avios.

      • Danny says:

        3 Jun3 June 14:54

        And pay.com cards in Tesco have just made getting avios so much easier! I picked up £500 today = 4600 avios (on a 2 point Amex card).

        If you do this you’ll need to register personal details pretty soonish with pay.com as their limits (to prevent money laundering) are much lower than 3V’s. Details online.

        • Ian says:

          3 Jun3 June 17:22

          But where do you get 3vs cards? I can’t seem to find it anywhere!

        • Danny says:

          3 Jun3 June 17:49

          We’re swimming in pay.coms so it must depend on locality. I noticed they are also already widely distributed (as pay.com not 3V) in Morrisons, so they are definitely around.

        • Nick says:

          3 Jun3 June 17:42

          What is the 2 point amex card? I thought that the gold card just gave 1 point per £1 spent…. or are the terms of the existing gold cards grandfathered?

        • Kris says:

          3 Jun3 June 21:48

          If you can find them!

        • Danny says:

          3 Jun3 June 22:15

          People say that who have not looked recently.

          3V got taken over by pay.com.

          There was a gap when there were none around.

          Now there are millions.

          = free avios for all

      • Oliver says:

        3 Jun3 June 19:44

        I agree with this

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