British Airways closes the New York JFK Galleries First lounge

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• S says:

  8 Jan8 January 10:08

  Luxury Travel Diary site bust?

• Richard G says:

  8 Jan8 January 10:45

  I really hope the BA lounge is open again by mid August. My better half has a first class flight (only second ever) leaving JFK then, and it would REALLY suck for her to miss it.

  • Genghis says:

    8 Jan8 January 10:51

    CCR remains open?

  • shd says:

    8 Jan8 January 10:52

    Is the CCR at JFK closed too, or just the First lounge?

    • Tom Cook says:

      8 Jan8 January 11:47

      CCR is open still.

• Harkirat says:

  8 Jan8 January 11:25

  O/T Offer on Amex Gold – spend £800 get £100 back with Etihad

• mark2 says:

  8 Jan8 January 12:45

  OT
  Morrison’s Gift Card offer covers Apple Store, John Lewis/Waitrose, Currys PC World, Halfords, Amazon, Restaurant Choice, M&S, Debenhams.
  When you buy a £50 card you get 5,000 More points in addition to usual 1,250 so £6.25. You need a More card and points paid out in £5 gift vouchers for 5,000 points on next purchase.
  So I got 12.5% off to shop at Waitrose!

• xcalx says:

  8 Jan8 January 12:52

  OT one of our HfP readers is at LHR T3 after getting held up at security due to a broken belt he missed his tight connection flying in from Belfast. At the moment they have him and his wife on standby for the AA LAX flight ~5pm travelling economy. At least he has his Plat for lounge access
  Any suggestions re AA putting on another carrier if not able to get seats on the 5pm flight.

  Thanks.

• Stu N says:

  8 Jan8 January 14:31

  OT – Do BA Citiflyer still do free drinks and snacks in Euro Traveller? Haven’t flown them for ages.

  • Genghis says:

    8 Jan8 January 14:37

    Yep

    • Stu N says:

      8 Jan8 January 16:27

      Thanks – having priced things up looks like a morning flight to LCY so of limited value.

      Shame as I could very easily have managed a couple of cheeky g&ts on an evening flight.

• Rhys says:

  8 Jan8 January 15:44

  OT, how does the marriott 5 for 4 nights offer work with the 7 day travel package? If I book ten nights and apply the package voucher to 7 of them, what is the cost of the remaining 3? The average cost per night (taking into account the 2 free nights using 5/4) or the standard cost for 3 nights?

  • mark2 says:

    8 Jan8 January 17:50

    I believe that you will pay the standard night for the three nights. In my view it only works if you want to stay somewhere for seven nights and convert some Marriott points to Avios at 1:1, neither of which I want. Others differ.

    • will says:

      8 Jan8 January 18:25

      To offer an alternative view on the marriott packages, if you exchange 270k points (=90k spg) for cat 1-5 a travel package when there is a 35% bonus on you get a 7 night voucher and 162k avios.

      Ignoring the voucher for the time being, assuming you got that through spending £90k on the SPG amex it gives 1.8 avios/£ spent, your alternatives were:

      – BA premium plus would have given 1.5 per £ and triggered a voucher, but beyond £10k your better off with the SPG.
      – SPG direct conversion to avios = 1.25 assuming done in 20K +5K bonus chuncks.

      working it from the other angle 7 days in a cat 5 is 150k marriott points (50k SPG) so if you were going to take a 7 day break on points anyway you effectively converted 120k marriott (40k) SPG into 162k avios or 4 avios/£ spent on the SPG amex.

      My take on it is that it’s actually the best avios earning cc spend even valuing the marriott voucher at zero.

      • mark2 says:

        8 Jan8 January 20:31

        We are staying in a Marriott Cat 8 property for 10 nights in October paying 8 nights @ 40,000 = 320,000 for the hotel.
        A seven night package would cost 290,000 + (3 nights @ 40,000 =) 120,000 totalling 410,000 points, an additional 90,000 points for 50,000 Avios.
        I would rather use the Marriott points to stay in their hotels but everyone has different requirements.

      • william merrett says:

        8 Jan8 January 23:15

        Mark,
        You could look at your example 2 ways to make it more favourable:
        1: if you converted with a 35% bonus (there were 2 chances last year and the voucher is valid for 12 months from issue) you’d have 74,250 avios with the package. Given 90k marriott points equal 30k SPG points then that is the euqivalent of 2.47 avios per £ on the SPG amex, a great rate of return.
        2. if you took out the 360k marriott package which gives 162k avios with a bonus your looking at a total spend of 450k marriott points. In this example 130k marriott (43.3k SPG) gets you 162k avios or 3.74 avios per £ on SPG card.

        What I’m really getting at is if you collect avios on a credit card and are redeeming points for 7+ day marriott stays then using an SPG amex to top up a marriott redemption to a travel package is absolutely the best rate you can get in the UK at the moment.

      • william merrett says:

        8 Jan8 January 23:18

        Sorry I made a mistate in number 2.
        Maths should be 360k package + 120k for 3 nights = 480k marriott. Thats 160k more than you would pay with a simple redemption which is 53.3k spg or 3 avios per £ (double the BA amex)

      • Genghis says:

        9 Jan9 January 05:45

        I’m going to do some more analysis before I decide to go for another travel package. Avios are easy to collect from other sources. Do I want to fly SQ? Are they worth just leaving as Marriott points? More work needed.

      • will says:

        9 Jan9 January 17:00

        I think if your options are other airline miles it’s a subjective.

        If you currently collect avios via a UK credit card and have already hit £10k for the BAPP companion voucher then the SPG amex, to marriott, to avios via a travel package when on a 35% bonus is a no brainer even if you don’t value the travel package. The fact you can just buy the cheapest 120k avios package and then upgrade to whatever cat you want at a later date (which also extends the validity) is the icing on the cake.

    • Rhys says:

      8 Jan8 January 23:14

      Thanks

• Tom Cook says:

  8 Jan8 January 16:52

  Has anyone had any joy with the mulberry offer, i.e. spend £200 and get 3k avios? I’ve got it on 3 cards and wonder if mulberry might let me split a payment into three transactions, or buy three gift cards at £200 a pop to trigger the bonus. The Mrs wants a new holdall…… 🙂

  • Rob says:

    8 Jan8 January 17:25

    Shouldn’t be a problem doing either of those to be honest.

    • Tom Cook says:

      8 Jan8 January 20:00

      Thanks Rob!

      • Tom1 says:

        8 Jan8 January 22:27

        Just check the locations in the terms first. The outlet stores aren’t included from what I can tell in case you were intending visiting Bicester/York/Chester for example. Although my statement shows Mulberry Sales ltd, so might give customer services a call and see whether they are feeling generous.

  • Crafty says:

    9 Jan9 January 07:28

    Presumably you could buy the gift cards (x3) at a regular Mulberry shop, triggering the offer 3 times; and then spend them at an outlet, benefiting from reductions.

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