Pre-Book Lounges with AMEX Platinum, BA Status Match with SkyTeam and Star Alliance and a Tempting Nutmeg ISA Transfer Offer

Hello, Adventurous Travellers, and Happy Thursday!

Let’s get started!

• Book UK Airport Lounges Free with the AMEX Platinum Card: You can now get lounge access even during peak times.

• Get Your BA Status Matched with Skyteam and Star Alliance: Take advantage of a unique opportunity to match your British Airways status to both SkyTeam and Star Alliance. Get elite benefits across all three major airline alliances.

• Boost Your Avios Balance with the New Nutmeg ISA Transfer Offer: Transfer your existing ISAs to Nutmeg and receive a boost in Avios points or cash investment rewards.

• eBay and Nectar Partnership Changing from 1st September: The changes coming to the eBay and Nectar partnership and how to continue earning points on your purchases.

Book UK Airport Lounges Free with the AMEX Platinum Card or Centurion Card

Lounges are often unavailable for Priority Pass cardholders during peak times. From now on, you can pre-book some UK airport lounges for free! If you already have the card, you will have 4 pre-booking credits you need to use by 31st December this year.

Supplementary cardholders will receive their own pre-booking allowance. You can easily add a supplementary cardholder to your Amex account.

This is a six-month trial, but I don’t see it not working!

To pre-book, download the Priority Pass app and add your AMEX Platinum card.

This partnership means you’re much more likely to get lounge access than before when pre-booking was possible. However, it’s up to the individual lounge whether pre-booking is allowed, so not all lounges will be available. 

The lounges that will be available straight away include:

• Birmingham: Aspire Lounge, Aspire Lounge (South Terminal), No.1 Lounge, Clubrooms.

• Manchester: Aspire Lounge Terminal 1, Aspire Lounge Terminal 2

• Humberside: Aspire Lounge

• Liverpool John Lennon: Aspire Lounge

• Newcastle: Aspire Lounge

• Belfast: Aspire Lounge

Lounges in Scotland

• Edinburgh: Aspire Lounge Gate 4, Aspire Lounge Gate 16

• Inverness: Aspire Lounge

Lounges at London Airports

• Heathrow: No.1 Lounge Terminal 3, Club Aspire Lounge Terminal 3, Club Aspire Lounge Terminal 5

• Gatwick: No.1 Lounge South Terminal, No.1 Lounge North Terminal, Clubrooms Gatwick North, Clubrooms Gatwick South, My Lounge South Terminal, Club Aspire Lounge South Terminal

• Luton: No.1 Lounge, My Lounge

Hopefully, this will be extended to more lounges!

Note: This is also available to Amex Platinum Business cardholders.

Match Your BA Status with SkyTeam and Star Alliance

You can now match your British Airways status (oneworld) to SAS’s EuroBonus and Luftansa’s Miles & More loyalty programmes.

This is huge, as it will give you elite status benefits across all three major airline alliances!

With SAS's upcoming switch from Star Alliance to SkyTeam on 1st September 2024 (due to it being acquired by Air France-KLM), you have until 30th August to take advantage of the status match opportunity if you have status with British Airways, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines or Finnair frequent flyer programs. 

This match will give you both SkyTeam benefits when flying with the likes of Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM and others, whilst also allows you to gain Star Alliance benefits for use with Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian and more.

Here's how it looks depending on your level of British Airways status:

BAEC Bronze (oneworld Ruby):

If you hold BA Bronze status, you can get mid-tier benefits with Star Alliance and SkyTeam, including Miles & More status, which will get you lounge access when you fly with SWISS, Austrian and Lufthansa. 

• BA Bronze → SAS EuroBonus Silver (giving you Star Alliance Silver)

• SAS EuroBonus Silver → Lufthansa Miles & More Silver (giving you SkyTeam Silver)

BAEC Silver or Gold (oneworld Sapphire or Emerald):

If you hold silver status with BA, you can get top-tier status in SkyTeam and Star Alliance (rather than mid-tier). EuroBonus Gold will also be eligible for Lufthansa's Senator status.

• BA Silver/Gold → SAS EuroBonus Gold (giving you Star Alliance Gold)

• SAS EuroBonus Gold → Lufthansa Miles & More Gold (giving you SkyTeam Gold)

As you can see, if you have BA Silver status, you ‘upgrade’ in status to a higher tier with Star Alliance / SkyTeam through this match.

Your SAS status will last until 31st March 2025. You can extend this for a year with 5 paid SAS flights to keep gold or 2 to keep silver.

Lufthansa's status will last until 28th February 2025 and can be extended by a year with 6 qualifying tickets by 30th November. Qualifying flights include those with Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Croatia Airlines, Discover Airlines, Eurowings, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City, Luxair, and SWISS.

To match your status, you must first open a SAS EuroBonus account and fill out the status match form. Once you have SAS EuroBonus status, you can match that via Lufthansa’s website.

Boost Your Avios Balance with the New Nutmeg ISA Transfer Offer

Take advantage of Nutmeg's new offer to transfer your existing ISAs by 25th September and receive a reward in cash investment or Avios points.

Nutmeg is a digital wealth management service (part of J.P. Morgan), and you can start investing from as little as £500 in a pension or ISA or £100 in a Junior ISA.

The offer is open for transferring cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, Lifetime ISAs, and Junior ISAs.

You can also transfer a Child Trust Fund into a Junior ISA, but you can only have one Junior ISA.

To be eligible, you must transfer a minimum of £5,000 and not be a John Lewis Investment client. 

Here’s how many Avios you could earn. You can also opt for an investment boost instead:

You can also combine multiple transfers to increase the Avios earned to 300,000. 

You should aim to get a value of at least 1p per point—or more if you get a good deal!

You can get more from your points by using a cabin upgrade voucher or companion voucher, which you can earn via a variety of credit cards.

If you use your points wisely, they could end up being worth double the Nutmeg investment boost value.

eBay and Nectar Partnership Ending from 1st September

As of 1st September, you can no longer collect or spend Nectar points with eBay.

However, you can still collect Nectar points on eBay purchases when you shop via Nectar. You will now have to click through to the eBay site via Nectar (similar to the BA executive shopping portal). You’ll now get 2 points per £1 spent, which is an increase compared to the current 1 point per £ spent. 

This will end with double-dipping. Currently, you can get cashback via Topcashback or Virgin Red, Nectar points directly with eBay, and AMEX points for paying. Going through the Nectar portal means no cashback (it will be paid in points instead).

In addition, eBay will no longer take AMEX from 17th August… That’s another route gone. You can still use AMEX via PayPal, but the protection won’t be the same. 

Final Words

That’s all for this week! Whether you want to maximise your Avios, get guaranteed lounge access, or take advantage of new offers, we hope these tips help you get more travel rewards.

Want to continue the conversation? Come and join our free Facebook group.

Safe travels, and always aim for the upgrade!

Bye for now!