NEWS & OFFERS: Avios Shop Expanded – Worth Using?, Hilton to Launch a New Lifestyle Brand & Emirates to Add More Heathrow Flights

The New Avios Shop: Discount Apple Products Up to 25% Using Avios

IAG has now officially launched the Avios Shop platform. At the moment, the shop only covers selected Apple products, but has now been extended to include a huge number more Apple products, such as the iPhone 16, iPad Air (M3), Mac mini (M4) and Apple Watch Series 10.

You can pay part of your order with Avios, up to 25% of the total. You will earn 2 Avios per £1 spent on the cash portion.

Once you’re on the shop page, you can opt to log in with BA or Iberia. I found the site to be very user-friendly and fast, with no errors. As well as the price, you can see the number of Avios you could earn when you purchase each product.

Once you’ve clicked the product, here’s a range of options depending on the number of Avios you would like to spend. Just like flight redemptions, the options are listed depending on your Avios balance. 

For example, if you purchase the iPhone 16e for £599, you could get a discount of £187 using 31,515 Avios and pay the remaining £412 in cash. You’d also earn 824 Avios on the cash portion. If you pay with a credit card earning 1.5 Avios per £1, you’ll collect a further 618 Avios.

Worth It?

It’s always good to see IAG adding more ways to spend Avios, but for most people, spending Avios on flights will work out to be a better value. Here’s what you need to know:

• The discount works out at an average of 0.59p per Avios. This is much lower than the 1p plus you could get from spending the Avios on flights. However, it’s higher than some other ways to spend Avios, such as Nectar, which works out at 0.5p per Avios.
• The Avios shop has Apple products at Apple RRP. Yes, you can save using Avios, but this may only bring the price down to the discounted price you may find elsewhere. Make sure you check all retailers before deciding whether it’s right for you.

Things to Note:

• Lots of items are still not eligible for Avios part payment.
• You will not collect Avios on shipping and taxes.
• There is a monthly spend limit of £3,000 on Apple product discounts + £5,000 for your household in a 3-month period.
• To qualify for rewards, you must complete your purchase within the same session in which you begin the purchase without leaving your browser.

IAG already has big plans to expand the shop to include more premium travel accessories and lifestyle brands.

Jack Smith, Chief Retail Officer at IAG Loyalty, said:

“We’re continually evolving our proposition to give members more choice and options with how they can use their Avios. With the launch of the Avios Shop, we’re excited to offer a new way to redeem Avios on Apple products – with more additions to the shop coming soon.”

If you’re wondering what to do with your Avios balance, part-paying for Apple products could be a good option for you. However, for most, this isn’t a good-value option.

In the future, as more products are added to the shop, we expect to see deals on the number of Avios earned per £1 spent and possibly even better Avios redemption offers.

View the Avios Shop here 

Hilton to Launch a New Brand

Hilton has just announced its 25th brand – Outset by Hilton. Outset will be the 8th brand in the Lifestyle category, which already has 1,000 hotels under the brands of NoMad, Canopy, Curio Collection, Graduate, Tapestry Collection, Tempo, and Motto. The expansion builds on the success of the growth of Tapestry and Curio.

Outset will join Hilton’s 24 existing brands, which are designed to suit every guest and every travel occasion:

Outset is a collection of unique, independent and characterful hotels, aimed at properties that keep their own personality while under the Hilton brand and loyalty programme. Rather than a one-size-fits-all rule, each hotel will be owner-led and draw on local stories and be tailored to its surroundings. Hotels will have luxury finishes and story-driven design with special elements tied to the destination’s identity.

It’s important to note that food and drink options will vary across the brand, based on market demand, guest sentiment or hotel experience. This means you could get anything between a cafe serving light bites and a full lunch and dinner service.

The first Outset hotels will begin welcoming guests later this year, with bookings available from November. There are already more than 60 Outset hotels in development. Hotels would be in destinations you wouldn’t expect, such as small towns and adventure outposts.

One of the new hotels Hilton has named is the 130-room ACME in Chicago. This will be the first bookable hotel, and we will update you once the cash and redemption pricing are released.

Initially, new hotels are located in the US, but the growth potential is expected to include 500 new hotels across the US and Canada alone.

There’s a huge increase in hotel chains expanding their lifestyle portfolio at the moment. Wyndham Hotels has just launched a Business segment lifestyle collection brand. Marriott has expanded the number of Design Hotels and Series by Marriott collections, and even Hyatt has launched Unscripted by Hyatt, an outdoors-focused collection brand. 

Emirates to Run More Heathrow Flights This Winter

Emirates is adding more flights to its Heathrow schedule once again. From 26th October, there will be an additional six flights a week to Dubai, in addition to the six daily services from LHR that are already in operation. The new flights will operate from Sunday to Thursday, bringing the total number of flights to 48.

The new flights have been scheduled to meet high winter demand and give more flexibility and better connections via Dubai. There will be an overnight service that connects well with the early morning wave of flights from Dubai to destinations such as Phuket, Hong Kong, and Jakarta.

The schedule will be as follows:

Currently, all Heathrow to Dubai flights use an A380, but the extra flight operate using a Boeing 777-300ER, which has 350 seats and First, Business and Economy. The Airbus A380 has two decks, whereas the Boeing 777-300ER is a single-deck aircraft.

This flight increase is part of Emirates UK’s expansion strategy. By early 2026, Emirates will operate 90 weekly flights from London (Stansted, Heathrow, and Gatwick) and 146 flights from other UK airports, including Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, as of 8th February 2026. Emirates has already announced a fourth daily service to Gatwick, using an Airbus A350.

View the Emirates website here