News & offers: BA’s T3 plans, Avios offers, Emirates sale & Cathay’s restaurant dining

British Airways reveals plans to Heathrow Terminal 3

British Airways has now started to run Terminal 3 as a separate entity with a fifth of all BA’s passengers now flying through T3. The Terminal has its own separate BA team and has “big plans” for the future. These include a revamp of the check-in area in conjunction with American Airlines although there are no details on this yet. They will also be opening a new combined flight connections centre with American Airlines this summer to give the customer a smoother connection experience.

15 Avios per £1 on hotel bookings

If you have any hotel bookings to do and don’t need to book through the hotel’s own website for status points, you may want to consider booking on the Avios portal. This allows you to book a hotel using either Avios, Avios + cash or cash only. If you pay all cash you can currently earn triple Avios which gives a whopping 15 Avios per £1 spent, which on a big holiday could be a substantial amount. There are obviously a number of factors to consider before deciding if this is the best way to book such as:

• The cost versus other websites with cashback
• The cost versus booking a flight+ hotel with BA holidays to save money and earn extra Avios on your hotel booking
• Any online travel agent loyalty program you are a member of such as hotels.com or Expedia.

The example I looked at was £20 more expensive per night than the cheapest online option which was Agoda who also give Avios and cashback of around 6%. On this booking I would have got 987 with Agoda versus 2940 with Avios.com.

The Avios page you need to book is here.

Earn 20,000 Avios with The Times

NOTE: The offer below despite still being live and having no end date on the details appears not be working and The Times are currently investigating. I will post if we get any resolution to this.

If you regularly read The Times or would like to, you may want to consider their offer. The Times are offering 20,000 Avios when you take out a subscription with them for a minimum of a year. The cheapest one costs £5 a week which is £260 a year. This would give you:

• The print edition – Monday to Saturday
• Smartphone app
• 7 day access to both websites
• Access to Times+
• Avios credited within 28 days of us receiving your Avios membership details

If you don’t want the physical print edition you could have the £6 a week version which gives you digital copies of The Times and Sunday Times as well.  If you were to buy 20,000 Avios it would cost you £335 versus £260 for The Times. Given that BA often do bonus Avios when you buy them, I personally wouldn’t buy it unless I actually wanted to read the Times or desperately needed the Avios now (or in the 28 days it takes to receive them!).

The sign-up page and more information about The Times offer is here.

Cathay Pacific to launch new business class dining

As reported by Australian Business Traveller, Cathay have confirmed that they are launching a new restaurant-style dining experience in business class. The new service will allow for more choice and personalisation although it stops short of dining on demand. Cathay say that the new business class meal service will take a step towards a First class experience and feature restaurant-style food presentation.

All cabin crew will undertake a two-day training course before they start delivering the new food service. The restaurant style dining will be introduced on some European routes from September with it coming to London in December 2018.

Emirates business class sale

Emirates has a business class promotion on at the moment to a limited range of destinations. As usual, if you book the Emirates flight on a Qantas codeshare (flight number starts QF) you will earn Avios and BA Tier points too. This should be available on Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur flights. (codeshare map) The prices aren’t that good but slightly cheaper than Emirates usual prices which are normally high anyway. Return prices in business class flying from London Gatwick start from