Two ‘not so special’ Priority Club promotions from Amex

There is something distinctly weird about Amex Platinum and their special promotions. For every one they send you that might possibly be useful, there is one that is just fundamentally odd or poor value or downright deceptive.

If you have Amex Platinum, you probably received an email last week along these lines:

Enjoy 3 nights for the price of 2 at selected European InterContinental Hotels & Resorts.

Simply book between 13 June 2013 and 23 February 2014 for stays from and including 18 June 2013 to 28 February 2014.

REGISTER NOW – bookings must be made five days in advance. Escape to Europe and get even more out of your journey with your Platinum Card by your side. Offer is based on stays of a minimum and maximum of three consecutive nights based on two adults sharing standard twin/double room, on a room only basis.

On the face of it, this could be a decent deal. (Let’s ignore for a minute the fact that I have 3 nights already booked at the IC Dusseldorf and the promotion is not valid for those dates!)

However, it turns out that this is the same 3-for-2 deal that Priority Club has been offering for years, covering InterContinental plus Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Indigo and Holiday Inn Express!

I wrote about the Priority Club 3-4-2 it back in August 2012 in this article. If you click on the link in that post for the 3-for-2 deal, it shows you the same deals as with the Amex promo. And you don’t need to pay or even have an Amex Platinum to take part, neither do you need to register with Amex!

Meanwhile, over at Amex Network, the American Express special offers site, they are promoting two further Priority Club deals. These offer 2 nights for the price of 1, or 35% off.

Guess what? These are also the same deals that Priority Club has been running forever, and which can also be booked via the links in the post I wrote in August.

It is all rather odd. Amex has basically hijacked promotions that has been running for years and is implying that it is a unique deal for cardholders, when it isn’t anything of the sort! That isn’t to say that these are bad deals per se – they aren’t, I have booked them myself in the past – but they are open to anyone.

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