Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Did you win our £500 Hotels.com gift voucher?

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Thank you to everyone who entered our Hotels.com competition last week.

Over 3,000 people entered which was a fantastic result.

The winner, who will receive a £500 Hotels.com voucher is ……

Janet Jones who, if there are multiple Janet Jones’ reading this, has a Tiscali email address.   Well done.

I will drop Janet an email later today.

Remember that the Hotels.com Summer Sale is still running if you are looking to book a hotel this week.  You can find out why I like the Hotels.com Rewards loyalty programme in this article.


Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.

Comments (28)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Johnnycl says:

    Well done Janet

  • Mike says:

    Hope you have a great time somewhere lovely Janet

  • Sunny says:

    Anyone know when the clubcard/avios draw is? Didn’t want that £500 hotel voucher anyway, I’m holding out for 1m avios! :p

    • harry says:

      The draw takes place on 7th July and winners are notified on the 14th.

  • James A says:

    Congratulations Janet!

  • Simmo says:

    OT/ Which credit card do I get next?

    Currently have:
    BA AMEX – in my 7th month (2-4-1 gained already)
    BA Gold – 1st month (£2k spent)
    Tesco CC – Not sure what to do with this one….
    Curve card
    Supercard

    Recently canceled:
    IHG Plat – Just about to cancel
    Virgin Plat – Cancelled 6 months ago
    SPG – Cancelled 2 months ago

    Slightly tempted by the AMEX Plat and then cancel, once I get the upgrade bonus.
    However, I currently have no point earning (non AMEX) card except Tesco (which is basically pointless now, only used for Food & Petrol).

    Will the Virgin Plat (30k?) be back again? would I get the bonus if I reapply?
    Not sure if the Hilton card is much use (17 nights last year, and Diamond status – 10 nights coming up in 2 months) Holidays are mostly paid on BA AMEX.

    Anything I’m missing?

    • Andrew* says:

      Surely to maximise points, it’s best to use BA card for food and fuel at Tesco…?

    • Genghis says:

      You seem to go through credit cards as fast as me!
      1) If you have the BAPP, I’d cancel that if you’ve used the 2-4-1 for a pro-rata refund.
      2) Potentially give the Hilton card (free hotel stay) a go after you’ve cancelled IHG – I believe there have been reports that you can get both at the same time now.
      3) I believe the upgrade to Amex Plat has now sailed – correct me if I’m wrong. Bear in mind you can only have either Amex Gold or Plat.
      4) You wouldn’t get the Virgin bonus if you apply again for the Virgin Black – or at least very unlikely. MBNA who issue the card don’t really allow churning.
      5) I’ve recently started on the Lloyds Avios £24 card (got referral from Raffles for 4.5k avios and have just referred wife (she gets 4.5k and I get 4.5k). We have some large payments coming up and will easily hit the £7k on each for an upgrade voucher each. This will be my interim card until my wife and I can apply for Amex Plat / BA Amex / SPG in the autumn.

      • Genghis says:

        Oh – and whilst not a great earning rate in itself, spend on the Mastercard as part of the Lloyds avios dual pack counts towards the £7k spend target. Depending on targets, this could be better than using Tesco credit card.

      • Simmo says:

        I don’t really want to cancel the BA AMEX (I haven’t used the 2-4-1 yet) and it earns the most points ongoing.

        The Lloyds card looks interesting, I was looking at the Premier card for the 2-4-1 but it seems can only be used for economy! However the £24 could be an option.
        1.25 per £1 on the AMEX vs 1.5 per £1 on the BA Amex isn’t too bad… I guess.

        Upgrade to Plat…. (I’ve found a link that still works and is offering 20,000 points) – Anybody used this recently?
        https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/content/upgrade-to-platinum/

        • Andrew* says:

          Yes 😉

        • Genghis says:

          Raffles doesn’t really rate the Premier card but the £24 Lloyds card seems decent. Good for FX as well remember.

          We have the diamond club card (no longer available) but we’re using the Lloyds cards to try to gain the upgrade voucher.

        • Gavin says:

          Lloyds card £24 version is double avios for first 6 months on the Amex (2.5/£) I think

      • Liz says:

        We upgraded from Gold to Platinum on 30/5 – I was told by Amex that the 20k upgrade offer is on till Jan 2017 – we upgraded and the 20k MR pts posted on Sunday !

        • Genghis says:

          Thanks for that Liz. I think I’ll make it Amex Gold with referral from Raffles (22k), upgrade to Plat (20k) , refer wife for Plat (18k+35k) in the autumn for a total of 95k MR points on a £5k spend.

          • Simmo says:

            Perfect! Thanks all!

            Plan as follows.
            1) Keep the BA AMEX to lock in the annual fee
            2) Upgrade AMEX Gold to Plat – Spend for bonus (20k + 1k spend) = 21k Avios
            3) Refer Gold card to my Brother (9k)
            4) Apply for the Lloyds £24 card – Spend £7k for upgrade voucher (4.5k + 6.5k spend (£5k AMEX, £2k Mastercard) = 11k Avios

            = 41k Avios for the pot

            + Wait for an increase SPG bonus in the future.

          • Simmo says:

            OK sold on the Lloyds.

            ”Double Avios for 6 months with your American Express® Card**”

            4) Apply for the Lloyds £24 card – Spend £7k for upgrade voucher (4.5k + 13k spend (£5k AMEX = 12.5k avios, £2k Mastercard = 500 avios) = 17.5k Avios

          • Alex W says:

            I read somewhere that BAPP annual fee is going up to £195 for existing holders as well as new applicants.

    • Andrew* says:

      If you’re lucky you might be able to upgrade to Amex Plat, get bonus AND not get charged the annual fee….

  • rams1981 says:

    … as long as you cancel in time Andrew? I upgraded recently and added my wife as supplementary. She was already a supplementary on my gold rewards so she got 2 sets of cards and I was charged a supplementary fee of £170. Later they credited me back £167 and £8… and also refunded pro-rat my gold fee for the year. So far not paid for the platinum.

    • Andrew* says:

      There’s talk in some parts about people not being charged the Plat card fee (the £450) when going via the upgrade route..

      Yes, I experienced the supp x 2 mistake! 😉

      • Genghis says:

        Me too. I called them up to cancel the mistake supp and then got a pro rata refund (£169 or so as opposed to the £170) and complained again out of principle for the extra quid.

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