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Bits: free Uber rides tonight, buy Concorde seats, beat AwardWallet’s price hike

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News in brief:

Free Uber rides on Christmas Eve

As part of a promotion with Budweiser, you can travel for free with UberX tonight between 4pm and midnight.

This offer is good for both new and existing Uber clients.

You need to register your details at this website.   At 4pm today – and not before – you will be emailed a code.  Plug this into the Uber app and it will be good for a £15 credit towards any UberX ride taken before midnight tonight.

If you are new to Uber, remember that you can get another £15 ride credit – valid on ANY day against ANY car type – by entering promo code HEADFORPOINTS after downloading the app.

Buy two Concorde seats at Christies

If your living room needs sprucing up, Christies in South Kensington will be auctioning two Concorde seats on 11th January.

The guide price is £2,000 – £3,000 for the pair as you can see.

AwardWallet announces sharp price hike

There is only one miles and points tool that I use every day – and have done for a number of years – and that is AwardWallet.

AwardWallet allows you to store the log-in and password details for pretty much all of the loyalty programmes you are in. It isn’t just travel, either – Nectar, Boots Advantage, Tesco Clubcard, Harrods Rewards …. they cover over 680 programmes from across the world.

Across their entire membership, they are tracking over 93 BILLION miles and points.

You can store programmes for various different people inside one AwardWallet account. When I log in, I see over over 60 different accounts across my family.

You can sit and back and do nothing with AwardWallet if that is how you want to play it. Once a week, AwardWallet will automatically log in to each of your programmes and update your balance. It will then send you a weekly email with all of your balance changes.

For the more obsessive, like myself, you can log in to AwardWallet and simply click ‘Update’. AwardWallet goes off and updates all of your ‘active’ balances immediately (it takes 3-4 minutes to check my active ones). On a PC you can leave it running in another window.  Even faster is the impressive app.

If you are not already a member of AwardWallet, you can sign up for free here.

From 1st February, AwardWallet will be increasing the charge for its premium service from $5 every six months (ie $10 per year) to $30 per year.  Premium members  get the expiry date of their points tracked, and email warnings sent out if miles are heading towards expiry.  The app also runs faster as it searches for multiple results in parallel rather than one scheme at a time.

If you upgrade to AwardWallet Plus before 1st February you will be grandfathered onto the ‘$5 every six months’ plan for life.

If you have a free AwardWallet subscription I would recommend paying $5 to upgrade to Plus NOW.  You may or may not find the added benefits useful but you have six months to decide before your next $5 is due and you will have secured yourself grandfather rights to the $5 fee.

For clarity, if you are currently on Plus due to redeeming a free code then you will NOT be grandfathered onto the $5 plan.  You need to pay $5 before 1st February to push out the expiry of your current membership.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (76)

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

  • EwanG says:
    24 Dec24 December 07:30

    Slight correction on AwardWallet….
    If you are a Plus member having redeemed free code(s), to enable you to be grandfathered onto the $10 /year rate you will need to log into your account and set up a payment for $10. This will be taken at the expiry of your existing free period (whenever that is) – however you need to actively do this before the rate increase on 1st February.

    • Jordan Rowland says:
      24 Dec24 December 10:14

      Random question, but what method do people use to pay for award wallet? Is paypal the cheaper option for the reoccurring $10 or just stick it on credit charge and pay the 3% (which I accept is minimal). Cheers.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        24 Dec24 December 10:52

        PayPal will convert at their own rate so will end up being about the same. I stick to local currency and use my Avios AMEX as no fx fees

        • John says:
          24 Dec24 December 14:02

          Paypal’s DCC rate is about 4.5% so worse than a regular CC – but with the USD fluctuating between 1.27 and 1.2 choosing the right day to pay can make more of a difference

  • Anon says:
    24 Dec24 December 07:57

    Iggy, over to the far right, 1/2 way up.

    Be quick as he’s in Mexico City! :p

    130000 points
    HUGO BOSS 50240215 TITANIA NYLON & PU WORK BAG BLACK
    HB-091

  • SLS says:
    24 Dec24 December 08:30

    OT and perhaps a slightly naughty question. Is it remotely possible to sign up for US based credit cards from the UK? I am assuming not given issues over credit checks etc but would be interested to know if anyone has done this. The points available are very generous, relatively speaking. Hopeful as opposed to expecting!

    • Alan says:
      24 Dec24 December 08:32

      Lol they’re very generous not just relatively speaking but absolutely! You need a US SSN and credit file (plus address obviously), haven’t heard anyone manage without those.

      • JAXBA says:
        24 Dec24 December 10:30

        And even for resident aliens, getting a social security number isn’t easy either. Took me 4 months from the date I immigrated…

        • Liz says:
          24 Dec24 December 12:02

          My daughter got a US SSN by working at Camp America for 2 summers! She earned a pittance and they taxed her. Submitted forms for a rebate but got rejected!

        • Simon Schus says:
          24 Dec24 December 12:48

          Haha. I know some people whose SSN took months too. Mine took 6 days from moving over, but then again I went into the Social Security office the day after landing to apply for a number to be generated.

      • Simon Schus says:
        24 Dec24 December 12:46

        It is actually possible to get a US credit card without a US Social Security Number but most banks will be incredibly reluctant and you may end up getting classed as a US tax resident.

        I know that it is possible to get a US credit card without an SSN because I did it before moving to the US. I got a US credit card without an SSN, through HSBC’s International Bank Account opening team – I had no SSN nor any other Tax Identification Number either. I did, however, have a US residence visa approval letters/stamp. A few weeks later when I became a US resident, I got my SSN which AMEX USA wanted for me to open a US card using their Global Transfer service.

        It takes 6 months before the credit agencies start getting your data from the credit card companies. You start from scratch. I had to rely on the AMEX and HSBC global transfer services to get the credit cards from Day 1. Six months later though, I have a credit file and can apply for things without having to leverage my U.K. credit relationships (I.e HSBC and AMEX U.K.).

        • Simon Schus says:
          24 Dec24 December 12:52

          P.s. for clarity, the only reason I think I got the US HSBC bank account and credit card without an SSN was that I had a piece of paper saying I had a US residence visa. They actually used my U.K. address on all the forms but took the US visa in my passport as the proof of eligibility. It was all moot as I got an SSN after moving over anyway. I had to fill in some forms to get the SSN associated with my credit cards, and HSBC USA had zero branches nearby to me so I had to mail it in.

    • John says:
      24 Dec24 December 08:52

      You know, primarily a credit card is a way for you to *create money* and spend it while promising the bank you will pay it back within the next 56 days. Not to mention they are *paying* $1000+ just to open the account. So why would they even touch someone who had no links to the US.

      10 years ago perhaps if you deposited $100,000 with a US bank which you were absolutely unable to touch under any circumstances, they just might have given you a card with a limit of half of the deposit. This still seems to be possible in Canada but perhaps not if you are merely a tourist.

      Also if you have HSBC Premier in the UK or elsewhere you may have been able to get the US version plus credit card in the past, not so sure now as HSBC was prosecuted for money laundering.

      Also if you have Amex Centurion and spend millions of pounds a year I’m sure they could work something out for you in the US.

    • Chris says:
      24 Dec24 December 09:20

      If they could link the promotions to your regional country that would be a fantastic upgrade.

    • Andy says:
      24 Dec24 December 15:24

      I am a US citizen, lived in the UK since I was 14. Never worked in the US but when I went to the embassy to renew my passport decided to hand in my SSN application. 2 weeks later it arrived in the post.
      I do very well out of the US based CC’s. I use my brothers address and as he has the same last name as me it seems to get around the credit check.
      I also have a US bank account with BOA so pay my bills with that.

    • SLS says:
      24 Dec24 December 19:07

      Thanks all. With no impending plans to move to the us it doesn’t seem an avenue worth exploring!

  • Alan says:
    24 Dec24 December 08:33

    Aww did you see Harry got the name check rather than you, th real harry? 😉

    • th real harry says:
      24 Dec24 December 09:00

      [pious] I’m just happy to see people get the deal & not drnk drive @ Xmas [/pious]

      🙂

  • Joe says:
    24 Dec24 December 08:36

    O/t has anyone had the Avis points yet? My 700 posted but not the bonus so slightly worried…

  • AndyR says:
    24 Dec24 December 09:36

    What people’s views on the cases with 4 wheels? Thinking about getting one but worry the wheels are more likely to get broken?

    • Johnnycl says:
      24 Dec24 December 10:22

      I got a Samsonite with 4 spinner wheels back in July and so far no problems, but only used it for a few flights. Prices seem keen enough to make it worth the risk I say…

      • AndyR says:
        24 Dec24 December 11:33

        Thanks Johnnycl! Gonna give it a go.

        • Liz says:
          24 Dec24 December 11:58

          I bought a Lizzy McCoo large suitcase from Steven Brown Art in Ayr in the Black Friday Sale – they were offering 30% off – I added it to my basket and then thought – no I don’t need another case – but I love it – I left it in the basket and then got an email offering me a further 10% to encourage me to complete the sale – ended up with £59 off! Can’t wait to use it next year! PS I love Highland Cows!

    • czechoslovakia says:
      24 Dec24 December 13:39

      4 wheels are better than 2, especially if, like me, you are constantly dragging 2 of them around with typically 25 – 30kg in each, with a bag over your shoulder.
      Have 2 Samsonite hard shells, both 4 years old, and typically do 40 flights a year. Both still holding up well, apart from the “tread” on the wheels being surely now well below the legal minimum!
      These are best bought through the German websites, as a LOT cheaper there, although Brexit might have made it less so.

    • zsalya says:
      24 Dec24 December 13:54

      I found four wheels a nightmare – I blame that bg for giving me tennis elbow.
      Maybe I just had the technique wrong.
      I am back to two-wheel bags, although they are now outnumbered by the four-wheel ones by many manufacturers.
      ebags.com is the one site I have found where one can filter to see only two-wheelers.

    • Brighton Belle says:
      24 Dec24 December 16:41

      I got the spinner wheels. You need to tether it your body. It is forever rolling away on the bus, on the train, every bend or hill will encourage it to make a run for a new life….but otherwise it’s designed with some travel thought.

      • flyforfun says:
        25 Dec25 December 10:45

        This is the reason why I rejected them from the start! If you travel to the airport on busses trains and tube I can imagine 4 wheels ones are a nightmare!

        I’ve just replaced a trusty swiss bag after my on my last trip it got a dodgy wheel with an IT Luggage 2 wheel one. Cost GBP29 from their website direct. Weighs about 3kgs and with the expansion open takes 97 litres. On its first leg and and so far so good.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    24 Dec24 December 10:24

    A bit confused by Award Wallet. I’m paid up until next July and set as recurring so I shouldn’t need to do anything to keep the $10 cost is my thinking.

  • RussellH says:
    24 Dec24 December 11:05

    OT Amex charges.

    In the latest Travel Trade Gazette:- Jet2 (and Jet2 Hiolidays), having dropped Visa / MC credit card fees last January, have now dropped fees for Amex. They claim to be the first ‘Travel Brand’ (whatever that means) to scrap all card fees.

    I also saw an announcement that Dart Group, who AFAIK own Jet2, have just taken delivery of 2 new A321s, proudly announcing that they have the densest seat configuartion possible…

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