Bits: Tesco Premium credit card changes, BA drops London City routes, Railcard discount

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• Louis says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:19

  When the Railcard discount code came out earlier this week, it had a glitch which gave £10 off instead of 10% !! I was able to get it for £20 before they fixed it 🙂

  The way I found out was by joining the Hot UK Deals Whatsapp group, which sends 2-3 messages a day about deals, including glitches so you can grab before they fix!

  Railcard glitch link: http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/glitch-10-off-one-year-railcards-with-code-price-now-20-2592858

• rams1981 says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:14

  OT Virgin Black Amex – are you notified when you reach the 5k/10k spend for the upgrade vouchers? Is there an easy way to check this rather than going through each statement to check the spend?

  • CDB says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:50

    No but the pdf statements show amex spend each month so just add that up

• Chris says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:41

  I was booked in LCY-ALC for August, 4xCE tickets.

  Moved onto the 0630 LGW flight which is incredibly inconvenient, no cannot make it there by train for the flight and it’s twice as far to travel.

  I’m guessing I’ve no recourse here as they’ll tell me I’m free to cancel? But it’s seriously poor form IMO, this is a flight at a rubbish time for us (family of 5 with an infant) at the most distant airport I could think of, and no suites left at the Sofitel so can’t even stop there the night before, it’s going to have to be the hampton :-/

  • Phil says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:24

    I only booked MAD to LCY last week (via Iberia) and have already paid for hotels. Instead of arriving to LCY at 9.25pm I now arrive to LHR at 10.05pm – massively inconvenient when I live 10 mins away from LCY.
    I’ve only found out about this from Head for Points. No alert from the BA app.
    Anybody have similar experience of getting compensation from BA?

    • Rob says:

      6 Jan6 January 15:53

      Cut off is 14 days unfortunately.

      • Rocchi says:

        6 Jan6 January 20:38

        I had MAD – LCY, LCY – GLA booked for October and only found out today because I took the notion to check. No e-mail notification received. The flight from MAD had been changed to LHR with the GLA flight still leaving from LCY with a one and a half hour transfer time between flights. Why did I have to phone BA to change my final leg? Coming from GLA it is always frustrating when looking for BA reward flights it throws up so many options that have connections through different London airports. I mean who wants to drag themselves and their luggage from one airport to another? Why can’t BA understand that?

• James67 says:

  6 Jan6 January 11:12

  OT: I upgraded PRG to platinum last July and then cancelled platinum in September. Can I reapply for PRG this month or do I need to wait until March, six moths after cancelling platinum? Thanks.

  • Genghis says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:26

    You can reapply anytime but to get another bonus you need to wait 6 months since you last held a card with an MR account, so March.

    • James67 says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:48

      Thanks, this is what I figured. For the first time I can recall I’m stuck for three months without a card I can work towards a bonus on. I’ll need to go and have another look at mbna.

      • Lawro says:

        6 Jan6 January 11:56

        Hehe found myself in a similar position a couple of months ago. Most discomforting!

        Got my eye on the Virgin Black when that bonus hopefully returns…wish they’d extend the Clubhouse raised sign-up offer to regular applications though.

        • Lawro says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:00

          I do the ‘Genghis cycle’ but that still leaves gaps occasionally-especially if I decide to keep one like the BAPP for a little longer than usual to earn my 2-4-1/ get a double points offer on the SPG card.
          What I’d really like is the the double points on the BAPP card, had that about 18 months ago and it was the closest I could ever get to old BMI-card earning rates.

        • Genghis says:

          6 Jan6 January 12:21

          Didn’t realise that was a thing! lol 🙂 I’ll be taking 2017 a bit easier on the churn. No new cards planned now till the summer (when can do the Amex Plat/Gold and SPG churns again). I just want to be a normal punter.

          Virgin Black Amex and IHG Black once finish with BAPP for 241 and sign up bonus for wife in late Jan / Feb.

        • James67 says:

          6 Jan6 January 18:31

          Unfortunately, I’ve found no cards of interest.

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 15:53

    March

• Lawro says:

  6 Jan6 January 12:36

  Sorry for coining that! Given the amount of mentions its had in recent weeks I felt it was apt! To be honest I’ve been doing the same for quite a while. But yes I agree I have taken the view to take it easy a bit occasionally, don’t particularly like doing the 6 week turnaround unless its with the Plat where the fee can really build up if you’re not on top of it and would rather keep on Amex’s good side in general.Which is a why I sometimes preferred an upgraded Gold as one half of the churn.
  I tend to not be as particular with the BAPP and SPG as mentioned. BAPP for earning 2-4-1 purposes as that will normally take longer than regular churn time. Cancel when it has been earned though. SPG because I’ve got good value out of the bonus point per pound especially as more often than not I’ve been without another Avios earning card at the time.

  • Genghis says:

    6 Jan6 January 12:45

    Yes, I’m now thinking of doing Amex Gold next time around for me (and refer Mrs G for a quick Plat turn around for a quick 55k) and holding the card for a bit and spending some coin, maybe even go for the £15k spend for the 10k bonus points which I’ve never bothered with before.

    • Lawro says:

      6 Jan6 January 13:03

      This may no longer be possible or as lucrative as it once was.

      1) With new rules on Amex referrals you supposedly wouldn’t, as a gold,be able to refer your wife for Plat and receive 18k MR.
      2) Gold-Plat-Plat used to work out as 24+21+18+37=100k with the 20k MR upgrade offer from Gold to Plat. This meant it was actually more appealing than Plat-Plat: 37+18+37=92k.

      Now however at least until a good upgrade offer returns the Gold route doesn’t make any sense.

      • Genghis says:

        6 Jan6 January 13:11

        Oh yes – thanks for that reminder. Been a while since done Gold. May just stick to the Plat churn then!

        • Lawro says:

          6 Jan6 January 13:18

          All may not be lost on that front though-assuming a decent upgrade offer manifests itself, say 20k, not an unreasonable possibility, the cycle would look like this: 24+21+9+37=91k. Just short of the regular 92k and there’s a good chance the fee won’t trigger on the first Plat. It doesn’t help you if you actually wanted to use the Gold card for a bit as downgrading would/should trigger the Gold fee immediately.

          I have always been fond of the Gold card though, perhaps from the days where random retailers were coded as spending abroad and I received 2x, 3x or even 4x expected number of points plus of course fuel+supermarket double points.

        • Matthew says:

          6 Jan6 January 15:22

          They removed the 20k bonus MR upgrade Gold to Plat in December – just as I was about to do it. Anyone heard of any upgrade offers about?

        • the real harry says:

          6 Jan6 January 19:24

          Every rubber band snaps, Genghis

          We think they accept churning because they are assessed on recruiting new sign-ups so sort of welcome it, even though it costs their company money

          Not really sustainable, though fun while it lasts

          I certainly don’t take the proverbial, I am probably missing a trick but too much the other way doesn’t sit easy (they have a certain power as well to screw up your credit)

        • Genghis says:

          6 Jan6 January 19:36

          Agreed Harry.

    • jamie says:

      6 Jan6 January 13:05

      why give up the extra MR points Genghis?

      I thought u never churned the gold

      • Genghis says:

        6 Jan6 January 19:16

        Just thinking about it. Cannot apply for another 5.5 months or so. We already spend prob about £30k with them direct (and I guess they earn through the MBNA and Lloyds ones) a year but I should throw a bit more their way to keep them on side.

• rams1981 says:

  6 Jan6 January 13:40

  OT for AMEX points transfers do the names have to match the destination Virgin account?

  • Lawro says:

    6 Jan6 January 14:44

    AFAIK yes as the system is ‘live’ provided you’ve already linked your accounts.

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 15:50

    Varies by partner although technically answer is no. Easiest thing is to do a 1000 point test.

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