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Bits: Hilton / Amex cashback, bonus Avios with stationery, Avios debit card now available again

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News in brief:

Hilton / Amex cashback deal now open to all Amex cards

American Express has been running a cashback deal recently with selected Hilton Group hotels across the UK and Europe.

You receive a £50 statement credit when you spend £250.  Whilst it is not stated in the rules, the spend appears to be cumulative and does not need to be hit in one stay.

The offer has now appeared on the Amex Connect website – click here.  This means that any personal American Express card can be registered even if it is issued by MBNA, Barclays or Lloyds.

You need to stay (or have a prepaid booking charged to your card) by 8th May.  Don’t forget to register and remember to check the list of participating hotels before you stay.

HILTON PARIS OPERA

2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin miles with £70 of stationery

Tesco Direct has launched a new style of promotional deal – with stationery.  Until 27th April, if you spend £70 on these stationery items at Tesco Direct you will receive 1,000 bonus Clubcard points.  These transfer into 2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin miles.

Only Avios-earning debit card now available again

Tesco Bank has reopened its current account to new applications.  It recently relaunched with an exceptionally generous deal but, swamped by applicants, it was withdrawn and the criteria tightened.

You receive:

a debit card which earns 0.3 Avios per £1 spent (you actually get 1 Clubcard point per £8 spent which gets you 2.4 Avios per £8 spent, note that you need to spend at least £8 per transaction to earn any points from it)

you will earn 3% credit interest on up to £3000, guaranteed until April 2019

your debit card will earn 1 Clubcard point for every £1 you spend on it in Tesco – this is a very generous 2.4 Avios or 2.5 Virgin miles – and this rate is guaranteed until April 2019

There are new rules on opening an account:

you must set up 3 direct debits

you must pay in £750 per month

If you make a lot of debit card payments or spend a lot in Tesco – or just want to earn an easy £90 per year in interest on £3000 of your savings – this is worth a look.  You can apply here.  

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

British Airways and Avios, Hilton Honors, Tesco Clubcard, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (201)

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

  • Nate1309 says:
    11 Apr11 April 12:16

    O/T sorry, is anyone else having trouble accessing BA.com today, especially the manage my booking page. Trying to print the car hire voucher for a trip tomorrow but keeps coming up as an error. I have tweeted BA and messaged them but no response…

    • Optimus Prime says:
      11 Apr11 April 12:43

      I’m having the same issue.

      • sprout7 says:
        11 Apr11 April 12:44

        +1. Can’t access my upcoming flights at the weekend.

        • Liz says:
          11 Apr11 April 12:55

          Same problem too but it says they are doing a test today to try again later

          • James67 says:
            11 Apr11 April 13:22

            OT@Liz, not sure if it’s something you would be happy to do with a new van Liz but you could make great money renting it out for a week for the Open at Carnoustie next year. If of interest yoh would need to get the site booked asap.

          • Liz says:
            11 Apr11 April 13:41

            Wouldn’t rent it out – I know people who rented out their old large house in Barry for the last Open in Carnoustie. It was rented to 5 top Nike execs – they made a fortune – enough for a family of 6 to go to Florida and then some!

      • Nate1309 says:
        11 Apr11 April 14:13

        Thanks, they finally messaged me back and said to ring them.

        • Nate1309 says:
          11 Apr11 April 14:19

          Speaking to the woman on the phone she said to try after 4pm. But that is was a major issue and they couldn’t access any booking information in the office either. She did say that the airport computers were working and if needs be my car hire voucher could be printed there. If that helps anyone. As there is no BA desk at CWL I guess I will take my chances with my email conformation if it still isn’t working before I leave.

  • Magarathea says:
    11 Apr11 April 15:06

    BA.com is down for me as well. I have a query about seat reservations on business class redemption bookings. I have done about 10, 2-4-1 redemptions in the last few years either in First or business class. Previously, seat reservations have not been a problem as First redemptions are free and I was BA silver for the business class bookings therefore also free. I’m now however BA blue and booked a business class 2-4-1 redemption to Los Angeles for March 2018. When I last looked at BA.com a few days ago it said I could only book seats at checkin. No option to pay extra to select seats. Is this correct? Any feedback would be appreciated.

    • jamie says:
      11 Apr11 April 15:52

      sounds to me like you have been forcibly downgraded, like anon…hope not for your sake.

    • Nate1309 says:
      11 Apr11 April 15:53

      you should be able to pay to reserve seats. But as blue you do have to wait until check in 🙁

    • Nick_C says:
      11 Apr11 April 17:08

      When you find out how much they charge, you may not want to! I’m flying to LA in June this year in J on a 241. Seat reservation starts at £77 but the best seats are £95 pp each way! Free in first, but very rare to find first redemptions on this route.

  • the real harry1 says:
    11 Apr11 April 17:07

    O/T https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id1079364261

    Airspace Explorer is a flight tracking and airspace education app. It has been developed by NATS (the UK’s leading provider of Air Traffic Control services) in partnership with FlightAware (the global flight data provider) and supported by AirTeamImages – the aviation images library. It’s currently in beta format

  • Joel says:
    11 Apr11 April 17:44

    Does anyone know if the same Tesco CC point conditions work on the debit cards? i.e. you won’t be getting any CC points for buying a gift card in store? Or would I be getting 50 cc points for spending £50 on a gift card?

    • Genghis says:
      11 Apr11 April 17:55

      Regardless of payment method, no clubcard points on gift cards now I’m afraid.

      • Alan says:
        11 Apr11 April 18:00

        Indeed – Morrisons the only decent options for points earning on GCs – 25 per GBP, so 2.5% (5000pts=£5 voucher)

      • Liz says:
        12 Apr12 April 00:03

        You get the pts for the gift card spend using the Tesco credit card but not for using the Clubcard

  • Crafty says:
    11 Apr11 April 18:00

    OT (slightly): as Hilton Gold, is breakfast included for both occupants of my room, or just me?

    • Alan says:
      11 Apr11 April 18:01

      For both of you – some hotels picky re the 2nd occupant being listed so you’d need to have booked the room for 2 rather than 1 – most don’t care at all and will happily let lots more in (eg if 2 parents/2 kids)

      • Crafty says:
        11 Apr11 April 22:40

        Cheers. Will confirm this weekend at the DT Edinburgh and report back if any problems!

    • TzarChasm says:
      11 Apr11 April 18:03

      I was wondering this too. If I was to book Hilton Rangali, apply for Amex Plat and upgrade my status before I reach there, would both of us get free breaky?

  • Callum says:
    11 Apr11 April 20:25

    I know you added the caveat after but it really should be changed to “up to 0.3 Avios per pound”. I don’t think normal debit card usage will get anywhere near that amount. I know when I had the Tesco credit card my average was far lower than the maximum.

  • Stu_N says:
    11 Apr11 April 20:41

    OT – how long does a BA Platinum Plus 2 for 1 voucher take to appear after hitting the spend target? Some juicy reward flights have come available and I am £50 short of target, I can pay a little bit of a BA holiday balance to hit the target.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      11 Apr11 April 23:56

      A few days for me but might of been becuase of my statement timing as it’s posted on the 26th of the month, possibly just coincidence.

    • Genghis says:
      12 Apr12 April 04:21

      I had to wait well over a week last time

      • Stu N says:
        12 Apr12 April 07:04

        Oh well, fingers crossed the seats are still around. Might buy some iTunes vouchers with my lunch so there’s an online and in store charge too…

  • Pid says:
    11 Apr11 April 21:11

    Excellent timing for the Amex/Hilton offer. I originally only got it on my BAPP which I used for two seperate stays, including the Hilton I am currently in. Have now managed to register my BAPP Sup, Plat and Plat Sup. I can use one for the incidental spend t this hotel and the others for advance bookings for summer holiday to Hong Kong/Tokyo. Looking forward to Rob’s reviews from his trip.

    • YL says:
      11 Apr11 April 22:39

      Hi Pid
      You may want to double check the T&C, if I remember correctly the hotels that are eligible for this offer are mainly Hilton hotels in Europe. I think there is a PDF doc with list of Hilton hotels.

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