Bits: Avios / Caffe Nero deal tweak, Flying Blue / PointsHound bonus, AA hotel bonus

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

• Roger says:

  3 May3 May 04:56

  Slight OT but regaled to AAdvantage via Marriott Hotel + Air package
  Using 270k Marriott points one can get 150K AA miles and 7 nights at category 1-5 hotels.

  Looking at various blogs it seems that 7 nights certificate is valid for 12 months.
  Is that valid for booking and stay at further future date or for consumption within 12 months from the issue date? Seriously considering this Hotel + Air package. Already bought 30K SPG miles for nearly £600 and with AMEX MR transfer should get to 90K SPG points later this month.

  • Rachael says:

    3 May3 May 08:20

    My impression from speaking to Marriott is you use the certificate with in 12 months but if you upgrade they will add another 12 months.

  • Amit says:

    3 May3 May 09:21

    Is AAdvantage included in the marriott travel package? Couldn’t see it on the list

    • Colin mackinnon says:

      3 May3 May 14:28

      Yes. It is missing from U.K. List but on the USA one. Called Marriott and they said AA in U.K. Is fine. And so did a travel package redemption and miles went to AA OK!

      • Amit says:

        3 May3 May 17:24

        Thanks

        • Roger says:

          9 May9 May 21:01

          Has anyone found any T&C which says miles converted from Marriott Travel package will also earn 25% bonus?

          Could not see it anywhere, just want to get a confirmation before I spend too much time acquiring SPG points

• Roger says:

  3 May3 May 05:01

  Anyone spotted £100 Visa or MasterCard prepaid card at Morrisons?
  Assume it gets treated as debit card for online and offline spends?

  • mark2 says:

    3 May3 May 05:51

    That will vary between merchants.
    Presumably there is an additional charge, usually £3.95 on £50 cards which more than wipes out the 2.5% cash back from Morrison’s or am I missing something?

    • Peter K says:

      3 May3 May 09:23

      £7.95 on the £100 prepaid cards.

      • Sundar says:

        3 May3 May 20:23

        Then buying 2 x £50 gift cards is cheaper ? 2 x £3.95 = £7.9 as opposed to 7.95 on the 100 !

        • the real harry1 says:

          3 May3 May 20:32

          get ’em in Boots with the £5 off £20 deal if you’re that desperate

• Burton says:

  3 May3 May 06:51

  Now all we need is AMEX MR to SPG Conversion Bonus!
  May be I am living in La La Land….

  • rick says:

    3 May3 May 07:21

    May be…
    But on a serious note, does anyone know of any past history of Amex MR to SPG transfer bonus?

    • Rob says:

      3 May3 May 08:35

      No, never.

      • guesswho2000 says:

        4 May4 May 12:50

        They did a targeted 50% last year on the US MR programme. That’s of little use to most of us reading this though, and the US transfer rate is 3:1…

• the real harry1 says:

  3 May3 May 06:52

  O/T just wondering when people normally get hotel status cards etc with Plat? I was in & out in a couple of days before cancelling, Plat card + PP card arrived same day, should I therefore not expect to receive anything further in the post?

  • Roger says:

    3 May3 May 07:05

    I have been waiting for my hotel status upgrade for 2 weeks now.

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 May3 May 07:17

      Amex Plat card, I meant

      • Rob says:

        3 May3 May 08:37

        Hotel status uogrades are not automatic, you must request them. Don’t request, don’t get.

        I did Hilton for my wife last week and it was processed within 48 hours.

        You are unlikely to get a plastic card until you’ve done a stay.

  • Stu_N says:

    3 May3 May 08:29

    Melia Gold took about a week for the status to update in my account and a month for the card to arrive. Starwood and Hilton came through in a day or two but haven’t had anything through the post – that’s about 3 months now, I guess they don’t send cards. Still have the Platinum but doubt that makes any difference.

    • MattyS says:

      3 May3 May 08:38

      Received acknowledgement email for upgrade from Amex Plat to HH and SPG on 16/4, still not showing when I log into those accounts.

• the real harry1 says:

  3 May3 May 06:59

  I see Alitalia went into administration overnight – not a good idea to book new flights with them

  • HV says:

    3 May3 May 08:25

    I already have flights booked with them in July (22) – should I be worried or is it business as usual at the moment?

    • rick says:

      3 May3 May 08:32

      Hope you used credit card for booking.

      • Rob says:

        3 May3 May 08:40

        Etihad owns the Heathrow slots, apparently, because it took them as security for its loan. They could be pulled at any point – although, due to the ‘use it or lose it’ slot ownership rules, Etihad needs someone flying in and out.

      • HV says:

        3 May3 May 08:42

        Ye I did. Two flights from FCO-LHR (one way) were £130 for both with seats and baggage. The loss of £130 isn’t to bad, but finding new flights for the same day now is very expensive and nothing on Avios either. Will wait and see.

  • ankomonkey says:

    3 May3 May 13:38

    So this makes my status matched Freccia card collectible! ebay here I come. It finally has a use!

  • Fenny says:

    5 May5 May 18:29

    I’m still getting email offers from Alitalia and the website doesn’t say anything about administration. Not that I’m likely to book with them after they screwed up an offer of status upgrade for 1 return booking last summer and have completely failed to do anything about it. They even took points off me last week! But the Club Ulisse email address stopped working a couple of weeks ago.

• Andy says:

  3 May3 May 08:36

  The Cafe Nero shop in store collection is a disaster. The only card registered is my BANK Amex. However since 17 March 2017 non of my points have posted.

  I have not changed Amex card and submitted about 5 manual claims on avois.come and still waiting to hear back on these.

  • Richard says:

    3 May3 May 09:12

    Same here regarding Caffe Nero, I’ve used 3 different cards registered- not a sausage!
    The ‘ missing Avios’ people (based in the Far East judging by the names on the replies) certainly take their time about it.

    • JohnT says:

      3 May3 May 10:58

      I have just noticed these stopped a while ago? On the FAQ it says “You might not earn Avios In Store if the same payment card is registered with another ‘card-linked offer’ programme. To avoid this, ensure that you delete or remove the card from any other ‘card linked offer’ programmes.” ? However I can’t remember what other ones could be tracking the transactions apart from BINK for Pizza Express (which is also Avios)?

  • john says:

    3 May3 May 11:08

    Went in a Nero in House of Fraser the other day and they claimed they didn’t take Amex 🙁

    • Brian says:

      3 May3 May 13:22

      Neros in House of Fraser/Blackwell’s/ etc are generally exempt from these offers, anyway. You need to buy a gift card from a High Street branch and use that…

  • BigDave says:

    4 May4 May 08:34

    I finally received some avios from a Cafe Nero visit in March
    I used linked amex card and have not seen the discount come through on my amex account
    and as it would only be 30p or so I have not bothered to chase it up

• Stu_N says:

  3 May3 May 08:40

  Just been looking at Amex statements and I’ve noticed a rounding difference between BA Plat Plus (1.5 avois per £) and Amex Membership rewards (1MRP per £).

  Seems Avios are rounded strictly, so a £9.73 transaction earns 14.595 Avios which is rounded up to 15 Avios. A £9.50 transaction earns 14.25 Avios which gets rounded down to 14. Membership rewards always round down, so a £6.95 spend earns 6 MRPs.

  So if you spend as lots of small transactions, the Avios card should average 1.5 Avios per £, on MRs you’ll probably average a fair bit less than 1MR per £.

  Not ground-breaking but probably adds up over time.

  • Peter K says:

    3 May3 May 09:26

    I’m sure Rob did an article on how to maximise your points on Amazon purchases using this rule/quirk to buy amazon online gift vouchers £1 at a time to top up your account.

    • Genghis says:

      3 May3 May 09:52

      I thought we concluded £0.34 was the best on a BAPP?

      • Stu_N says:

        3 May3 May 12:31

        I think paying for my shopping in 34p chunks and sending myself a pile of £1 gift vouchers every time I want to buy something from Amazon is more than I am willing to do to earn extra Avios.

        I’m fairly ambivalent about hotel vs Avios at the moment as have spent most of both balances recently so putting <£5 spends through my BAPP and saving the Plat for bigger stuff seems like a sensible approach.

        • Peter K says:

          3 May3 May 12:54

          I can’t be bothered either but someone somewhere will be doing it and good for them 🙂

• N says:

  3 May3 May 09:02

  Is there any way to buy Hilton gift vouchers?

  My Amex £50 off £250 expires this week but would like to bank it for the future.

  • Rob says:

    3 May3 May 09:09

    Don’t think so, this has come up before. It would need to be bought in a participating hotel, for a start.

    • Aliks says:

      3 May3 May 09:42

      I registered my Lloyds Amex card for the Hilton offer, but nothing has come through so far. Should I chase Hilton or Lloyds?

      • Alan says:

        3 May3 May 20:26

        Lloyds

    • the_real_a says:

      3 May3 May 16:50

      There is a Hilton gift card that you can purchase from a participating hotel. I did this last time this offer was on my card. I bought one from my local Hilton and then used later in the year at somewhere i needed to stay.

  • Peter K says:

    3 May3 May 09:55

    If there is a specific hotel you are interested in they may allow you to pay money now and bank it for future use. I’ve had a hilton hotel offer to do that before when I needed to cancel a refundable booking where they had already taken the money.

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