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3,000 bonus Avios via Melia Gold for American Express Platinum upgraders

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Melia Rewards Gold status is one of the new benefits of the American Express Platinum charge card which were introduced in 2015.

One of the benefits of the American Express Platinum charge card is the hotel statuses which come with it.  

You can receive status in five hotel chains for free:

Hilton Honors (Gold status)

Club Carlson – Radisson, Park Inn, Park Plaza (Gold status)

MeliaRewards (Gold status)

Starwood Preferred Guest (Gold status)

Shangri-La Golden Circle (Jade status)

In December, this list grew to include:

Marriott Rewards (Gold status)

because, with the acquisition of Starwood by Marriott, you can instantly match your Starwood status to the equivalent Marriott status via the respective websites.

And, in March, the list grew again to include a new status:

Taj Hotels InnerCircle (Gold status)

…. because, due to a new partnership, you can now match your Shangri-La status to Taj Hotels status.

To be honest, I haven’t bothered setting up all of these.  It is highly unlikely that I will be staying in most of these chains in the medium term and, if I did have a booking, I know that I could get the relevant status activated in time.

MeliaRewards

I did recently activate my MeliaRewards Gold status.  It wasn’t as fast as Hilton – who recently processed my wife’s upgrade in 3 days – but my existing Melia Rewards account was upgraded within a week.

You can find out more about the MeliaRewards programme here on the Melia website.

As usual, I recommend you open an account yourself (the sign-up page is here) instead of asking Amex to open one for you.  This way, you have details of the account number and password.

What are the benefits of MeliaRewards Gold status?

You can see the full list of MeliaRewards Platinum, Gold and Silver benefits here.

MeliaRewards Gold does not offer a huge amount, to be honest, but it is certainly better than nothing if you have a Melia, INNSIDE, Tryp, ME etc stay coming up:

13 points per € or $ spent, compared to the standard 10 points per € or $

‘Buy 1, get 1 free’ on hotel breakfast

Free wi-fi

3 x 20% discount vouchers

Late check-out until 2pm (resort hotels) or 4pm (city hotels) unless the hotel is 100% full

And an interesting welcome offer worth 3,000 Avios …..

When I received my ‘welcome to Gold’ email from MeliaRewards, there was an interesting offer in it.

If I made a booking within 30 days, I would receive 10,000 bonus MeliaRewards points.

This is an attractive offer.  10,000 MeliaRewards points converts into 3,000 Avios points which would be an excellent return on a cheap one-night stay.

Note that British Airways is not a MeliaRewards partner, only Iberia Plus.  This means that your 3,000 Avios would be sent over to an Iberia Plus account and you can then move them via ‘Combine My Avios’ to BA or avios.com.

MeliaRewards is also a partner with various other airlines, but the transfer rates are a lot poorer.  The main ones that would interest HfP readers are Miles & More, American AAdvantage and Flying Club.  10,000 MeliaRewards points only gets you 1,666 miles in those programmes – although that is still a decent reward for one stay.

You could also use your 10,000 MeliaRewards points for a €50 ‘in hotel’ food and drink credit on a future stay.  This is a better deal than taking the 3,000 Avios points, to be honest.  10,000 points isn’t enough for a free room – INNSIDE and 4-star Melia hotels start at 17,000 points, 5-star Melia hotels start at 22,000 points and ME hotels start at 28,000 points.

You should time your MeliaRewards Gold upgrade properly

This is a very good offer from Melia Rewards.  If you have an American Express Platinum card, I would delay claiming your MeliaRewards Gold status until you think you can fit in a Melia / INNSIDE night.

There is obviously no guarantee that Melia will continue to offer 10,000 bonus MeliaRewards points for your first booking in 30 days after becoming Gold.  On the other hand, there is no point blowing your chance of getting it by upgrading your account when you have no intention of staying in the short term.

If you are looking for a few ideas for Melia stays, we recently reviewed the impressive new Gran Melia in Madrid (review), the ME in Milan (review), the INNSiDE in New York (review) and the INNSiDE in Manchester (review).  And, if you came to our Christmas party last year, you would have been able to take a look at the Melia White House in Regents Park.

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

18,000 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

American Express Platinum card, MeliaRewards

Comments (24)

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

  • Tariq says:
    7 Jun7 June 05:27

    I used this offer almost by chance. Requested the status and then saw the offer in the welcome email and had a work trip to Manchester coming up so purposefully chose the INNside. Really nice hotel and great service. The 10k bonus points didn’t post automatically though, so had to call Melia customer service but managed to get them in the end.

    In the booking confirmation email there was also a £10 food and drink voucher, so managed to get a free drink too – the voucher excludes redemption against breakfast – although there is the slightly odd 241 offer if you are Gold.

    I now seem to frequently get Melia offer emails that are totally in Spanish? Not sure if this is normal or if I need to contact CS again?

    • HayMow says:
      7 Jun7 June 09:04

      Definitely contact CS again – we get all ours in English.

  • Todderz says:
    7 Jun7 June 07:14

    Don’t forget the birthday treat. Every year you’ll get an extra promo to use, like a free upgrade on your next stay, which could be quite valuable for a longer stay.

    10k bonus didn’t post for me and my missing points claim hasn’t been resolved in 6 weeks…

  • wayne sam says:
    7 Jun7 June 08:43

    I’ve found that Melia rewards bonus/welcome points to be ring fenced & cannot be transferred to Iberia.

  • HayMow says:
    7 Jun7 June 09:02

    * Melia Points + Cash is v useful & very flexible: points are freely usable for Points + Cash on almost any booking – you just need a min. of 2,000 points and after that can redeem any amount in multiples of 100 (not 1000). Currently their value seems to be €3.57 per 1k on bookings in say Rome & Paris and €3.69/1k in Athens – so 10k = c.€36 off hotel rate (though not as good as the €50 value Rob quotes above for in-hotel spend – I’ve always found it hard to get any info on using pts in this way & so been sceptical if I could use it in practice – eg. Melia Rome didn’t seem aware of this as an option). …. Other positives:
    * sometimes there are points/cash anomalies, so always worth checking member pricing of higher grade room or BB vs RO or flexible vs pre-pay, as you could get a pleasant surprise
    * €10 or €20 (hotel dependent) food/drink credit per night for booking direct for many locations – came in v handy at Gran Melia Rome for a nightcap from the minibar each! (just watch that housekeeping replaces the used miniatures daily to avoid a row at checkout 😉 ).
    * Points are (instantly) transferrable to others for free – which also counts as account activity (needed every 12mths) – can just transfer min.amount between self and other half (& back again the next year) which seems to keep both a/c’s open.
    * Many hotels are modern or refurbished with large/comfortable beds.
    * Points can be topped up by purchasing for currently €5 per 1000 up to 125k pa – (don’t know if this is a promo as used to be €8) – takes c.24 hours to reach your a/c.
    * Melia occasionally randomly adds points/promotions to accounts (eg. 100pts start this year as a “Christmas promotion”, without advising us) but which have the benefit of being activity to keep accounts open
    … To be aware though:
    * Sol hotels, while Melia owned, do NOT earn you Melia points on stays (found to my cost – have never found this flagged online, only found out after the event on claiming post-stay).
    * Melia IT not always brilliant though has improved a lot –
    – and you don’t get a notification email when they respond to online queries (called “Consults”)
    * some in-app offers start in English then are displayed in Spanish – much points activity description online is also in Spanish only.
    * Spanish identity protection laws seem particularly strong which can make it hard to change key a/c info like email address etc once a/c set up without the insecure step of faxing or emailing them a copy of your passport or driving licence.
    * The 2for1 birthday bonus previously offered went by the wayside 2/3 years back – you’ll get an email on your birthday and will need to go online to choose between (as a non-status member myself) a free upgrade or 5 or 10% off a booking – ensure you choose within the 1 or 3mth timeframe else you’ll lose it altogether, though it does sometimes seem to stay in my account longer than suggested by the T&Cs.

  • Jonathan says:
    7 Jun7 June 09:05

    Gak! looks like I missed the recent Amex upgrade from gold to platinum promo. Is anyone aware of a new one?

    • Leo says:
      7 Jun7 June 09:44

      Nope for the time being it is dead. You are not the only one to be caught out – several of us have posted similarly.

      • Canuck says:
        7 Jun7 June 15:39

        Curiously, what was the offer?

        • Crafty says:
          7 Jun7 June 22:42

          Are you serious? It has been discussed in the comments almost daily for about 2 months!

  • mark says:
    7 Jun7 June 09:07

    +1 on the upgrade promo – anyone got a working link to the upgrade site?

    • Rob says:
      7 Jun7 June 09:53

      Just send the then a private message. I got offered 20k bonus for no spend

      • AndyGWP says:
        7 Jun7 June 13:21

        Did you make reference to the offer that had expired, or just state you were considering an upgrade?

  • Liz says:
    7 Jun7 June 10:11

    I activated some of the hotel upgrades from our Platinum card last Aug and received upgraded status through to 2018. I did it again on 16/4 in the hope that these may be extended through to 2019 but so far I’ve not received any acknowledgement other than the email from Amex that they received the requests and they can take between 6-12 wks. Are we likely to get the statuses extended to 2019 – has anyone else tried this. I am Hilton Diamond through to March 2018 and won’t be able to retain that so was hoping the upgrade via Amex would give me Gold from March 2018-2019 – not sure if that is going to work or if I have to wait till next year and try again.

    • Crafty says:
      7 Jun7 June 22:43

      Might vary by partner. Our Shangri-la finally came through valid well into 2019 for no apparent reason.

  • Optimus Prime says:
    7 Jun7 June 10:28

    OT – IHG giving “mystery” bonus when buying points. Mine is 50%.

    • HayMow says:
      7 Jun7 June 13:27

      Thanks – mine is 100% for min.5k(+5k) buy.

      • Genghis says:
        7 Jun7 June 14:15

        I got 100% too. Currently works out at 0.44p per point. I’m not a buyer at that price (for a speculative purchase to add to my stash) but could work out for others if they do the math on a specific stay and they don’t currently have the points.

        • Roger says:
          7 Jun7 June 20:39

          Would you get 4 points per £1 on IHG black card?

          • Alan says:
            7 Jun7 June 20:45

            If it goes through as foreign transaction I guess, but it won’t go through as IHG (Points.com process it) so it won’t get that form of double-points

          • Genghis says:
            7 Jun7 June 21:22

            And therefore not worth the 3% fee

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

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