HfP ‘Credit Cards’ page updated for August 2017 – what are the best deals this month?

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• Chelseafi says:

  6 Aug6 August 06:55

  To cancel an Amex gold card is the only option to call now?

  • mark2 says:

    6 Aug6 August 07:19

    Has anyone tried cancelling using chat?

    • Wivus says:

      6 Aug6 August 07:42

      I cancelled a supplementary BAAP card very easily via chat. Not sure if they would have been so helpful if it was the main account though.

    • John says:

      6 Aug6 August 08:43

      Do you think we would get anywhere if we made a complaint about the chat saying what you said in this comment?

      • Anna says:

        6 Aug6 August 10:29

        I asked for the csa to pass my feedback to his supervisor that I am not a fan of chat!

      • Alan says:

        6 Aug6 August 12:31

        No harm in trying, although suspect they’ll just brush it off.

    • Scott says:

      6 Aug6 August 10:05

      What browsers are people accessing chat using? On both Firefox and Chrome I see a chat box, but no ‘button’ or link to initiate it.

      • RussellH says:

        6 Aug6 August 11:42

        I do not have Chrome, but your experience with FF was the same as mine.

        Pausing Ghostery made no difference either. Perhaps I should try with Pale Moon, which is effectively FF but clean (here) of all add-ons.

        • RussellH says:

          6 Aug6 August 13:05

          Just tried PaleMoon; when I clicked in the empty ‘Chat’ box, it opened up and presented two messages:

          1. Chat now with one of our Customer Care Professionals.

          2. A button that said ‘Chat is currently busy’

          More accurately perhaps, the underlying ALT text said: ‘[Chat is not available]’

          What, I wonder, was the logic for removing the secure e-mail function? Surely not because customers used it??

      • Alan says:

        6 Aug6 August 12:34

        Worked fine in Chrome for me, but it isn’t 24h yet so they may have been offline?

        • Scott says:

          6 Aug6 August 16:05

          Re “it isn’t 24h yet” – can you clarify? Do you mean something to do with the staff being in a non-UK timezone?

          I’ve tried now on Chrome and this time there is a message in the chat box – “Chat currently busy” – at least that suggests it should work for me if I try again later.

        • Alan says:

          6 Aug6 August 16:32

          Just the comment that the agent made to me in chat that they’re planning to move to a 24h service at some point. I took that to mean it is only open at certain times just now.

    • Optimus Prime says:

      6 Aug6 August 10:52

      I cancelled my SPG Amex without a problem.

    • Crafty says:

      6 Aug6 August 15:20

      Yes, it’s incredibly annoying, takes ages, I have complained!

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 08:50

    No, you can write. I do that.

• David says:

  6 Aug6 August 07:05

  I can see that the upgrade to platinum with a 20k bonus is back – does anyone know how long it usually sticks around for?

  • filipino_chino says:

    6 Aug6 August 08:33

    link??

    • the real harry1 says:

      6 Aug6 August 11:18

      https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/content/platinum-charge/upgrade/

      • filipino_chino says:

        6 Aug6 August 18:23

        Thanks very much!
        Had the Gold card for 1 month, hit the spending bonus – will upgrade to plat now 🙂

      • BA says:

        6 Aug6 August 21:07

        Right – let us know if you get the ‘benefit’ when upgrading from PRG card in the first year….

  • fivebobbill says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:35

    This is really useful information, I didn’t know this – thank you!

• Graham Walsh says:

  6 Aug6 August 07:48

  I did the Plat upgrade a few months ago. Points came through the following month of 20k. I used the upgrade link which didn’t give me an instant decision. Card just arrived a few days later.

• Bill says:

  6 Aug6 August 07:51

  Slightly O/T I’ve recently signed up for the Lloyds rewards duo cards and made the mrs a supplementary card holder so that’s 4 cards btw us. The first statement arrived and all the transactions are lumped into one sheet with no way to distinguish them.
  Went online and the only way to see who has spent what is to expand every single transaction which then shows the last 4 numbers of which card Was used. There is an export function to Excel but again this won’t include the card numbers. Is there anyway to get this info? I called Lloyds and they seemed clueless.
  With the BA Amex bills, they clearly sort the transactions by cardholder spend and tally up the total for each card. Lloyds won’t even allow a supplementary holder to have access to their own instance of the app to keep track of their individual spend.
  On a positive note my avios tracked fine.

  • zsalya says:

    6 Aug6 August 12:17

    Not as bad as Nationwide CC (low spread on foreign spending) the supplementary cards even have the same sixteen digit number!

    • John says:

      6 Aug6 August 16:02

      Ideal if you have a nefarious purpose in mind… 😉

      • Name Change says:

        6 Aug6 August 18:00

        such as…?

    • mark2 says:

      6 Aug6 August 16:03

      the same with MBNA

• filipino_chino says:

  6 Aug6 August 08:36

  OT…

  Am i correct that the only way without paying extra fees to pay HMRC and gain points is the Tesco current account? I just signed up for this and i am sure it’s 1 point to every 8 pounds spent… which you can then convert into avios / virgin or Uber etc etc

  Got one account and going to put through all HMRC payments through twice a year for my entire family if poss… it all helps

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 08:48

    Yes. But plenty of cards – admittedly not many free ones – give better value than 0.38% and so are worth using.

  • Alex W says:

    6 Aug6 August 10:50

    Consider the IHG Black card for HMRC if you can hit £10k total spend in 1 year.

• Talay says:

  6 Aug6 August 08:43

  Rob has previously said in the 14th July thread: “The British Airways Premium Plus card, with its £195 fee, looks secure. I can see how the economics of that card continue to make sense in a world of 0.3% merchant fees”

  I would be interested to extrapolate this a little, if possible, to see where the value lies, say for people spending £10k, £25k, £50k and £100k per year. I’m assuming the argument is diminishing the more you spend as there is only one 241 to be had.

  On the cardholder side, I see diminishing value at business class level and more aspirational hope at first class, though in a personal capacity as a family of three, we cannot make use of the 241 in some circumstances and on my particular route (LHR-BKK) BA’s metal is shockingly 8 abreast in business.

  With business long haul routinely in the £1750 range and very poor availability on routes such as LHR-SIN-SYD in any premium class over our winter, coupled with taxes around £1100 for two and (in our case) 2 x £195 fees, we’ve diverted spending to hotel partners via SPG though we may go to MR on the next churn.

  • John says:

    6 Aug6 August 09:04

    If you are spending £100k per year on a single consumer card of the likes that are discussed on HFP, then either you are rather silly or your time is more valuable than learning about rewards on cards.

    • Rob says:

      6 Aug6 August 09:35

      I wouldn’t say that (as someone who does, due to tax, VAT, PAYE etc, plus our office rent, spend over £100k on cards). For high spenders, the base earning rate is actually more important that sign-up bonuses etc and, if you have a lot of spend, you can put enough through to actually get something good just on cards. If you want to try Lufty F one-way for the US for example, a high spender can earn 87,500 miles relatively quickly given that on the M&M cards you get 1.5 on the Amex, 0.75 on the Visa and a 33% bonus for the first 6 months (and a 15k sign-up bonus when there is an offer).

      Last week, for example, I got an email from a reader looking for advice who spend $750 PER DAY on Google Adsense for his business, all charged to credit cards (Google only takes cards!).

  • Polly says:

    6 Aug6 August 15:33

    Talay

    I think you should already have a gold card running alongside for avios/hotels. Then refer your wife after 8 plus mths. Cancel after yr end bonus spend applied and transferred out. Then get pro rata refund.
    In the meantime…drop your bapp down to bacc after 241 earned…presume you refer each other q 8 mths or so.

    You are very financially savvy of course so it’s a waste not spreading that spend around to accumulate the various bonus opps available. Reckon you get 6 x bonus earns a year each between referrals and initial spends. Looking at Gold Spg Bapp here annually. With both bapp and gold fees being very quick pro rata refunds.

    We are currently on that regime now with my hsbc elite mc thrown in for good measure. We do try to keep the referrals around the 10 mths mark tho.

• Mike says:

  6 Aug6 August 08:47

  Downgraded my wife’s BAPP card about 8 months ago to the non fee paying blue card. No transactions on the card during that period as we’ve been directing out spending on our Hilton cards (to qualify for the free night vouchers) and Amex gold cards. If I now refer her for the premium card will the standard 9000 referral bonus and 25k still apply ?

  • Genghis says:

    6 Aug6 August 08:52

    No

  • mark2 says:

    6 Aug6 August 08:55

    No; she should have cancelled the blue card as she cannot get another 25,000 until she has not had a BA card for six months.

    • Mike says:

      6 Aug6 August 09:05

      Thanks guys. Thought that was the case but if you recall there was a lot of debate a few months ago about retaining the (blue) card for the purpose of paying fees / tax on the 241 vouchers. She had 2 in her account at the time, so we decided to err on the side of caution (despite the consensus) and downgrade rather than cancel.

      • Alan says:

        6 Aug6 August 12:33

        Any Amex at all will do for paying the fees when using the voucher 🙂

      • Polly says:

        6 Aug6 August 15:13

        Mike get a referral back to yourself asap before cancelling hers! At least you get 2 new x bonus that way. Churn bapp and drop down to bacc for refund every 10-12 mths so it’s paced a bit.

• Genghis says:

  6 Aug6 August 08:54

  1. No probs
  2. Not sure tbh
  3. Wait till account shows “Platinum” is referring for Plat to make sure get the 18k referral
  4. A few days after spend £1k.

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