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Amex / Foursquare 2013 …. what I’ve discovered so far

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So, how is the American Express / Foursquare 2013 promotion going for you so far?!

(See here for details of the current deals if you are new to this.)

On Wednesday I picked up 6 x £50 gift cards in Harrods, and on Thursday I got 3 x £50 in House of Fraser.

I learnt a few things:

Harrods

I probably made a mistake in Harrods by buying 6 separate £50 cards with my 6 Amex’s.  A comment on Flyertalk said that the Harrods tills cannot process more than 4 gift cards when you redeem them, so I can’t use all 6 at once on that basis.  The only workaround would be to buy a £200 gift card using 4 x £50 gift cards and then redeem that!

I’ve already had Foursquare notifications for the BA Amex and Amex Platinum transactions.  I got nothing for the Lloyds TSB cards but that is par for the course.  I have always got cashback on the Lloyds cards before even without receiving notifications.

The T&C’s in the original email on this promotion said that only Harrods Knightsbridge was included.  This presumably means that purchases at Heathrow do not count, neither do online purchases.

Harrods gift cards cannot be used at Heathrow according to their website, but they can be used on the harrods.com website and at all bars and restaurants in the Knightsbridge store.

You cannot double up on Harrods Rewards points.  Whilst they will swipe your Harrods Rewards card when buying a gift card, it does not earn points.  You will earn points when you spend it.  However, as you need 500 points (£500 of spend) to earn any rewards, it is not worth it if you don’t plan to visit the store again this year.

House of Fraser

For House of Fraser, I went to the Victoria store.  This is the store that time forgot – I can only assume they are tied into a lease they can’t escape.  It never has any customers (at least outside lunchtime during the week) and only about 1 in 10 tills is manned.  A large part of the basement has been sublet to Gap.

Looking at the receipts, the House of Fraser gift cards are valid for two years.  This gives me confidence to buy another 3 gift cards – there is no risk of not being able to spend £300 in 2 years, even if it all goes on cosmetics for my wife!

House of Fraser gift cards can be used on their website.  Yesterday, I used £53.99 of my new balance to buy a new smart cover for my ipad.  For some reason, House of Fraser is discounting their remaining ipad smart covers by 10%, so if you want one then take a look online.  Quidco cashback is also available.

You cannot buy gift cards online to trigger the bonus – the website confirms that they go through as ‘Voucher Express’ and are delivered by a third party.  It is not clear if other houseoffraser.com purchases will trigger the Foursquare bonus.

Comments elsewhere have focussed on the fact that the Oxford Street flagship store does not offer the ‘special’ on Foursquare.  However, people have successfully ‘checked in’ at Victoria Street and spent the £50 at Oxford Street and got Foursquare notifications.

The Victoria House of Fraser has a fantastic off-licence on the top floor!  There is a surprisingly decent selection of premium wine, spirits and a very wide range of champagne.  The champagne seemed a little pricey, but only because supermarkets are so aggressive these days.  Cloudy Bay Chardonnay 2008 was £21, which was only £1 above Laithwaites.

I did not check if you can earn Recognition points in their loyalty scheme for buying the gift cards – I have enough points balances to juggle as it is!

Other offers

The other current deals are (ending 28th February):

  • GAP – Spend £50, Get £25
  • Banana Republic – Spend £50, Get £25
  • Carphone Warehouse – Spend £25, Get £10

Plus the three older offers which are still running:

  • Starbucks – Spend £10, Get £5 (to 13 February)
  • Pizza Hut – Spend £30, Get £15 (to 6 March)
  • Shell – Spend £50, Get £15 (to 18 April)

I am deliberately giving these a miss, though!  I can’t do everything ….

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Comments (66)

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

  • zhyoo says:
    14 Feb14 February 23:10

    Why it is 23? Spend 50 get 8?

  • Trevor says:
    14 Feb14 February 23:55

    If Gap and Banana Republic are the same company, yet you can only get one statement credit per retailer/special, can one definitely take advantage of the GAP AND Banana Republic offers using the same Amex card? Has anyone tried this?

    • David says:
      17 Feb17 February 21:27

      Can confirm that you can get both the Gap and Banana Republic offers on the same Amex card. Just bought 11x of each. Yes, we buy a lot of clothes!

      • Trevor says:
        17 Feb17 February 21:35

        Great, David, thanks for the reply and confirmation. I figured that must be the case, but better safe than sorry.

  • Dominic says:
    16 Feb16 February 12:46

    In conjunction with my wife we have just used our nine (!) Amex cards of different types at both Harrods and HoF, confident that we will find a worthwhile way of spending the resulting sum in both places. It was effortless in HoF. One kind woman at a quiet cosmetics till did it all, and on realizing what I was up to (after card two) advised not constantly topping up, but just buying the card to the full value, and she would charge £50 blocks to each of our cards to pay for it. Very quick and easy.

    Horrids was another story altogether. For a start, the first eight tills I tried on the ground floor didn’t have any gift cards. Eventually I went to the concierge area on the 2nd floor, where they were well used to FS customers doing this. But each card had to be used to buy another card, and it took nearly twenty minutes. Charming, polite service, but one hell of a faff!

    So, be prepared to take serious time if you want to use the Horrids option!!

  • Cardiffmatch says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:54

    After a v successful trip to house of Fraser last weekend, we’ve just churned through our cards at Harrods this afternoon. Not one notification via 4S as yet – for direct Amex cards or otherwise!

    i will update if and when the statement credits appear…

    • Michael Christie says:
      17 Feb17 February 10:24

      When did your hof credits appear on your Amex statement as mines are yet to appear from last Sundays trip where wife and I did 5 each.

      • Michael Christie says:
        18 Feb18 February 10:25

        Panic over….all 10 amex credits of £25 applied to cards….mbna showded up first on sunday then rest of amex today…..great first venture into foursquare !!

        • cardiffmatch says:
          18 Feb18 February 11:33

          Glad it worked out! Sorry not to have replied sooner, I only spotted your reply earlier. Ours took a couple of days – spent the cash on Sat and the credit appeared on Tuesday.

          Neither the transactions nor the credits from this weekend at Harrods have appeared on our statements yet…

          • Trevor says:
            18 Feb18 February 12:54

            Seems Amex are slower with the refunds on these this time around, as a few people are worried. Earlier in the month I received the Starbucks refunds 2 days after the transaction posted, as was previously the norm. Now hoever, I, like other people, are curious as to where the refunds are. Harrod’s is 6 days and counting…

          • cardiffmatch says:
            19 Feb19 February 15:59

            Thanks Trevor – whilst I still don’t have any sight of the credit, it’s helpful to know that others have been waiting longer than me!

          • Marcel says:
            21 Feb21 February 12:37

            Just had my Harrods credits through – took 7 days

          • cardiffmatch says:
            21 Feb21 February 13:02

            Thanks Marcel. Ours have also arrived today, even though we had no notifications on any of our accounts.

          • Trevor says:
            21 Feb21 February 15:22

            Luckily mine came through today too – a bunch of refund on various cards from various dates, and the oldest from more than 9 days ago, though Harrod’s was 9 days from spend to visible refund – Whew! Seems Amex have had a bit of a backlog.

  • Rich Spencer says:
    16 Feb16 February 14:15

    Not sure if something has changed, but when I used Foursquare before Christmas every transaction tracked as it should have done- I’ve used a a few different cards recently and whilst I get the FS notification the credit has yet to show on the statements.

  • David says:
    17 Feb17 February 21:29

    Oddly one of my MBNA issued Amex cards has had notification received for all four purchases I’ve made (Gap, Banana Republic, Harrods, HoF), but the other card had none, despite me following the same process for each one. Anyone else with MBNA have this happen and have you seen the cash come through anyway?

    • Trevor says:
      17 Feb17 February 21:39

      I only have 1 mbna card. Confirmations have been inconsistent yet I have always got the refund.

      • David says:
        21 Feb21 February 10:49

        Update – refunds just came through today on both MBNA cards, timeframe was the same as with my Amex-issued cards.

  • Jamjaw says:
    18 Feb18 February 16:00

    10 cards at Harrods – 10 at Gap – 5 at shell. All got notifications (shock horror). No credits as yet (2 working days and counting…)

  • Koshka says:
    21 Feb21 February 00:42

    Bit of feedback after a shopping trek around London yesterday.

    HofF – topped up existing gift card using two new Amex cards.
    Banana Republic – bonus discount. I was genuinely dithering over a jacket that was was £130 and the sales assistant said that if I came back today there was 20% off or she’d give me 15% off on the spot as a new customer. I think this is the email signup bonus that you aren’t meant to be able to use with gift card purchases. Get the right person and it seems that you can.

    Harrods – one purchase for a £100 gift that they happily split across two cards (no need for gift cards). Another £50 purchase down in the wine section with no problems.

    Gap – gift cards split across three cards with no problems. They confirmed that the Banana Republic card could not be used in Gap stores.

    Carphone Warehouse only real problem of the day. One iTunes card no issues. Asked about a CW gift card which they did but it’s in the form of a printed out credit note – fine for me but not as a present. They also thought that they might be able to do gift cards for Sainsburys, Debenhams and Next. I said that I’d take a Sainsburys one as it was nearby but the till wouldn’t put it through. Sales assistant thought that it might be a Xmas thing that had been discontinued.

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