Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

New Amex / Foursquare cashback deals launched

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

March is here, and with it are two great new Foursquare deals.

As was hinted at last month, two new deals have been launched with Debenhams and Fenwick / Bentalls.

Both work the same way as the February offers at Harrods and House of Fraser:

  • Spend £50 on an American Express card and receive a £25 statement credit
  • One bonus per Amex card
  • Offer ends 31st March

As usual, remember the golden rules here to take full advantage:

ALL UK issued American Express personal cards can take part.  That means all the Amex-issued ones (Gold, Platinum, Green, BA, Nectar, SPG, Harrods, Costco, Cashback etc) plus the Lloyds TSB and MBNA-issued Amex cards.

You need to open a separate Foursquare account for each Amex card you hold.  Make sure you keep a written record of the log-in details of each Foursquare account plus which card is linked to it and which offers you have synced to that card.

Supplementary cards with a different card number to the main card count as separate cards, so you can double-up.  I have 6 Amex cards (3 in my name with a supplementary card on each for my wife) so I can buy up to 6 x £50 gift cards at each store.

The easiest way to take advantage of the deal is to buy £50 gift cards.  This triggers the £25 credit for the lowest spend and gives you 12 months or so in which to use them up.

Gift card purchases made online usually do NOT count for this promotion.  You must go into a store.

The £50 must be spent in one transaction.

Debenhams – extra information

The key items in the small print are:

Gift cards have a 24 month life

You can spend gift cards on the Debenhams website, but only for full payment (ie the order has to be for less than the value of the giftcard.)  It is not clear if multiple gift cards can be used on the website for the same order – to be safe, instead of buying lots of £50 gift cards you may want to keep topping up the same one.

Gift cards cannot be used to purchase third-party gift cards instore or online.

UK-issued gift cards can only be used in the UK stores (Ireland is excluded).

Fenwick / Bentalls – extra information

The website describing Fenwick / Bentalls gift cards is here.

Gift cards have a 24 month life.  It is not clear if gift cards can be used online (assume not until proved otherwise).

Cards can be used at either Fenwick or Bentalls, wherever they are bought.

I assume, since Fenwick and Bentalls are owned by the same company, that you cannot double-up by visiting a Fenwick store and a Bentalls store with the same Amex.

The terms and conditions make vague references to some concessions not accepting gift cards, although no further information is given.  You may want to double-check before making a specific purchase.

How to sync your Amex card to your Foursquare card

If you are new to this deal, this is how you sync your Amex card to your Foursquare card:

Download the Foursquare app onto your ipad, iphone, Android device or whatever you carry!  (A wi-fi only ipad or ipod touch will also work OK)

Sign up. Make a careful note of the email address you use.  Ignore all the screens about linking your Facebook etc accounts.

Sync your MBNA, Lloyds or Amex-issued Amex card with the Foursquare account by going to this website.  You must use the same email address as in 1.

Go back to Foursquare and search for Debenhams, Fenwick, Bentalls etc. You need to click ‘Check In’ and you will see a special offer flick up. Click ‘Load to Card’ and the offer is set up directly with Amex.

Repeat for each Amex card you have, with a new Foursquare account. It would be sensible to make a note of which Amex card and email address links to each account.

(You can actually carry out steps 1-3 on a desktop PC as well. What you cannot do is Step 4, as the ‘Check In’ box is not active.)

There is nothing to show in the shop when you make your purchases. The shop will never even know you are taking part in the promotion. 3-4 days after making the relevant shop purchase, a credit will hit your Amex account.

Feedback

If you have any feedback, tips or questions on these new Foursquare promotions, please post in the Comments below.

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 Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express

Comments (33)

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

  • Dev says:
    3 Mar3 March 16:21

    Any issue with using multiple gift cards to pay for large ticket items. I have seen a coffee table I am interested in at Fenwixks priced at £500.

    • Koshka says:
      3 Mar3 March 18:26

      Worth checking if they will just split the payment over multiple credit cards. Harrods let me use two credit cards for a £100 item.

  • Michael Christie says:
    3 Mar3 March 17:28

    Raffles

    does this effecitvely mean 50% off mini ipads etc and the like….we just buy the gift cards – go to debenhams plus and then buy what we want at 50% off ??

    • Rob says:
      3 Mar3 March 21:39

      Seems so! You may want to ring first and see if they would accept multiple giftcards in the same order. If not, of course, you could get £50 ones and get the shop to consolidate them into one before ordering.

      • Michael Christie says:
        4 Mar4 March 12:29

        Update
        called debenhamsplus today and they do accept more than one gift card…..ive got 10 amex beteween wife and i so will get 2 gift cards with £250 each on them…..and use them…..means saving of £250 hopefully on a new mini ipad or ipad.

  • trickster says:
    3 Mar3 March 22:42

    This is great news, I’ve been waiting for a Amex/FS deal to get an iPad Mini (Harrod’s didn’t work for me being ‘oop North!)

    I’ve just used two of my 8 card options in store today buying birthday presents, but still have 6 left, which according to my maths with get me a 16Gb iPad Mini for £144

    Just need to walk around the store and buy/top up gift card(s) with from each Amex now. Might get all the check-ins out the way this eve!

  • Rainbowdrops says:
    5 Mar5 March 09:57

    Hello, I’m having trouble loading the Debenhams deal to my cards.
    I’ve unlocked FS deals before, so the cards are already synced.
    Tried my Gold card, and I thought it had worked, but I have no email confirming.
    Tried the other two cards (BA & MBNA) and I click on “Load to Card” but it just gets stuc on “Loading”.
    Anyone else had similar issues / any advice?

    • Rainbowdrops says:
      5 Mar5 March 10:32

      Just tried again & it worked – must’ve just been glitchy!

    • Rob says:
      5 Mar5 March 11:38

      I have had them get stuck before when loading, but a log out / log in usually fixes it.

      You can check if it worked OK on your Gold card by trying to load the offer to the card again. You should be told it is already loaded.

  • May says:
    7 Mar7 March 12:30

    I have a Nokia windows phone. Downloaded foursquare app. I could “check-in”, but could not see “load to card”. Does this mean it does not work for windows phone? Or, do I have to be in Debenhams in Oxford street in order for “load to card” to work? I “check-in” at home on windows phone. I have tried with other offers as well, but could not get to “load to card”. Please help!

  • Trevor says:
    7 Mar7 March 17:50

    To confirm a comment above, there is a 25% discount sale currently on at Debenhams, but it lasts til Saturday 9th. Also, if you look around the gift cards, they have some offers for Mothers Day whereby you buy an least £50 giftcard and get a special box which offers 10% discount, free makeover, and a treat in the cafe! I found/bought 4. The offer expires mid May if I recall, but presume the gift boxes won’t be around (if you can even find them) after Sunday.

  • Jamie says:
    8 Mar8 March 07:54

    Hi, On the subject of supplimentary cards being set up with FS, I tried to create an account for my wifes supp BA PP card, and she got a message saying something along the lines of “Good news. You already have an account…”. I’m sure I followed the steps correctly, as I only set myself up a couple of days earlier. Can anyone think of a schoolboy error I might have pulled to allow for this message to crop up?
    Thanks for your time.

    • Rob says:
      8 Mar8 March 08:30

      If you used a different email address, I’m not sure what they could have flagged. Just open another new email for your wife and use that.

      • Jamie says:
        8 Mar8 March 08:54

        Thanks Raffles, I’ll give it a go later. And thanks for the site as well. Fantastic info.

  • Trevor says:
    13 Mar13 March 21:46

    Interestingly, I have just cancelled a synced card, so decided to cancel the sync, ready for the next card, and on the cancellation screen, saw this:

    Confirm Your Unsync
    Are you sure you want to unsync your American Express® Card from your Foursquare account?
    Note: Once you unsync your Card, you will still be able to redeem the offer(s) you’ve already added to the Card. Should you wish to take advantage of such offer(s) by using a different Card, you must sync that Card then add such offer to the newly synced Card, provided that the offer is still available.

    What this means (especially for all those worried about having duplicate FS accounts), is that you can load all the specials to your various cards by simply using 1 FS account! We already know you needn’t actually be in the store physically to check-in, and we know you can check-in in advance, so this just takes it 1 step further, by checking into all specials in advance, then unsyncing the current card and moving on to load all the valid specials onto the next synced card!

    Personally, I don’t do it all in advance and it would prove too tricky to unsync and sync new cards on the move, so I’m happy with numerous FS accounts.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!