Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

One year of British Airways lounge access with Amex Platinum …. you need to decide soon

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I wanted to gently remind everyone that time is running out if you want to apply for the American Express Platinum card in order to get the free Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club Gold card.

The last day to apply for the Cathay Pacific Gold card will be 31st March.  However, you must have your American Express Platinum card in your hand first.  This means, realistically, that you need to apply for Amex Platinum in the next 2 weeks to be certain that you receive it before 31st March.

If you are not familiar with this offer, this is how it works.

When you take out an American Express Platinum charge card you can apply for a Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club Gold card, valid for one year

Cathay Pacific, like British Airways, is a member of the oneworld alliance.  This means that your Cathay Pacific Gold card gives you the same benefits as a British Airways Silver card when you fly with BA.

In particular:

You can use BA lounges, even when flying economy – and bring a guest

You can use the lounges of any other oneworld airline when flying with them (Qantas, Qatar, Cathay, Finnair, Royal Jordanian etc)

You can select seats on BA flights for free

You get an additional baggage allowance (BA only)

You can check-in at business class desks

The full list of benefits from a oneworld Sapphire card (which is what both BA Silver and Cathay Gold offer) can be found here.

But doesn’t Amex Platinum have a £450 fee …?

Yes, it does.  However, the fee is refunded pro-rata when you cancel.

When you cancel, you keep the Cathay Gold card for the remainder of the 12 months for which it is valid.  You also keep the three hotel status cards for the rest of the year – Starwood Gold, Accor Platinum and Carlson (Radisson) Gold.

There is also a very lucrative sign-up bonus with Amex Platinum, although you can only get this if you have not had an Amex Gold or Amex Platinum in the last six months.  You will receive 30,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, which can be converted into 30,000 Avios or 30,000 Virgin Flying Club miles amongst other things.

This is how the maths could pan out for you:

Apply for American Express Platinum within the next 2 weeks, to guarantee that you receive your card by late March

Go online and order your Cathay Gold, Starwood Gold, Accor Platinum and Club Carlson Gold cards (last day for ordering Cathay Gold is 31st March)

Spend the £2,000 in 3 months required to trigger the 30,000 Membership Rewards points

Transfer your 30,000 points – plus the extra points from your spending – into 30,000  Avios, Virgin Flying Club miles or whatever other programme you choose

Cancel the card after three months for a pro-rata fee refund

So, for just £112, you will get ….

So, assuming you cancel the card after three months, for a net cost of just £112 (3/12th of £450):

you will have earned 30,000 Avios and

you get the equivalent of a British Airways Silver card for a year and

you get Gold status at Starwood hotels for a year and

you get Platinum status at Accor hotels for a year and

you get Gold status at Carlson (Radisson, Park Inn) hotels for a year.

Which sounds OK to me.  A lot of people who take out the card intending to cancel actually end up keeping it, because the benefits package (which includes full travel insurance, Eurostar lounge access, two Priority Pass lounge access cards, access to Fine Hotels & Resorts deals, UK Hotel Collection deals and special Platinum promotions such as the free Melia hotel night last year) is impressive.

My full review of the American Express Platinum card is here.


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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:

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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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

Huge 80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) and NO FX fees Read our full review

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Comments (188)

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

  • Rico says:

    Can you use your BA Gold/Silver card to access the lounge even when you happen to be flying on Lufthansa or other non-partner airline?

    • Alan says:

      No – a number of years ago BA used to offer open access to their lounges for Gold BAEC members, however they closed this (probably in part due to the rise in low cost carriers!) – you need to have a same-day Oneworld flight to be able to use the lounge.

      • Mark says:

        Does the flight have to be from the same airport. We will be flying MRU->JNB with Air Mauritius later in the year, with a JNB->LHR flight in BA F later in the day. Should we be able to access the BA contract lounge at MRU?

        • Mark says:

          Not made a final decision yet as to whether we will be flying economy or business on the Air Mauritius leg… if the latter then we’ll obviously have access to the same lounge anyway. However if not, I’m wondering if we will be able to get in with our F boarding passes for the BA flight later in the day.

          • Mark says:

            Thanks. I suspect the catch will be that the Air Mauritius flight is not “oneworld marketed or operated”. Might be interesting to see what they say anyway….

    • Mark says:

      As I understand it only BA Gold gets you lounge access when not flying BA/Partner/OneWorld, so I would expect that the Marco Polo Gold (BA Silver equivalent) will not.

      The Priority Pass may be useful here of course for anyone who currently holds Amex Platinum.

      • Mark says:

        It sounds like my knowledge re Gold is out of date on that point….

        • Rico says:

          Open Doors! … that’s the one. Shame they closed it. Although I can understand it must have not been very economically viable.

      • Rob says:

        Not even BA Gold anymore. The Priority Pass would work OK. Priority Pass is also better for families as you can get 4 people in, assuming your partner has your Plat supplementary card and so gets their own PP. Each of you guests in a child each.

        • Singing Dwarf says:

          Talking of which, last year I took my wife and two children into a lounge using my Gold charge issued PP.

          I enquired as to whether the children – age 2 and 4 would be charged for – the reception desk could not tell me.

          Anyway, we were only there for an hour and the children had a drink each and a cheese roll each, with a piece of fruit. Nothing that a hungry business man would not consume as an entrée!

          Much to my surprise, I was charged £15 for each child on my Amex statement.

          When I queried this with Amex, they credited my account with £30

          • Rob says:

            Hmmm. If reception wrote 4 guests on the form, they must have known you would get charged!

  • Polly says:

    I agree, it’s saved us all a fortune, and enabled some luxury travel that might not have been possible otherwise. We don’t all have the opportunity to fly club with work, or even earn miles that way. We have to earn the miles the hard way, and shortcuts are very much appreciated!

    Roll on the next cabbage offer!

  • AndyGWP says:

    I wonder if I applied for the card on March 31st, whether it wouldn’t get printed / processed till April and therefore would last to the following April

    … an interesting thought, that I’m probably going to be too chicken to try out 😉

  • Jason says:

    Upgraded via the link from Gold to Platinum yesterday. Accepted immediately, and online account today shows Platinum with the old Gold number. Registered for Platinum website yesterday but it wouldn’t let me in, today it has and fired off application for Marco Polo etc. Thanks for the tip Raffles- you’re the first site I read in the morning on the train! J

  • Maximus says:

    I got my Cathay MP Gold status approved after this months Amex Platinum application, which would indicate the “new” March 2014 closing date stands.

    • Brendan says:

      When did you apply? I upgraded from Gold last week and the Plat card was showing on my account on Friday. On Saturday I enrolled in the extra benefits and received a confirmation email however I haven’t heard anything since about any of the enrollments. I received my Plat card in the post yesterday. Just curious if I need to ring up because it still lets me enroll in all the programs again as if I hadn’t already done it.

      • Rob says:

        Give it until Saturday. Go to the Cathay website and do ‘Forgot your username?’ using the email address you gave Amex. Then do ‘Forgot your password?’ using the username they emailed. You then know a) that the Cathay registration has been done OK and b) you can see your card number.

        • Brendan says:

          Thanks Raffles. I tried the forgot password trick there but got an error, “Due to technical issues, you are unable to proceed further. Please try again later. Error code: 2136”. I’ll give it another couple of days and if it still doesnt work I’ll give AMEX a call.

          • Mark says:

            I’m seeing the same after applying for the Marco Polo membership last Saturday. It’s not clear whether that simply means you haven’t been registered yet, or there is a genuine technical issue.

            Is anyone with confirmed registration seeing the same issue if you do a ‘forgot username’ (accessed via the forgotten pin link on the home page)?

        • Polly says:

          Raffles, do you have to be in possession of the actual card to get into the lounge, or will they accept a picture of it with the number, and the actual platinum card. Don’t think I will have my new MP card by the time I travel later this month. Thanks

          • Rob says:

            If the number is in the boarding pass you will be OK. You might have more trouble if you have your BA number in the booking and your Cathay number on a scrap of paper.

          • Polly says:

            Great thanks

  • Polly says:

    Another quick ? if you are flying from term 4 on a non one world airline , can you still access the sky team biz lounge there while flashing the MP card?

    • Rob says:

      Could you ever? I assume their is a Priority Pass option in T4 though.

      • Polly says:

        Never tried it before. No sadly PP not allowed in term 4, lounges all airline owned, just wondered if MP allowed you in as BA silver equivalent!

      • Mark says:

        No. T1 and T3 only… I don’t think there has been in T4 since what was the Holideck lounge closed.

        There haven’t been any BA/Oneworld lounges in T4 since all the Oneworld airlines moved out, so highly unlikely your MP card will get you in anywhere.

  • Charlie says:

    Incredibly useful thread this! Does anyone know if the MP card is of any use if flying an AA flight operated by BA? We’re flying economy LHR to JFK (we booked it via AA) in a few months.

    • Mark says:

      Yes, it will get you lounge access, business class check in and extra luggage allowance. It should also get you free seat selection if otherwise charged in this case.

    • Rob says:

      Yes, you are fine

      • avidsaver says:

        Hi Rob
        While waiting to get number of my MP card (only recently enrolled) thought I’d check out the Finnair site re booking free seats with BA. The “My Booking” link appears not to work for the past couple of days. I get message: “The connection to the booking system is broken. Please try again later. (9102)” Is this me or does anyone else get the is?

  • Micky says:

    Can i use the platinum charge card to buy foreign currency and get it delivered to my home? Would this count towards my spend? I’m going to struggle hitting the £2,000 in 3 months as I’ll be abroad in the next month and a half, and certainly wont be using my amex cards abroad.. Tips appreciated!!

    • Rob says:

      Yes but only if you buy from travelmoneynow.co.uk ie the Amex site. All other FX providers treat it as a cash withdrawal.

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

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