Bits: £50 off £500 at Apple with Amex, 10% off Emirates flights, paid mystery shopper stays

UPDATE – JUNE 2025:  This is an old article, and the credit card information given is likely to be out of date.

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News in brief:

£50 Apple cashback deal with Amex

American Express is repeating an Apple promotion which originally ran last year, offering £50 statement credit on a purchase of £500 or more.

I was originally sceptical about this because the key Apple lines are all due for replacement in September and this offer closes on September 10th.

As reader Joel reminded me, though, you could buy £500 of Apple gift vouchers.  Keep those on one side and you’ll be well placed to order a new iPhone or iPad when the 2016 ranges launch next month.

You can register for the offer here.  It is restricted to 5,000 people but it had not reached that limit at 3am today when I tested it.

10% off Emirates flights for O2 Priority members

If you have an O2 mobile contract, you can get 10% off an Emirates flight, departing from any of their UK airports, if you book before 31st August.

(If you are not an O2 customer, you could save a few pounds by getting a SIM and registering it – or ask a friend to trigger the code for you.)

The 10% discount applies to both business and economy tickets.  However, it does NOT apply to the taxes element of the fare so, in economy, the discount will be noticeably lower than 10%.

The special Emirates booking page is here – note that you MUST use the desktop site.  You will need to trigger a promotional code from the O2 Priority site here.  Thanks to everyone who sent this over.

Get paid on your hotel stays with Trivago’s mystery shopper programme

I recently wrote about the recruitment programme for 25 mystery shoppers by Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

Reader Colin pointed me in the direction of a smaller scale scheme open to anyone (he has done it himself) run by hotel booking site Trivago.

Register with them via this website and you will receive a decent sized cash payment (essentially, a rebate on the price you paid for the room) once you have booked and stayed at a hotel in certain focus cities.

You will need to complete a Q&A on the hotel – Colin said the one he did took about 30 minutes and he was paid £50.  This was for an Edinburgh hotel.

More details can be found here.

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Hotel offers update – June 2025:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 15th July 2025, the sign-up bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card is TRIPLED to 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. This would convert into 25,000 Avios or into 40 other airline schemes. It would also get you at least £300 of Marriott hotel stays based on our 0.5p per point low-end valuation. Other T&C apply and remain unchanged. Click here for our full card review and click here to apply.

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Want to buy hotel points?

• Marriott Bonvoy is offering a 30% to 50% bonus (varies by individual) when you buy points by 16th July 2025. Click here to buy.

• World of Hyatt is offering a 20% bonus when you buy points by 21st July 2025. Click here to buy.