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

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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.

iPhone

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.


Hotel offers update – April 2024:

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.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.

Comments (48)

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

  • Will says:

    I am waiting for a new credit card month to come around so will wait and see what happens before going for vouchers. planning to buy new iphones for the wife and I so over 2 cards £100 saving sounds good

  • mij says:

    any insider news on when Shop Small might be this year apart from the usual day or week in December?

    • TimS says:

      Small Business Saturday is 5th December this year.
      Shop Small is normally for the following fortnight.

  • Henrik1888 says:

    I didn’t get the promo email but registered for the deal this morning on the back of seeing this. Was planning on buying an iPhone 6 at the weekend anyway so bought online at the Apple Store this morning. Within an hour got an email from Amex saying “congratulations, you’ve completed a purchase at Ferragamo, your statement credit will be in your account in 3-5 days’. I’ve never shopped at Ferragamo! I’m assuming the email does actually relate to my Apple Store purchase and that it’s just some glitch.

    • Tom123 says:

      Don’t forget the new iPhone is due out next month! You can get a refund if you change your mind about the current model…

      • jeff says:

        I have heard of this, however do you know where the T&C’s are that define this specific returns policy? Thanks

        • dan says:

          If you buy in store, u have 14 days to return for full refund (you can use it all you like)

          If online order, you have 14 days to “request and initiate” a return. You will then be given an additional 10-14 days to have the item returned to their couriers

          Lots of buggers enjoy buying fancy kit for a test-drive – all built into those nice fat Cupertino margins

  • mooogie says:

    Just registered at 8:30pm today (wed 12th) no problem. Didn’t get the invitation email, but keen to know if anyone else apart from Henrik1888 gets the offer.

  • Nick M says:

    Completely OT, but the latest adverts have gone very old school – I’m the millionth visitor to the page today and so have won a prize…

    • Rob says:

      Odd …. Google doesn’t usually send that sort of thing. I can only imagine that all the travel advertisers have pulled their ads for August or you’ve cleared your cookies and they don’t know what you’re interested in!

  • JB says:

    I signed up to the £50 off £500 last year and purchased a £500 gift card on my BA Silver Amex Card. Got the credit and purchased an iPhone 6.

  • Andi says:

    do we get notification that we have succeeded in gaining the credit? in the amex account?

  • Tony says:

    I do wish Amex would put all its offers in one place. I tend to find out about most of these great retention offers from places other than Amex, which is ridiculous really, especially given that I’m opted into all marketing comms with them. Crazy way to run a business.

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