News in brief:
Four Seasons walks away from Canary Wharf
Four Seasons announced yesterday that it is dropping management of its hotel at Canary Wharf in London. This is presumably linked to the opening of its new Tower of London project in a couple of years.
Canary Wharf was certainly a second tier Four Seasons property, nowhere near the standards of Park Lane, but it was pleasant enough. It will be interesting to see which operator takes it over – it may well be a redemption opportunity at that point. Hyatt, for one, would love to get a presence in the area I’m sure. Starwood is also under-represented.
The last day under Four Seasons management will be 30th April.
New American Express cashback offers launched
Amex officially launched three new cashback deals yesterday, albeit they have been showing online for Amex-issued Amex cards for a while.
The deals are:
Monsoon & Accessorize: spend £50 get £10 back
Holiday Extras: Get 15% back
Gordon Ramsay Restaurants: Spend £100 or more and get £20 back
You can register an Amex-issued Amex card under the ‘Offers’ section of your online statement or via cardmemberoffers.co.uk. Closing dates and restrictions vary.
MBNA, Lloyds, TSB and Barclays Amex cardholders can register via Amex Network.
480 Avios and £10 off with a £15 NOW TV box
Finally, I wanted to mention this Tesco Direct offer again. I ran it last week but you still have three days to buy one. If you don’t have a ‘smart TV’ it is a very good deal indeed for a modest £15 outlay. The 480 Avios you receive on top are an extra bonus.
Sky’s NOW TV box turns your TV into a smart TV. It lets you watch Sky channels without a contract and also streams catch up TV straight to your TV. The only downside is that it won’t let you watch Netflix (get a Google Chromecast) or Amazon Prime (get an Amazon Fire Stick).
Tesco Direct is offering three special packs at £10 off. More importantly, you will receive 100 Clubcard points with your order. Even better, at present the Tesco website is ‘glitchy’ and is adding 200 Clubcard points (480 Avios) per box!
There are three packs to choose from depending on whether you prefer sports, entertainment or movies. These passes offer excellent value for money even if you ignore the value of the NOW TV box – £15 is not a bad price to pay to get access to Sky Movies for two months, for example.
Click the link below to be taken to the appropriate Tesco Direct page:
3 month pass for Sky Entertainment
The NOW TV offer runs until 17th January.
Love Clubcard, don’t collect Avios? You should be reading our sister site, Shopper Points (www.shopperpoints.co.uk), which covers the latest Clubcard and Nectar offers without any distracting frequent flyer talk! Why not check it out now?
About Head for Points
There are some good prices on hotel + parking included for the duration of your holiday – on the MSE link. Don’t forget you’ll get another 15% off these prices if you manage to double dip on Amex link above.
Eg 1 Double room (2 adults) on Thu, December 15, 2016 with parking until Mon, January 2, 2017 (17 days parking)
Mystery 4-star hotel with parking £123 (=£105) [Crown Plaza or Sheraton?]
easyHotel with parking at the hotel £104 (=£88)
Crowne Plaza with parking at the hotel £150 (=£128)
Bearing in mind parking is going to set you back £80-100 if you buy it separately, the rooms are cheap.
Shame the airport parking at heathrow is all third party. or it is on my 5 week booking request.
I would not leave my keys with purple parking for any discount!
Why not? can I innocently ask? I’ve used PP maybe 30-40 times, faultless, I’m impressed by their service & security systems.
Bad experience in the past?
I would rather keep my own car keys than risk a third party driving my car anywhere.
I drove past a group of cars the other day near gatwick that had clearly been parked by a company. These were all parked on a road nose to tail. Not how the average car owner would park. I bet these owners thought their cars were secure!
Would rather park in a hotel car park or long stay. At least I know where my car is!
Sadly none of these car parks are at Heathrow on the site referenced.
Purple Parking Business is a top notch secure executive car park just 5 mins from airport. We tend to use Purple Parking Long Stay + ‘Greet’ ie chauffeur returns car to Terminal carpark ready for when you clear Immigration. Their car parks are 100% secure, much more secure than leaving your car in one of the official Heathrow terminal car parks.
3rd party driving it? Well, they’re insured. I daresay many cars get driven by 3rd parties at MOTs or services.
I had the front wing of my car destroyed while parked at the Heathrow official long stay car park at T5 by one of their buses. Took months to get repaired too..
Pop into my local Tesco and they were selling NowTV with 3 months entertainment pass for £7 and 6 months for £15. It also states that you get additional 100 Tesco points. This is cheaper than what is currently showing on TescoDirect.
Two rather O/T comments however:
1) Don’t forget that Marriott points will start expiring, beginning soon. I have some points I need to somehow keep from expiring (with no plans to stay anytime soon); others may be similar.
2) Are Propeller still recommended by HfP for hotel bookings? I am aware of the recent Flyertalk thread, however the bookings link appears to have been removed from the top bar and you have not run an article for a while. Neither does there appear to be any mention on the “Hotel promos” page.
Yes, they can still do them – they a Virtuoso relationship now as well for increased choice. We have jointly agreed to hold back promotion until they can do BA tickets however. You can get a quote via their website and Daniel or Sofi will get back to you.
I extended my mums Marriott points just last week by buying 1,000 points. The charge hit my card at £8.85. I felt it was as easy just to buy a small amount that buying or redeeming. The points take 24hrs to appear in the account.
Rob, I note from this article https://www.headforpoints.com/2015/11/28/how-amex-membership-rewards-members-can-buy-miles-for-up-to-50-off/ that you can no longer buy points, is that still true?
Thanks
That was reported to me last week, yes.
Happy to hear otherwise but it wouldn’t surprise me as they pulled the blurb from the website a few years ago.
Blurb still there http://catalogue.membershiprewards.co.uk/aboutEarning.mtw
Yes, someone emailed me that this morning. I have changed the wording on the old article and await more evidence!
O/T Again.
Did the reviews of the T3 Lounges ever get posted? Interested in the OneWorld options!
Yes, all there! AA, BA, No 1 Traveller, Swissport (Cathay is now closed for refurb). Quick search will find them.
OT Spring Iberia flights from LAX-MAD have had a change of plane (at last). The old A340-200 has been replaced with the new A330-200 con fig, only 19 Business seats compared to 42~ Redemptions may be even harder to find now.
They’ve got 2 months Sky Movies for £6.95 here http://www.thegamecollection.net/2-months-sky-movies-pass-for-now-tv.html?tduid=5bed596029f6ae1e08ef993f0eeabec5
No NOWTV box but you can play NowTV Sky Movies on PC, tablet, streamed to smart TV etc with no need of the box. Expires at midnight.
Thanks! Just got a voucher with a few seconds to spare. Don’t have to redeem the voucher that came in my box just yet then! Didn’t realise you could keep adding vouchers.
Deal is still showing post midnight. Not sure for how long though!