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Bits: Four Seasons walks away from the Wharf, latest Amex offers, Tesco NOW TV offer

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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:

2 day passes for Sky Sports

3 month pass for Sky Entertainment

2 month pass for Sky Movies

The NOW TV offer runs until 17th January.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous 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

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

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.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

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

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

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

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express, Marriott Bonvoy American Express, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (56)

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

  • harry says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:31

    bits noob Q
    My wife is on a Germanwings /Eurowings flight with 750 Miles & More points EW – I can see Accorhotels is a partner – how can she credit the points to Accor? Does she have to open a M&M a/c or is there a more direct way to earn the points @ Accor?

    • Brian says:
      14 Jan14 January 10:33

      You can’t earn Accor points on M&M flights – you can only earn M&M points on Accor stays. Just like you can earn Avios on hotel stays. The partnership doesn’t work both ways.

      • harry says:
        14 Jan14 January 10:46

        Oh right, thanks. Better find out which hotel my wife is staying in, then – she might get something out of it I guess, she doesn’t like these loyalty programs, unfortunately.

  • Kane says:
    14 Jan14 January 11:47

    Better yet try out a Roku stick instead, you get access to NowTV, Netflix and Amazon Prime plus all the free to air catch services like BBC IPlayer, All 4, ITV and 5oD etc

    Tesco were doing them for about £30 around Christmas time from memory.

  • harry says:
    14 Jan14 January 13:23

    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.

  • Ian says:
    14 Jan14 January 13:43

    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!

    • harry says:
      14 Jan14 January 13:46

      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?

      • Ian says:
        14 Jan14 January 14:57

        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.

        • harry says:
          14 Jan14 January 15:11

          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.

          • Tom says:
            14 Jan14 January 23:30

            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..

  • Kay says:
    14 Jan14 January 13:54

    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.

  • David says:
    14 Jan14 January 14:19

    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.

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 14:33

      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.

    • Chris says:
      14 Jan14 January 14:40

      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.

  • BlueHorizonUK says:
    14 Jan14 January 16:05

    Rob, I note from this article https://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

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 17:48

      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.

      • Rob says:
        15 Jan15 January 12:23

        Yes, someone emailed me that this morning. I have changed the wording on the old article and await more evidence!

  • Simmo says:
    14 Jan14 January 16:31

    O/T Again.

    Did the reviews of the T3 Lounges ever get posted? Interested in the OneWorld options!

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 17:47

      Yes, all there! AA, BA, No 1 Traveller, Swissport (Cathay is now closed for refurb). Quick search will find them.

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

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