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Bits: Park Inn Easter offers, Amex Nectar sign-up bonus now available to everyone

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News in brief:

Easter deals at Park Inn hotels in the UK and Ireland

Last week I wrote about the special Easter deals available at Radisson Blu hotels across the UK – free upgrades, free breakfast and free Easter eggs!  This included the Manchester and Stansted airport hotels if you are flying off for Easter.

Park Inn, the cheaper sister chain to Radisson, is running its own Easter deals.

You get a similar package – free breakfast, a guaranteed upgrade and an Easter egg!  The package is valid across 15 hotels in the UK and Ireland for stays until 10th April.

Some airport hotels are included – Heathrow and Shannon.  If you are brave enough for an Easter UK seaside trip, their Southend-on-Sea hotel (photo below) is also included!

You will Club Carlson points for your stay and you could top up your account later with an American Express Membership Rewards transfer if needed.

More details can be found on the Park Inn website here.

Southend Park Inn

American Express Nectar bonus now available to everyone

I wrote a review of the Amex Nectar credit card yesterday.

This card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Nectar points if you spend £2,000 within three months.

This is worth £100 if you redeem it with most Nectar partners.  However, if you saved your points for a special promotion – such as a Sainsbury’s Double Up event – they could be worth up to £200.

The card is free for the first year.

I never discussed this card on Head for Points because it used to have a draconian bonus rule – you were not allowed to have the bonus if you had any other Amex-issued American Express card.

This rule has now been relaxed.  The Amex website now says anyone can have the bonus as long they have not held the Amex Nectar credit card in the last six months.  This means that 99% of Head for Points readers would be eligible.

The unwritten Amex rule is believed to be that you can have two charge cards and two credit cards at the same time.  Anyone with, say, an Amex Gold and a BA Amex should be eligible.  Someone with a BA and Starwood Amex (both credit cards) is more likely to be refused.

For on-going spending, the card offers 2 Nectar points per £1.  This is worth 1% back.  You may be marginally better off with an American Express cashback credit card unless you saved your Nectar points for special redemption promotions – in which case the Nectar points would be more attractive.

Note that there is a £25 annual fee after the first free year and a £30,000 household income requirement.  It has a representative APR of 25.0% variable, including the fee, based on a notional credit limit of £1,200.

The sign-up link for the Amex Nectar credit card is here.


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – November 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

30,000 bonus points (TO 18 NOVEMBER) 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

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

30,000 points (TO 9TH DECEMBER) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

20,000 points (ONLY TO 9TH DECEMBER) Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review

Comments (16)

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

  • Koshka says:

    My Swedish 8 year old saw the hotal picture and asked if we could stay there as it was obviously somewhere modern and sunny. He guessed that it couldn’t possibly be in England but could be in Miami. It obviously didn’t look as grand when we spent two hours playing crazy golf in the amusement park over the road last year.

  • Gavin says:

    Sunny Southend, more like rainy and miserable, nothing like an overly retouched photograph to sell your hotel.

    • Graeme says:

      I’m no fan of Southend (I have to go there occasionally for work – it’s grim), but I don’t think that picture is unrealistic at all. It just helps to know a little more about the surrounding area! Unless you really like fruit machines…..

      • Kathy says:

        I live in Southend. On the 3 days a year when it’s actually nice and sunny it can look like that, if you get up early enough to miss the crowds.

  • Graeme says:

    I’ve never used Nectar points on Easyjet flights, so just had a glace at the Nectar site – 500 points equates to £2.50 off your flight, the same as Raffles said for “most” Nectar partners.

    I think I might jump in. I’ll miss out on 4000 Avios but used at the right time and this could equal two free flights somewhere (and give me something to use a few thousand other useless Nectar points on).

    Bit tight of them not to offer a referral bonus!

    • Raffles says:

      Sainsburys Double Up will give you 1p per Nectar point.

      Caffe Nero free coffee is better than 0.5p!

      • Chris says:

        Pizza Express offers 0.75p per Nectar point.

        • Rob says:

          It does but, because of myriad of offers PE runs, I’m not sure you can genuinely treat it as 0.75p. I have used them for Photobox which is a ‘clean’ 0.6p.

  • James67 says:

    I think I read something about accor attemoting a takeover of radisson so more consolidation possibly coming to hotels sector and their. loyalty schemes.

  • Graeme says:

    Raffles – I’m assuming you’ve seen the Supercard development?

    • Rob says:

      Yes

    • harry says:

      We’re delighted to say that the Supercard pilot has been a resounding success, with Supercard used every two minutes in over 43 countries. This means that we’ve helped thousands of customers effortlessly avoid bank card roaming charges around the world.

      Following this enormous success we’re delighted to announce that we will be rolling out Supercard nationwide this summer!

      • Graeme says:

        ….. which is great! However, when I sent them a message this morning they were very non-committal about there not being a gap in the service after the current cards ‘end’ on the 7th of June. I’m going to Central America for three weeks in July (2-4-1 in First, lovely) and I’d really like it to be working. Not to mention various June trips to France for the football.

        • luke says:

          Graeme, which destination in central america do BA run a first cabin? cheers

          • Graeme says:

            Well, it’s Mexico City – not quite Central America but as near as dammit, and the rest of our trip takes us to Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua so I’m putting them all in together.

          • luke says:

            great…cheers…am planning similar trip and didn’t want to miss a trick!

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

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