News: The Economist drops Avios, £100 Emirates and £100 Mandarin Oriental Amex cashback

News in brief:

The Economist drops Avios

The Economist is no longer an Avios partner. Whilst not publicly announced, the partnership ended on 5th January.

This is a shame, because there were some good deals available here. You would sometimes find an enhanced Avios bonus coinciding with an American Express cashback deal, meaning that you could pick up Avios very cheaply even if you had no interest in the magazine.

For anyone whose existing subscription is due to renew soon, a new ‘£65 cashback on £199 spend’ offer for The Economist has just launched, valid to 31st March. However, you can get a 30% discount on your renewal by pretending to cancel online, at which point a cheaper offer will be displayed. Comments in our forum suggest that this can be increased to 50% by following through, via live chat, with the cancellations team.

Save £100 on an £800 Emirates booking

A chunky offer of a £100 Emirates statement credit has appeared on many American Express accounts.

The £100 refund is triggered when you spend £800 at emirates.com before 3rd March.

(Oddly, this crosses with an earlier Emirates cashback deal from January. This hit its registration cap but you may still have it saved. It had a spend deadline of 25th February. If you received both offers on the same card and saved the first one then it may pay out twice.)

It is only valid against flights departing from the UK and transactions must be made online. Cumulative spend is OK. Emirates Holidays is NOT included.

I would imagine, although this is not certain, that an £800 taxes and charges bill on an Emirates Skywards redemption should trigger the cashback as long as it is charged in Sterling.

Registrations are capped at 30,000 American Express cards. I doubt you’ll find this offer on any British Airways American Express cards though ….

The Emirates website is here.

And Mr Porter ….

Amex has also just launched ‘£80 back on £400 spend’ at Mr Porter, valid to 31st March, should your wardrobe need updating for summer. This would stack with the current flash sale (use code FLASH25) which runs to 23rd February.

The Mr Porter website is here if you want to have a dig around.

Save £100 at Mandarin Oriental hotels

The luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel group has also launched a new American Express cashback offer.

You will get £100 cashback when you spend £500+ by 27th May. Cumulative spend does NOT count.

It seems that you can earn the cashback multiple times (the wording is ‘valid every time’) so you could split a more expensive stay across cards held by you and your partner. Splitting one transaction across multiple cards in your name risks getting you into trouble with American Express ….

Participating properties are: Paris, Munich, Hong Kong (x2), Tokyo, Madrid, Singapore, Geneva, Zurich, London, Boston, New York, Miami and Luzern.

If booking, get a quote from our hotel booking partner Emyr Thomas first. He can access additional benefits, for the same price as the online Best Flexible Rate, as he is a Mandarin Oriental Fan Club appointed agent. There is no booking fee and you pay at check-out as usual.

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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.