Bits: £15 one-way Virgin Trains tickets to Edinburgh, 40% bonus on Hyatt points

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• MIM says:

  6 Oct6 October 12:23

  Looking at that Virgin form, there’s no actual check that you really have flown during the period – it would be easy to just click on an airline and a date, then hit submit?

  If that’s the case, I’ll share with friends in Edinburgh.

  • Richard says:

    6 Oct6 October 14:15

    Seemingly not. I did have some flight details to enter, but it then just gave me a voucher code without any possibility of actually having checked them.

    Of course, making up details of a past flight would be fraud and bad etc. etc. But they let you enter a date in the future when you PLAN to fly. Saying “oh, I was indeed planning to fly on this date, but I’ve been tempted by your voucher so I’ll take the train instead” would be pretty unimpeachable, even by my prissy ethical standards.

• Andy says:

  6 Oct6 October 13:10

  Nectar have just announced 50% back on transfers to Virgin – presume this could be combined with this deal for a good value trip to Edinburgh?

  • Greg says:

    6 Oct6 October 14:29

    Brilliant deal.

  • Rob says:

    6 Oct6 October 17:31

    Wonder if everyone has this? Anika and I both seem to have it.

    • Fenny says:

      6 Oct6 October 18:28

      It’s on my account page.

      • Genghis says:

        6 Oct6 October 20:52

        Sorry I’m being a bit slow. Which account page would this be on?

        • Richard says:

          6 Oct6 October 21:39

          nectar.com.

    • Simmo says:

      6 Oct6 October 20:43

      I have this.

  • Richard says:

    6 Oct6 October 21:38

    I’ve just made a booking, and it looks like you can’t combine the two offers – which I think is because the £15/£30 tickets aren’t technically “Advance” tickets, but a special type called “VTEC Flat Fare”. (The conditions are more restrictive than Advance tickets, in that they’re completely non-changeable, whereas Advance tickets can be changed for £10 + difference in fare.)

    Still, the two offers are individually so good that I’m not going to complain too much that you can’t combine them.

• Bryan says:

  6 Oct6 October 14:33

  Sorry, but very OT – Is there a minimum time to wait between applying for your first and second AMEX cards.
  I wanted the gold and then BAPP cards and got the gold first. I have hit the 2k bonus target almost immediately.
  I now need to buy a new lawnmower and want to get the BAPP card first.

  Is there a minimum wait?
  Should I wait until the first bill has been received/ paid? Or just do it immediately.

  Thanks for your help.

  • Genghis says:

    6 Oct6 October 14:40

    No min wait. I’ve applied for 3 Amex cards (Platinum, BAPP and SPG) within a couple of weeks of each other.

    • harry1 says:

      6 Oct6 October 14:55

      Genghis- the “king of the churn”…..

      • Genghis says:

        6 Oct6 October 15:13

        🙂 Raffles will be getting some requests soon for referrals. Consider my HfP subs paid…

      • Yuff says:

        6 Oct6 October 15:28

        What he didn’t mention was 1st application was successful, the following 2 declined……only kidding 🙂

    • Bryan says:

      6 Oct6 October 15:15

      Thanks

• Sarah Murray says:

  6 Oct6 October 16:54

  OT. Boots no longer accepting gift cards (bought from Tesco) for PAYG top-ups. (It was nice while it lasted)

  • Johnnycl says:

    6 Oct6 October 18:43

    If you have any prescriptions to fill, they accept gift cards for the NHS charge.

• Graeme says:

  6 Oct6 October 17:56

  O/T probably numpty question… looking at booking IHG New York hotels on IHG’s own site and logged into my rewards account, options are priced in US dollars, but I can change the currency to GBP. If I book am I charged in dollars or sterling. The currency would dictate which card I would use and I will be charged immediately as this is an advanced purchase non-refundable rate.

  I’m probably overthinking this.. 🙂

  • Kipto says:

    6 Oct6 October 19:56

    Sterling

    • John says:

      7 Oct7 October 07:51

      Nope.

      Basically it’s up to the hotel. You should be charged in US dollars unless the hotel wants to pull the DCC scam on you (in which case complain).

      You will be charged whenever a person at the front desk gets around to it, which depends on the hotel’s policies again. It might the following day, or any time between booking and actual stay.

      Being logged in doesn’t affect anything.

      If you’re talking about buying points&cash then IHG charges you in US dollars straight away.

• Ralph Taylor says:

  6 Oct6 October 22:04

  Hi,

  Ok a bit confused – so “The World Elite card comes with a sign-up bonus of 40,000 Avios points” is only really a “sign-up bonus” of 20,000 Avios points, and then an anniversary bonus of 20,000 points after spending 12k? Or have I got that wrong?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    6 Oct6 October 23:23

    Yes the confusion in the article maybe because you get 40k points on sign up and 40k points convert to 20k Avios then another 40k points/20k Avois for spending £12k by your anniversary date

  • Rob says:

    7 Oct7 October 00:08

    The anniversary bonus appears to be a ‘one off’ for the first year only. This is why I include it in the ‘sign up bonus’ calculation.

• rams1981 says:

  6 Oct6 October 22:37

  First year anniversary bonus of 40,000 points (20,000 avios) on spending 12k I believe.

  I still don’t have an investment product and have been able to keep my hsbc premier account for 4 months now. Wonder if they’ll bother chasing me to do something.

• C77 says:

  7 Oct7 October 00:23

  Great tip for Hyatt – thanks for posting. I’m needing 2nts in Sydney in December having purchased a Qatar ex Pisa to Auckland fare earlier this year and managed to get QR to change the destination changed for Sydney once AKL route was officially postponed. I fancied a splurge at the Park Hyatt which I’ve had my eye on for sometime… but it’s never a bargain there. £657 per night room only is unfortunately beyond my price point which is what the nightly rates costs here. Similar rates via other search engines and bed banks so I know this is what it costs. Alternatively 30000 points a night which given the current Hyatt 40% bonus points promo drops to £399 per night or I can do part points 15000 + £201 per night.

  The points purchase costs £420 so works out to be about the same as full redemption overall. All equating to a 40% saving on the nightly rate is not to be sniffed at and will be as good as I’m ever going to get there….. and i can just about justify this to myself.

  However I’m still toying with the Pullman Circular Quay and the avios/IB promo you mentioned the other day as for similar (in fact slightly less) cash outlay I can rack up a decent(ish) stash of avios and tip into Accor Platinum status as a result just before the scheme changes for the worst on 01JAN. I also have an existing cheaper reservation at another hotel which I confirmed and prepaid at pre-brexit rates via Kaligo with 7,800 avios attached so I just need to work out which is going to give me the best overall return taking into consideration outlay cost, avios return and enhanced accor benefits.

  I think in typing this I’ve just answered my own dilemma regarding the Hyatt! All the above offers and benefits learned via this site…. you certainly don’t make life easy alerting me to all these offers but it is incredibly enjoyable experiencing (some) of them! 🙂

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