Bits: Luxury Travel Diary auctions, Amex Travel cashback deal
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News in brief:
Luxury Travel Diary auctions
The Luxury Travel Diary site dropped me a line about another wave of its auctions closing soon.
Interesting options closing in the next 48 hours include four nights at the Sofitel in Essaouira, Morrocco and two nights at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza in Cairo. If you are near Batley, there is a £100 voucher for the Potting Shed Spa currently at £3. Not everything will work for you, either in terms of location, length or dates, but you’ll probably find something of interest if you poke around.
New American Express cashback travel deal
American Express Travel is currently offering £50 back on a £200 spend. This should show as an offer on your online statement page and needs to be ‘saved’ to your card in order to activate it.
The transaction must be made online, which limits you to simple transactions which do not require a telephone call, and before 28th February. This could be attractive for some prepaid hotel bookings and cheaper flight bookings although you would need to weigh up the risk of any hotel stay being non-qualifying.
Annoyingly, a generous offer of £200 back on a £1,000 Trailfinders booking seems to have reached its cap of 4,000 registered cards very quickly. I can no longer find it against any of our six family cards.
Want to earn more points from credit cards? – August 2022 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 Mastercard
25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher for spending £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard
5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher for spending £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.
EDIT: Until 25th October 2022, there is an exceptionally generous sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card. You will receive 60,000 Membership Rewards points – double the usual amount – and £200 to spend at Amex Travel. You need to spend £6,000 within six months to earn the bonus.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus
25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable card perk – the 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold
Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express
60,000 points, £200 travel credit and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard
15,000 points bonus 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
40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

American Express Business Gold
20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

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

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa
10,500 points bonus – the most generous Avios Visa for a limited company 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 on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback credit card
1% cashback (3% on business travel for four months) and no annual fee Read our full review
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