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Bits: Luxury Travel Diary auctions, Amex Travel cashback deal

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News in brief:

More Luxury Travel Diary auctions launched

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? – April 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

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.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 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 & 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

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points 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:

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.

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

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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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 Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

American Airlines and AAdvantage, American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy

Comments (96)

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

  • Pol says:
    3 Jan3 January 09:46

    Got the travel offer on both gold and Platinum. Am I right in thinking I’ll get more points booking on gold card (3 points per £1 according to website). There’s no info about extra points on Plat. Will we still be covered by the car insurance provided with Plat, or do we need to pay on that?

    • Pol says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:47

      Ps. Hoping to book car rental for upcoming South Africa trip.

    • Alan says:
      3 Jan3 January 09:53

      Yes Gold (despite no/lower fee!) offers more points than Plat. Car hire cover doesn’t require you to spend on the card – even things that do (such as delay insurance) only require an Amex-issued card, it doesn’t have to be the Plat.

  • RussellH says:
    3 Jan3 January 10:33

    > 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.

    Amex sent me an e-mail specifcially about this one, but by the time I got home from rural Donegal, clicking on the sign-up link in the e-mail took me to a “Sorry, fully signed up” page.

    • Kinkell says:
      4 Jan4 January 00:42

      And I bagged it on 2 cards…..and will definitely be using them. Used it on the last time it was offered on one card , so pretty pleased to save £600 .

  • koroleon says:
    3 Jan3 January 11:49

    O/T, but can you help me with an Amex question? I have a Gold card that I want to cancel soon before the annual fee hits and I also want to open the Starwood card. If I call them, could I switch cards and still get the signup bonus? Or do I need to cancel the Gold card and then apply for Starwood? Thanks

    • Alan says:
      3 Jan3 January 11:51

      You can get the SPG signup even whilst holding the Amex Gold.

      • koroleon says:
        3 Jan3 January 12:00

        Thank you for the reply. I guess my question is whether I can get the signup bonus if I do a ‘switch’ instead of a full application. I’ll give them a call to find out.

  • the real harry1 says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:13

    O/t snippet

    I transferred £1500 through Hifx to our bank a/c abroad buying foreign currency, using my Tesco credit card – purchases card with interest-free 28 months, not their premium card. Tesco has not treated it as a cash advance, ie no 3% fee. If it worked like this with similar providers to Hifx, might be an easy way to hit that spend target on the premium card.

  • Pangolin says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:22

    Hilton must be running their accounts management system on an 286 SX computer from the late 80s.

    Apparently they’re still “hitting reset” and my mobile app has been telling me to “hang tight” for four days now.

  • George says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:58

    I’ve had one of those automatic Amex offer redemption emails (for the Harrods offer that hit a couple of my cards last month) saying that I have successfully redeemed the said offer. Trouble is, this happened just after a visit to Harrods but four days after the offer itself had expired.

    The question is.. could I receive statement credit from triggering an offer that was, at the time of purchase, expired? Has anyone seen this before?

  • James67 says:
    3 Jan3 January 13:19

    OT but since it seems HFP has a substantial low cost carrier fan base too:
    €50 off WizzTours until 5/1. Code is ‘HAPPYNEWYEAR’

  • Genghis says:
    3 Jan3 January 13:34

    OT. Amex offer of £20 back on £50 Cafe Rouge spend works on gift cards bought in store.

    • James67 says:
      3 Jan3 January 13:51

      Sorry, I don’t follow. Do you mean Cafe Rouge gift cards bought in Cafe Rouge or something else?

      • Genghis says:
        3 Jan3 January 13:57

        Yes – Cafe Rouge gift cards bought in Cafe Rouge.

        • James67 says:
          3 Jan3 January 14:09

          What’s surprising about that, do you mean gift cards purchased in stores sometimes appear on amex statements as being billed elsewhere? I know it could happen in franchises inside department stores but surely not in the likes of Cafe Rouge?

          • Genghis says:
            3 Jan3 January 14:18

            Apologies if not adding any value. The offer notes “Gift Cards are excluded from this offer” contrary to my real life experience.

          • James67 says:
            3 Jan3 January 14:29

            @Genghis, no apology necessary, I thought I was missing something so thanks for clarifying 🙂

    • Boi says:
      3 Jan3 January 13:52

      which gift cards do they have?

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