Bits: £100 off £500 BA spend, 4000 Miles & More miles with a hotel, Troy Warfield leaves BA

News in brief:

£100 off a £500 British Airways spend deal with Amex

American Express is offering a very limited number of cardholders a £100 statement credit with their next £500 British Airways purchase.

If you are targetted, it will appear on your American Express online account under ‘Offers’.  It is limited to the first 7,000 people to save the offer to their card and the £500 transaction must be made by 12th June.

Neither my wife or I have this.  If you have put British Airways transactions through one of your Amex cards recently then you will probably be out of luck.   Some – but not all – HFP readers who have contacted Amex Customer Services have managed to get this offer added to their accounts even though they were not targetted.

Helpfully, £500 just covers the taxes and charges on a Club World or First Class long haul Avios redemption!

4,000 Miles & More miles with any hotel booking

Lufthansa is again offering a generous bribe to encourage you to try its new hotel booking website.

It is only valid for first-time bookers via the Miles & More Hotels portal which you can find here.   There is no minimum stay and no minimum spend.  You need to book by 23rd May but the stay can be for a future date.  All bookings must be pre-paid.

The 4,000 miles is the minimum you will earn – this consists of a 3,000 miles bonus and 1,000 base miles.  You may receive more than 1,000 base miles based on the cost of your room.

British Airways loses its second ‘Director of Customer Experience’

British Airways staff were told last week that Troy Warfield, BA’s ‘Director of Customer Experience’ is leaving the company after 18 months.

The announcement:

Troy Warfield, Director Customer Experience, has decided to leave British Airways.  Since joining the airline, Troy has led many customer improvements including the Gatwick and Boston Lounges, First Wing and forthcoming transformation of Club World catering, service and sleep proposition.  The process of finding a successor is now under way and an announcement will be made once an appointment is confirmed.

…. seems to be lacking the usual ‘leaves with our best wishes’, ‘we wish him success in his future career’, ‘I am sad to leave behind such a hard working group of colleagues’ etc platitudes normally found in such wording.

There were raised eyebrows when Warfield was hired, given that his previous employer (Avis Budget) is not exactly known for its outstanding customer service.  His job before Avis was running Andrex, Kleenex, Scottex and Velvet for Kimberley-Clark in Europe ….

That said, Warfield’s departure mirrors that of Frank van der Post.  van der Post was Warfield’s predecessor and the first person to have this role.  He came from a successful stint at Jumeirah Hotels – which does have a good reputation for customer experience – but he did not last too long either, albeit he went on to a senior role at KPM Royal Dutch Telecom.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)