Important dates for your diary – offers about to close which you shouldn’t miss (May 2017)

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• Nick M says:

  21 May21 May 07:04

  Sorry OT – I have the Amex Gold offer to get £50 off a £200 spend, and am looking at booking a Marriott or Hilton stay – will I still get free breakfast as Gold/Diamond? I understand that I probably won’t get any points as a 3rd party booking

  • Genghis says:

    21 May21 May 08:03

    If goes through as third party booking you will get Marriott benefits (but no points) but no benefits at a Hilton. As to whether it goes through as a third party booking, I’m not sure. @Alan seems to be in the know and posted about it a few days ago

    • Nick M says:

      21 May21 May 09:09

      Thanks Genghis

    • Alan says:

      21 May21 May 09:46

      My main Amex Travel experience has been that non-FHR bookings go through as 3rd party. Some properties still seem to provide benefits on these stays (even if not really meant to), however I think it’s a bit poor that Amex Travel ones are treated like this – especially given Hilton Gold is a Plat benefit! Worth asking hotel to add your Hilton number and then if no breakfast I’d consider charging it to the room then taking it up with Amex when you get back…

  • Louise says:

    21 May21 May 17:07

    We booked Hilton Bournemouth on last amex travel offer, emailed hotel a week before with diamond honours number and received diamond benefits throughout stay
    (Upgraded room, exec lounge and free breakfast)

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 18:07

      How was it? Tempted to try this one day.

      • Louise says:

        21 May21 May 22:25

        Yes we liked it. Room was comfortable and strong shower pressure. Pool was a great size for doing some lengths, with sauna and steam room.
        Exec lounge was stocked with normal two choices for hot food (samosas/chicken) and typical cold spread. Only one bottle of red/white wine left out at a time but was restocked when it did run out.
        Breakfast selection was excellent and we had dinner one day which was nice too, but good location meant easy walk to other choices.
        We had one drink in the sky bar, it seemed popular with local people.
        Had to pay for parking but it is an enclosed car park just next door.

        • The Original Nick. says:

          21 May21 May 22:31

          When I stayed last year I didn’t pay for parking, the reception have me a coffee to get out of the car park. I was also Diamond then. I couldn’t fault the hotel.

• mark2 says:

  21 May21 May 07:50

  OT
  I just received an email (no doubt one of millions) from a company called delayedflights.com who will handle your claim from an airline for delayed flights.
  In the ‘Terms of Engagement’ they charge 36% of the claim including VAT.

  • TripRep says:

    21 May21 May 08:15

    36%? Wowsers, that’s some cut!

• the real harry1 says:

  21 May21 May 09:19

  tomorrow is the last day to earn 6000 miles with a Virgin ISA…

  …fingers crossed for good news to follow

  • TripRep says:

    21 May21 May 09:26

    TRH – where do you fly with VS?

    • the real harry1 says:

      21 May21 May 09:40

      nowhere!

      I’ve kept my 100K stash alive for the last 18 years – I got them from a corporate Amex card when I got the old heave-ho & had to decide where to dump them

      planning on a decent LH trip in 6+ years’ time once the youngest kid has gone off to university, so I’ve started collecting points more seriously this last couple of years along with the wife (but not yet to the extent of taking out cards, might do that in due course)

      you never know what’s around the corner and there might end up being some way of using the miles in Europe

      • Alan says:

        21 May21 May 09:48

        I’m trying out VS Upper Class to Boston with my stash next month – out from London then back to Manchester. No availability on BA, lower taxes/fees and returning to Manchester means cheap and quick train back to Edinburgh. Looking forward to trying it out (with a VS credit card or two sign-up in the lounge!)

        • TripRep says:

          21 May21 May 16:36

          I like UC, the old 747s need replacing but I like the cosy exclusivity of just 14 UC seats at the front, always a party atmosphere at the bar going West.

        • Alan says:

          23 May23 May 12:42

          They seem to have refurbed the planes on the Boston-Manchester route so should get decent seats both ways. Unfortunately spare seats on the left-hand side are mainly at the back near the bar, which doesn’t sound like such a good plan on the flight back!

      • Yuff says:

        21 May21 May 09:54

        He’s going to stay at Necker 😉

      • John says:

        21 May21 May 11:54

        If you value at 0.75p, then £7500 earning 2% interest over 18 years is £10711 (and historically rates were much higher.. )

        I’d have exchanged them for 200K Hilton a long time ago… after all you can easily earn VS from CCs and CC 🙂

        • the real harry1 says:

          21 May21 May 15:17

          but it’s £750! 🙂

• Rob says:

  21 May21 May 09:25

  OT- been posted before but does anybody have any experi nice of using the PRGC to platinum upgrade, hitting the 1k spend and then cancelling before incurring any fees?

  How long after applying would they normally charge you here?

  Thanks

  • the real harry1 says:

    21 May21 May 09:44

    sure – I did exactly that a couple of weeks ago

    I guess I only had the Plat about 3 or 4 days, I paid off £1K of council tax then just had to wait for the points to hit my BAEC a/c before cancelling

    I think you can get more days than that before getting charged & some are luckier still 🙂

    don’t worry too much about the fees because you get a pro-rata refund in any case

  • MarkH says:

    21 May21 May 12:03

    I had Plat for about 6 weeks and didn’t get charged any fees

  • Carl says:

    21 May21 May 16:29

    I’m cancelling mine in the next couple of days. I’ve had it since Easter and haven’t been charged the fee yet. I waited a little longer after hitting the spend target to cancel as I was waiting for hotel statuses to come through. Only the Hilton one has so far. It’s going to make the cancelling conversation a bit easier though as I genuinely am disappointed with the fact that most of my hotel statuses haven’t been updgraded this long after applying.

• Ralphy says:

  21 May21 May 10:04

  Blatant plug for Raffles.

  I contacted Rob the other day as I was signing up for the AmEx Platinum card. Doing this gave me an extra 5000 membership rewards points. However, even if it didn’t I would have still written to Rob for a referral since whenever I can I want to give something back to him for the amazing work he has done and the fabulous flights I have been able to book and take that, without signing up to Headforpoints 3 or 4 years ago, I would never have known about and so able to achieve First to Beijing and Hong Kong, Club World to Sydney! And others.

  I have also done this with AmEx gold and SPG, asking Rob for referrals.

  Would strongly encourage all readers here to be mindful and do the same when there is no opportunity within your immediate circle of family and friends.

  Thanks again Rob!

  • mark2 says:

    21 May21 May 10:31

    +1

• ADS says:

  21 May21 May 10:36

  OT – my first five Shopping Miles transactions (from end of March) have now appeared in my Flying Club account.

• Gill says:

  21 May21 May 10:50

  OT.

  Earned my Lloyd’s upgrade and planning Marrakech business redemption. Looking for some advise on my planned use.

  If I book one avios redemption return followed by BA holiday for one (flight and hotel) can I link the bookings?

  Lastly will a regional connection increase avios redemption and /or BA holidays?

  Thanks

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 10:56

    Marrakech is treated as short haul so, yes, the regional add-on will be charged.

    You can’t link bookings (unless you are Gold, when they will try occasionally – but with BA Holidays involved I doubt even that would work).

    • Gill says:

      21 May21 May 11:09

      Thanks. That might swing in favour of a different destination. Time for me to crunch the numbers.

• n says:

  21 May21 May 11:32

  Two pronged OT question re Amex Travel.

  Looking to book a friend LHR-FCO-CAI and back on Alitalia. Alitalia is showing a few options on the dates. However, Amex Travel (£50 off £250 spend!) website isn’t showing all the options that Alitalia are offering. Can I call Amex travel and get them to ‘force’ a certain booking?

  Also, what are the downsides of booking through Amex Travel, rather than booking with Alitalia direct?

  • John says:

    21 May21 May 12:10

    You can try, but Amex Travel seems to not always show the lowest available booking classes. Sometimes this is because airlines only allow you to book the cheapest booking classes directly with them or their specialist travel agents.

    Downsides are that Amex will have additional cancellation / change policies and their own fees for doing so in addition to any airline fees, plus everything needs to go through Amex until day of flight – if Alitalia cancels or changes schedule then Amex will be your contact to fix any problems.
    Upside is 3MR/£ on Gold Amex instead of 2MR/£

    Didn’t Alitalia go into administration recently? You may have extra protection with Amex Travel should Alitalia stop operating (if it’s a package, they may have some obligations to reroute you – check this yourself though), whereas Section 75 when paying by CC will only get you a refund

  • Genghis says:

    21 May21 May 12:11

    I’d avoid booking anything with Alitalia at the moment, especially far out
    https://www.ft.com/content/5398e368-2f28-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    21 May21 May 12:34

    Related question. I never see any availability on BA with AmEx Travel. Is BA not available with AmEx? Also a lot of hotels are missing… :/

  • n says:

    21 May21 May 14:04

    Thank you for feedback and thoughts.

    Will discuss administration with friend re Alitalia, I had forgotten that. Thanks for the reminder.

    I didn’t realise, but Alitalia offering 20% off flights at the moment, negating the £50 saving through Amex Travel.

    I think I’ll avoid booking through Amex Travel for this one, might try it out myself when I’m flying first!

    • n says:

      21 May21 May 14:05

      As a little datapoint that may be useful for someone;

      LHR-FCO-CAI-FCO-LHR is pricing at £210 for 7/6-15/6 in Economy, which seems cheap to me?

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