New: earn Marriott Rewards points and stay credit with London house rentals from Hostmaker

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• Adam says:

  25 Apr25 April 07:53

  Yes, Pretty sure this isn’t the most generous deal we have seen for a while!

• AndyW says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:47

  OT – trying to refer from Plat to Gold, when I click on other cards, it is just showing the basic green card, and not the gold, under charge cards. Is there a way to get around this?

  • Richard says:

    25 Apr25 April 08:54

    This is the same for everyone – all referrals to Gold are broken right now. I’m assuming (hoping) it’s a tech issue that will be quickly fixed. If someone is referring from Gold, the page is completely broken.

    • AndyW says:

      25 Apr25 April 09:25

      Thanks for the info. As you say hope this is just a tech issue and not something worse!

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:13

        Weird comment on my Gold card page…

        “You can earn 9,000 Membership Rewards points for each approved friend. While you can’t refer your Card, you can still refer the American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card. This is a new product by American Express and differs from the one you currently hold. For more information please refer to the Referral Programme Terms.”

        I’m guessing this is what others are seeing ??

      • Richard says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:19

        Thanks for that context, Sussex Bantam.

        It looks like Preferred Rewards Gold will now be a credit card, not a charge card. It still has the same fee, and the same sign-up bonus. Referrals from Plat to Gold currently aren’t possible, but hopefully the IT will be fixed shortly.

  • Richard says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:14

    Still no sign of a fix! Hope this isn’t a major change…

    • Richard says:

      25 Apr25 April 13:17

      Edit: Just seen Sussex Bantam’s post. Looks like this is a major change after all…

      • Rob says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:32

        It was a charge card, now its a credit card. No big deal. (Except for me who has a shed load of site changes to make to remain FCA compliant.)

        And TWO very interesting opportunities open up. More tomorrow.

      • AndyW says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:40

        Interesting! This may make it easier for me to refer people who don’t really play this game and didn’t really get charge cards!

        • Rob says:

          25 Apr25 April 14:32

          I think that is why they’ve done it. I honestly think the ability to earn a bit of interest income is secondary.

      • Richard says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:40

        Thanks for the reassurance, Rob. I’m curious about what the new opportunities might be given that the new Credit version is otherwise the same as the previous Charge version.

        PS – If you could let your Amex contacts know that they still need to add the new Gold Credit Card to the list of Other Credit Cards from a Platinum referral page, that would be highly appreciated..!

• SS says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:58

  Does the spend on the Avios count as “BA Spend” on the BAPP?

  Just wondering which card to use to maximise points

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 09:01

    No, goes through as points.com

    • SS says:

      25 Apr25 April 10:10

      Ah yes I have read that before, thanks for confirming

• Geoff says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:37

  I have bought avios in the past, at the 50% extra rate, in order to have enough avios at the D-355 point, to make use of a 241 voucher, despite knowing I would earn enough over the coming year.

  Wasn’t there a plan (possibly a targeted trial?) to allow you to buy a redemption ticket without yet having the required avios balance – ie in the expectation that you would have enough by the time of the flight – or did I dream that?

  • Anna says:

    25 Apr25 April 09:56

    That was possibly on avios.com, not for much longer if so!

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:07

    Yes, it was trialled a couple of years ago. Was a clever idea but not rolled out.

• Arnold London says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:58

  Would love some feedback.
  As a newly setup independent consultant with a fair bit of travel (and GGL status allowing free cancellations and changes) I find Avios to be very efficient for business travel.
  As a recent example, for a mid-week trip to DC BA wanted £1500 round trip in economy and £2500 in premium. And £5000+ in club.
  While there was no club availability I was able to book either economy for 26,000 avios and ~£350 of taxes or premium for 52,000 avios and £450 of taxes. Thoughts if buying avios at 1.1p makes sense if this is the primary use? We of course also use the GGL jokers to unlock avios redemptions on popular routes during peak periods which is an excellent use for them.
  Separately anyone have experience with HMRC and business expensing of avios purchases or tickets purchased with avios?

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:05

    If you buy them solely to redeem for business use flights there is no issue expensing that in my view.

  • Anna says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:55

    £5k for CW? Is that booking the day before or something?!

    • Arnold london says:

      25 Apr25 April 12:34

      If you look at mid-week trips to DC (anything without a Saturday night stay) in June it’s still the same (actually £5,800 in Club).
      This is how BA make their money from captive corporate customers. As an SME these fares are punitive and I need to start looking at other indirect options. Or book using avios.

      • Anna says:

        25 Apr25 April 13:48

        Crikey! You need to stay till Sunday…

• Devin says:

  25 Apr25 April 11:21

  OT: anticipating upcoming expenses of 10k + that will need to go on a non-amex card, likely through curve. I’m comparing to see which would give me the most value between the new virgin + an HSBC Premier Elite. Does anyone have recent experience with getting the extra 40k points for hitting the yearly spend without triggering the second year’s fee?

• Chris A says:

  25 Apr25 April 11:44

  O/T: Buying property…
  Do any you have any experience of using rewards cards for any element of buying a property? I am likely to purchase soon (with mortgage) and like any good person on here am keen to find ways of getting maximum gain!

  • Anna says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:54

    I think a mortgage is the one thing you really can’t get round. Banks usually want the bank account details you will be making the repayments from as part of the application. They would probably consider you a credit risk if you wanted to make payments on credit.

    But estate agent/solicitor fees, your new furniture et.c. can probably all go on cards! I paid a deposit for a new kitchen on my BAPP a couple of years ago which came in handy.

    • Chris A says:

      25 Apr25 April 21:41

      Indeed Anna, new BAPP card year coming up for me!

  • Scallder says:

    25 Apr25 April 20:52

    Chris – doubt any bits with the mortgage, however you could probably ask your solicitors to be able to pay the Stamp Duty yourself. Haven’t done this before myself however I know it can be done – what I don’t know is whether it needs to be done in one hit or not. Curve debit card could possibly help a bit here and perhaps you can pay the amount on a credit card (perhaps?!)

    Could try paying your solicitor fees plus any others and perhaps mortgage product fee via a CC or curve debit card.

    There’s also billhop however does come with 2.95% fee…

    • Chris A says:

      25 Apr25 April 21:42

      Thanks Scallder-thankfully the solicitor is a good friend who is well aware of my ‘habit’!

• Scallder says:

  25 Apr25 April 12:49

  OT some Amex data points:

  1) Cancelled a Platinum card last night and the person I spoke to actively told me to wait 6 months before applying again for the card to get the sign up bonus – so hopefully that’s a sign that that rule isn’t changing anytime soon?!

  2) Just tried adding a supplementary card to my online account (wife is card holder), and couldn’t do it. Having been on the phone to them for a combined total of over 30 mins this morning, apparently Amex changed their rules a couple of months ago which means that you can no longer add a supplementary card to your online account for which you have cards where you’re the main cardholder, and instead need to have a second log in for any supplementary cards you may have. Seems like a huge step backwards in terms of functionality to me…

  3) The adviser who confirmed about point 2 to me, also said that there’s no customer services email address to send a complaint to, either I have to write to them, or go through the document centre. Again just seems a bit backwards to me.

  4) Everytime I’ve spoken to someone from Amex (probably 5/6 occasions over the last week and a half), I’ve been speaking to an American. Have they shut the Brighton call centre and now all calls are routed to the US?

  • rash says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:27

    On point 4 I have had the same, the ‘American’ call centre have been very poor in my experience of understanding any issues or we have serious communication issues. The last time I called I did get through to Brighton and the agent informed me that next time I could ask to be put through to Brighton if it was answered by another location….

    • mark2 says:

      25 Apr25 April 20:34

      I spoke to a CS person in Manila the other day. She had an American accent like many people in Philippines.

    • Lev441 says:

      26 Apr26 April 01:42

      Also been sent to different call centres aside from Brighton – some very foreign sounding people did not understand my queries and had to escalate up to a manager after speaking to two incompetent staff members before getting issue sorted. Was not what I’ve come to expect from amex. No clue where the call was routed to…

  • Darren says:

    25 Apr25 April 16:52

    I’d recommend getting in touch with Amex via Twitter and then a DM to raise your issue

  • john says:

    25 Apr25 April 18:53

    I think on point 2 there might be a name check or something. I tried to add a supp card to my wife’s account a few months ago. Old account and cards were in her maiden name and new card was married name, and it wouldn’t allow it to be added to the old account, had to set up a new one.

  • Dan says:

    25 Apr25 April 19:41

    I had this a couple of weeks ago. Their system is a little behind and was told by the call centre to wait a few days and try again. It worked. I also received the approval and card on way email (was originally deferred) two days after receiving the card!

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