Last day for Hilton’s UK, Europe and Middle East hotel flash sale

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• Shoestring says:

  25 Mar25 March 17:18

  FINTECH start-up Curve ….

  [EDITED as I have already had one formal complaint in the last 7 days from a national print title about Shoestring cutting and pasting entire or large chunks of articles]

  • Freddy says:

    25 Mar25 March 18:03

    Someone might wanna tell curve that everyone have scrapped their amex cards so may aswell not bother

    • Mikeact says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:13

      You mean Rob’s 13000 bloggers or his 30000 social media followers…or both ?

  • Shoestring says:

    25 Mar25 March 19:19

    OK, noted, no wish to do more than quote a couple of short, relevant bits:
    [As a result, Mr Bialick said, his business has spent millions of pounds on transactions fees and development work for a project that never launched….As well as launching a legal challenge, Curve said it is filing a complaint with the Payment Systems Regulator. “We have a very large set of investors and we have a lot of money in our war chest,” Mr Bialick said. “When someone is actively trying to kill you, that means you are disrupting the model.”]

    • Symon says:

      25 Mar25 March 23:43

      “When someone is actively trying to kill you, that means you are disrupting the model” Is he all there? Their business model is a dead end; and to be honest starting to look at little outdated. Who in their right mind would bother to kill off something that isn’t profitable and not that popular (Curve only has 500,000 cardholders according to the article).

• sprout7 says:

  25 Mar25 March 18:14

  O/T – I’m afraid I need some advice on the following strategy:
  I’m looking to align my wife’s BAE tier point year end with mine and despite numerous calls and mails to exec club they are unable to help. The only way I can think to do it is by transferring her points to her Avios.com account, closing her BA account (forfeiting an unused 2 for 1 voucher in the process) reopening a new BAE account in March / April (my year end is March 8th) and transferring the points back into the new account.
  Could anyone confirm if this will / won’t work?
  Many thanks

  • Rob says:

    25 Mar25 March 18:23

    Should work but seems a little extreme. It is pathetic that BA allows this situation to develop. We have four different month ends amongst the four people in our house.

    • sprout7 says:

      25 Mar25 March 18:42

      Yea it does seem bonkers. My main concern was reconnecting the new BA account to Avios but I guess we’ll give it a go. thanks

    • BJ says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:07

      Yes it is, but it is the only solution BA will offer sprout IME. Been there, tried that! I agree it is extreme though, with status lasting up to two years date differences should not be much of an issue if Mr(s) Sprout travel regularly. At the very least it should provide scope for managing the date of closure and rejoining.

  • ChrisC says:

    26 Mar26 March 08:22

    You are actively wanting to give up a potentially valuable 2 for 1 voucher just to tidy up some dates?

    You must be mad to give this up and then be willing spend X thousands of avios unnecessaryily on your next trip where you could have used the voucher and saved them.

    She would also lose any current status she may have and also the life time tier points – which may not bother you / here but it would other people.

    But if you want to waste the voucher and avios then go ahead. The only people who would benefit are BA.

    • sprout7 says:

      26 Mar26 March 13:00

      Following the change in Amex sign up bonus rules the 2for1 becomes less valuable to us as we will cross refer more frequently and obtain more vouchers than in the past. (I currently hold 2). Hitting the £10k spend target is not an issue.

      We intend to travel on more short haul redemptions in economy so having Silver status becomes far more valuable (and for long haul seat reservations). Therefore aligning tier point year end dates becomes significant if we are to maximise the effectiveness of tier point runs / holidays.

      I can assure you there will be significant benefits for me if she is able to get lounge access as well rather than me suggesting she sits outside while I go in alone!

• Graham Walsh says:

  25 Mar25 March 19:52

  My colleagues Sister was on that flight this morning

• Shoestring says:

  25 Mar25 March 19:56

  O/T There are other cards. FWIW I took out a Sainsbury’s Nectar credit card this morning, it offers 28 months zero interest on both new purchases and balance transfers up to your credit limit. So you can buy new things for the next 28 months and pay no interest on your purchases, obvs only up to your credit limit. [I have no balance transfers but I guess you'd pay a small fee to transfer your balance from another credit card, then zero interest for the 28 month term.]

  Acceptance was immediate online – which is better than I can say we ever got for Amex card applications! 🙂 Credit limit £15,000. You *must* pay the minimum monthly amount each month or you will lose your 28 month free credit offer.

  Don’t do this unless you can pay off the balance in full before the 28 month term is up (when you start paying interest.)

  • BJ says:

    25 Mar25 March 20:17

    Didn’t you get a bunch of bonus nectar points for your next 10 shops in two months too? Presumably you also still get double nectar points at Sainbsburys for two years?

    • BJ says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:28

      “Earn 750 bonus points each time you spend £35 or more on Sainsbury’s shopping with your credit card, up to ten times in your first 2 months, that’s 7,500 points††.”

  • Mikeact says:

    25 Mar25 March 20:19

    What was the sign up ? i.e. How many Nectar?

    • Shoestring says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:23

      No, it’s like BJ says: loadsa points for Sainsbury’s purchases in the coming months but no big sign-up bonus

      • TGLoyalty says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:27

        That’s the problem. 5% off through my work discount scheme (which takes AMEX) is much better than double nectar.

• Grant says:

  25 Mar25 March 20:03

  Rob, any plans to cover the Apple Credit Card that was announced today? US release ‘this summer’ but I don’t see any details of when it will hit the UK.

  • Mikeact says:

    25 Mar25 March 20:21

    No point.

  • Shoestring says:

    25 Mar25 March 21:14

    understood but ‘hard cash in return for spending’ will only ever be a fixed percentage of your spend – whereas Avios points (for example) can at times be worth many multiples of their face value.

    Eg a face value 1p Avios point can work out to be worth 4p or so when you need that flight and cash prices are sky high – but there’s still a reward flight available!

    • Chris L says:

      25 Mar25 March 21:21

      I agree but for many it’s “ifs and buts” vs cold hard cash. I doubt most consumers who follow a blog such as this manage to achieve 1p per Avios value. You’re only going to do so really if you’re redeeming for business class or above, aside maybe from peak times, granted.

    • Chris L says:

      25 Mar25 March 21:34

      Sorry I meant “…most consumers who DON’T follow…”

    • BJ says:

      25 Mar25 March 22:11

      £25,358.46 for 2 pax one way in flexible first EDI-HKG on Christmas eve when I must travel. I paid under £1k + 75k avios with a 241. Also used avios to BKK on same date last year in CW when even economy was over £1500 return. Doubt you’ll see me near an apple card so long as an avios card remains.

    • BJ says:

      26 Mar26 March 06:07

      Correction to my 22.11 xomment: should read 120k avios for peak first, was thinking of my default off peak CW redemptions which are 75k.

  • Optimus Prime says:

    25 Mar25 March 22:06

    But a card with those benefits and no fees is not sustainable in the UK market, is it?

  • Rob says:

    25 Mar25 March 22:10

    No

    • Symon says:

      25 Mar25 March 23:48

      This is the sort of problem old media has; failing to keep up with new tech. Apple has massive clout, and Sachs isn’t some two-bit operation. This card will no doubt come to the UK (less sure about mainland Europe), you should be at the front of covering this Rob. Just Saying…

      • BJ says:

        26 Mar26 March 06:17

        The problem is the Apple brand is on a slippery slope because they are failing to keep up with new technology. Reason for their interest in such things as credit cards is because the know they are fighting a losing battle on the tech front. I suspect they will be another Nokia within a decade.

• Spurs Debs says:

  25 Mar25 March 20:39

  Oh I’m going to look at that … any excuse for a spa treatment !

• Shoestring says:

  25 Mar25 March 21:09

  Don’t forget the big wins. You might be focused on points & flights – but some of the really big wins are on pensions & ISAs. Points might be a hobby but points = money.

  Get another £40K into your pension, if at all possible. Before the end of the tax year. That’s the very best big win in my humble opinion.

  Mission success.

  • Shoestring says:

    25 Mar25 March 21:28

    so a £40K contribution for a basic rate taxpayer must be worth 800,000 Avios points

    for a higher rate taxpayer, considerably more 🙂

  • Rob says:

    25 Mar25 March 22:06

    If you’re earning so little that you get the full £40k allowance then you don’t earn enough to put away £40k ….

    The only reason I think I should stick HFP into a corporate vehicle is that I could reduce my salary to exactly £40k, pay the entire lot into my pension and have zero tax liability.

    • Jimbob says:

      25 Mar25 March 22:29

      Not entirely true, with the joys of a db pension you can earn less than £100k, yet have “pension growth” of more than £40k per year, and get hit by a marginal tax rate of 80%.

      Think I may have gone off topic though…

      • Alan says:

        25 Mar25 March 23:31

        Haha – it gets better – move from earning £109k to £111k by doing £2k of non-pensionable extra work to cover a gap and you can get a nice £9k+ tax bill, marginal rate 475% or thereabouts. All on a theoretical benefit that you’ll lose about 25%+ of by taking earlier than State Pension Age…

        (OK I’ve gone even further OT but couldn’t resist!)

      • Matthew says:

        25 Mar25 March 23:51

        Would you mind explaining for me?! Are you talking about the LTA? Thanks

    • FlyingChris says:

      25 Mar25 March 23:08

      “So little” being under 150k…?

      • Rob says:

        25 Mar25 March 23:13

        £150k is £90k net. I doubt anyone on £90k take-home is putting £40k into a pension unless they have substantial savings to top-up their day to day spend.

      • Charlieface says:

        26 Mar26 March 00:15

        Sorry mate, anyone on 150k paying the full 40% really isn’t doing their homework.
        (For reference I’m on less than 10% of that at the mo)

• Benilyn says:

  25 Mar25 March 21:13

  OT: London to Maldives redemption in business, any ideas? BA impossible to get. Looking for March 2020.

  • Chris L says:

    25 Mar25 March 21:17

    Sri Lankan?

    • Rob says:

      25 Mar25 March 22:05

      or Qatar. SriLankan easier though.

  • Peter 64K says:

    25 Mar25 March 22:19

    BA release 355 days in advance so more days in march next year to be released still.

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