American Express has launched a number of new cashback deals to help cut the cost of your Christmas shopping.
These are a very generous group of offers. However, if my own family cards are anything to go by, it seems that they are not appearing to everyone.
This is what I had across my cards:
Transport for London – 10% off contactless travel
The offer runs to 31st December. It does not include Heathrow Express or Heathrow Connect / TFL Rail when paid via contactless payment.
John Lewis – £10 cashback when you spend £50
Expires 29th December. Waitrose shoppers may want to buy a £50 John Lewis gift card instore which can then be used in a Waitrose. Excludes John Lewis Opticians.
Harrods – £30 cashback when you spend £100 (expires 24th December)
Debenhams – £10 cashback when you spend £50 (expires 31st December, so it can be used during the sale too)
Fenwick and Bentalls – £5 cashback when you spend £20 (expires 24th December)
If you’re a big fan of tuna baguettes, Upper Crust also offered me £2 back when I spend £5 before Christmas Eve!
And …..
There is also a new Accor hotels deal available.
It is offering £50 cashback when you spend £350 at selected luxury hotels in Europe before 28th February.
It is very select group of hotels included. The only countries covered are the UK, Netherlands, France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
If you were planning to stay at a Sofitel, Pullman or MGallery then your luck may be in. Sofitel Heathrow and Pullman London (Kings Cross) are excluded, however.
Pullman Berlin, which I reviewed earlier this year (our Pullman Berlin review is here and see the photo above) and liked a lot, IS included.
Remember that Amex charges a 3% FX fee when you use your card abroad so, if you have a card from another provider with 0% FX fees, remember to factor in the FX fee when working out how much you will save.
The rules do not say if cumulative spend counts. It usually does with American Express hotel promotions, but until we get feedback from other readers you shouldn’t rely on it.
The Accor website is here if you want to scope out your options. If you don’t want to earn Le Club AccorHotels points, you can take Avios directly instead. Credit to Iberia Plus and not British Airways Executive Club as the rate is twice as high – you can use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them across to BA afterwards.
PS. If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 reasons to apply for the free (in year 1) American Express Preferred Rewards Gold credit card.
(Want to earn more miles and points from credit cards? Click here to visit our dedicated airline and hotel travel credit cards page or use the ‘Credit Cards Update’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
Good grief! I was aware that dynamic pricing existed, but I’m currently watching a consumer affairs programme where prices for flights (with Ryanair, I think), come out 1/3 higher if you book for a family of four as opposed to 4 individual tickets! The presenter said BA are also really bad for this. I’m certainly going to be checking this on future cash fares, especially as booking together is no guarantee of sitting together any more.
i.e., a customer booking one ticket was quoted £145, another booking 4 tickets together was quoted £950.
It might be that there are one, two or three seats at £145 left but – as you want four seats – it prices them all using the more expensive fare bucket. It would be cheaper to do two separate bookings (one for the remaining seats in the cheaper bucket and the other for the rest of the seats you need). Assuming two bookings doesn’t create further headaches of course!
Exactly. I always try to remember to check separately for booking 1 person or 2, in case there is only one seat left at the lower booking class, which does happen sometimes. Train bookings tend to work this way as well.
Yep exactly that. Or with the budget airlines call to book groups.
I was looking for flights with Ryanair ex-ALC. The first ticket came in at ~€40 with ‘only one ticket left at this price’. I nearly fell on the floor when the second was asking €145!
Hi Rob!!
I really need your advice! between Me & My wife we have about 7 amex cards (Preferred gold & supp, Plat & supp, gold credit & supp) but we receive no offers on half our cards, and on the rest we only got 2 offers since march!
I have complained with amex and chatted and talked with different people and they keep saying this is not a core benefit of the card and we there is criteria for offers! I spend a lot on these cards, we have had about £45k on the gold card since January, what i mean is the cards are not idle, i have asked for replacement cards, removed the cards and added them to a new online account as well with no change!
I’m not also able to register for shop small!
So I want to know if you have any advice? or have had experience with this? I’ve posted this here because I know a lot of people have the same issue! appreciate your help!
Is your spend split between the cards? I have 4 cards, 2 of which I hardly use. They get the majority of the offers…
Somebody posted about this on the previous page. Same thing happened to me last year with Amex Plat. It slowly started to happen on BAPP too. I complained. Got £25 as a gesture of goodwill, but said this is not the core benefit. I closed the Plat card over the phone stating this as a reason and re-opened again in 2 weeks. However, I then realised based on some advice here that I should have removed all cards and abandon all online accounts. I did exactly that then and created an online account for each card. I haven’t had a problem since.
I see they still haven’t fixed this problem a year after…
Another thing I think, is that you shouldn’t put too many cards on one account. I think it messes the system.
I get no offers. I did manage to get registered for shop small by calling, and they emailled the offshore marketing dept, and it was added manually about 4 days later, which then makes me wonder what other offers I don’t know about but I could register for, if I knew about them.
A complaint went nowhere. It took them minutes to give a final answer, that offers are not a core benefit, yada yada yada, there was no investigation or willingness to just tell me why.
Try removing it from Online Services and re-adding it
Sina – I have always considered the offers to be created by a very basic algorithm. The offers are not part of the core product and therefore are designed to encourage folks to spend money on their cards. As a result, all you need to do is take out a basic free card and leave it in a drawer. I currently have the free BA card which is showing 63 offers, I have spent £1000 on the card since the 1st of January and every penny has been spent of offers.
OT: Is Green Amex to Platinum upgrade still giving a bonus. Thinking of giving it a go but only if its working.
Yes, spend 4K in 3 mths for 20k points, fee now 575…
Thanks Polly. How soon after opening a Green card can one upgrade to Platinum. Is there an upgrade link that people use?
10% of TfL contactless, pretty sure it includes TfL rail, the T&Cs seem to have been reused.
Why would it exclude Heathrow Express transactions, but not Gatwick Express transactions, or any other rail operator? They are all processed by TfL.
Does using the card via google/apple/samsung pay etc work for the TFL offer?
It’s not on the Accor website, it’s on the Amex website – hopefully showing under the ‘Offers’ tab on one of your statement pages.
I’m still waiting on Addison Lee £10 from last month!
Do not get any offers via my amex card anymore,and the quality of service I receive has become appalling .