News in brief:
25% transfer bonus from HSBC to Avios is working
A week ago, we wrote that we may be about to see a new transfer bonus between HSBC Premier credit cards and British Airways Executive Club.
This was based on the fact that a HFP reader, ZW, found this PDF on the HSBC website – click here.
It shows a 25% bonus on transfers made between 1st December and 31st December.
1st December came and went, but nothing appeared on the HSBC Premier website to imply that a transfer bonus was running. The good news is that a couple of hardy HFP readers decided to test it out anyway.
The good news is that the transfer bonus appears to be working perfectly.
Here is a screenshot sent in by a reader from their British Airways Executive Club account, showing 1,000 points transferred from HSBC Premier and a bonus of 250 points being added immediately:
Cheap Avios deal on Groupon Ireland still running
A quick heads up that the Groupon Ireland deal for buying discounted Avios is still running. This is identical to the regular deals run by Groupon in Spain, but with the advantage that the entire buying process (and, if you have issues, follow-up process) is in English and not Spanish.
The Avios are not a steal at these prices. There is no longer a ‘super cheap’ teaser package and the prices for the other packages are higher than they were a year ago.
On the upside, Sterling is currently stronger against the Euro than it has been for a while. More importantly, if you have any issues redeeming your Groupon voucher, it will be easier to deal with AerClub and Groupon Ireland than Iberia Plus and Groupon Spain.
This is the deal:
- 2,000 Avios for €29 (1.25p)
- 4,000 Avios for €59 (1.27p)
- 8,000 Avios for €109 (1.17p)
- 15,000 Avios for €199 (1.14p)
- 20,000 Avios for €259 (1.11p)
- 35,000 Avios for €429 (1.05p)
You will need an Aer Lingus AerClub account to redeem your Groupon voucher, which you can open here. You can then use ‘Combine My Avios’ via avios.com (your AerClub account details work at avios.com) to move them across to British Airways Executive Club.
The page to buy if interested is here.
Capital On Tap announces positive changes to its payment cards
Capital On Tap finally announced the improvements to its two cashback or Avios-earning payment cards yesterday.
New applicants have been receiving the new cards for a couple of weeks now, but the official announcement and website switch had been delayed. To avoid confusion, we didn’t mention it until now.
I will do a full article for Friday. However, to summarise:
the two existing cards will be merged into one, called Business Rewards, retaining the best of both products
this is good news for holders of the £99 card, previously called Capital Club, who will now earn 1p of cashback or 1 Avios per £1 spent (currently 0.5p or 0.5 Avios)
this is good news for holders of the £199 / £249 card, previously called On Tap Club, who will see the fee reduced to £99
The sign-up bonus will be £100 cashback or 10,000 Avios (10,500 if you use our code below) for spending £5,000 in three months.
This makes the card VERY attractive to anyone with a small business of any sort:
your £99 annual fee in Year 1 is fully covered by the 10,500 Avios earned
if you take Avios instead of cashback, you will have the market-leading Avios earning rate on a Visa or Mastercard of 1 Avios per £1 spent
You can continue to get an additional £5 cashback or 500 Avios as a sign-up bonus (taking your total bonus to £105 or 10,500 Avios) by using promo code headforpoints when you apply. The sign-up page is here.
The website was due to update overnight with details of the new card.
A full article will follow very soon. We will also look at how the Capital On Tap Business Rewards card, at £99, compares with the £210 British Airways American Express Accelerating Business (BA Business) card.
You can apply for the Capital On Tap card here – don’t forget the headforpoints promo code!
About Head for Points
O/T: has anyone received their 25,000 Avios voucher for the Barclays Premier switch yet? I was told I’d receive it by email in December, nothing so far (yes, I know it’s only the 5th).
Nope. I have started to see the blue rewards hit for direct debits, though only at the standard non uplifted rate, so not sure what’s happening there.
Good point, just noticed the blue rewards of £7 instead of the £21 they promised for the first year.
The uplift is posted at a different time of the month from the standard, you get two credits per month.
I called yesterday – they told me I should get something by 20 Dec…
O/T My BAPP has been used fraudulently yesterday with ‘voucher express’ – I know it’s fraud since it’s been in the drawer since August having had £9,912 spent on it in my membership year.
Two things – firstly, this particular card was used during the great BA card details fiasco (but this is the first fraudulent transaction on it).
Secondly, the fraudulent transaction is going to push it over the companion voucher threshold. It’s currently only pending, but AmEx informed me that the transaction would be approved. They’ve also told me it’ll then be refunded as it’s fraudulent. Given that, will the companion voucher then be removed, if issued? Will I be able to then re-earn it (when I want to – i.e. February)? Anyone had this scenario before?
This seems like one of those super rare scenarios where you’re just better off contacting Amex directly…..
Yes that was my plan. Can’t do anything as yet though until the transaction goes through and presumably triggers or otherwise the voucher! Tbh it’s not the end of the world if it triggers now rather than Feb but I like to keep all my options open!
Had the same thing on my BA card in the spring. Some scumbag bought a voucher and collected it from Bluewater. They had my correct name and full address. They used a different email of course, to get the voucher confirmation. Amex sided with the retailer as they had all the correct info! Change your card NOW! And keep an eye on it – get it fully blocked. I still had a fraudulent powertoolplus order and 2 post office transactions approved after Amex had only semi blocked it. They refunded those however. Good luck.
Btw is British Airways still trying to deny their poor data security was the cause of these fraudulent transactions on people’s cards which still keep coming to light?
They’ve cancelled the card and sent out a replacement. They seemed pretty confident everything would be blocked. We shall see.
Had fraud hit my cancelled Amex Platinum (which I had rarely used beyond hitting targets) on the 3rd Dec. Just £1 with some foreign hotel I’ve never heard of.
Amex contacted me via email to tell me to update my recurring payments (etc) as they’d rejected it
OT:
Bonus Avios offer on the BAPP card (extra 1 Avios per £4) – anyone know if it applies to your supplementary card offers too, or only works with the main cardholder?
Logged into the wife’s supplementary account earlier today and the bonus avios £4 deal appeared top of the page in a banner. Said nothing more to do, just spend and the bonus avios will be awarded automatically.
So it would appear so.
OT: Just a quick shout out for the Reward Flight Finder site, which I tried per Rob’s recommendation.
I just managed to bag 2 Club World reward seats for Sydney->London in June, which is pretty amazing 7 months out for that route. Outward leg in Economy, unfortunately, but we were going to book the round-trip in Economy with our 2-4-1 voucher, so this is a great outcome. Best £3 subscription I’ve spent!
Good, because that would have been a colossal waste of Avios! You can pretty easily buy cash tickets to Sydney for £600ish return (if you keep a close eye on prices, I’ve seen them go to below £500 on rare occasions) whereas the BA charges on that route are something like £500.
I know, I know!
Anyone cancelled their COT card and got partial refund? No use to me not being able to pay HMRC – only reason I got it!
At least one reader has, yes.
O/T: Amex Plat Charge Card – just applied and approved but with a note that in respect of supp card “we have one more thing on our end to finalise before we say yes”..is that standard? Also, how quickly does the priority pass arrive?
You should never add a supp to an application, you are missing out on the chance to get a bonus for adding one later.
You don’t miss out just add a free gold and get the bonus 🙂
PP usually arrives same day as the platinum card plus or minus one day. If it is delayed just call PP and they will get your account up an running on the app which includes a barcode. There is no need to carry the actual card.
It’s normal to get that on supps.
OT I thought this was a particularly generous bonus avios offer that appeared on my BA Amex. Check your cards in case youve got it : https://i.ibb.co/tM9hG4C/Screenshot-20191205-181518-2.png
Only been mentioned about twenty times in the last three days 🙂
I bought the Aer Lingus groupon miles and added to my account on Sunday. Still waiting. It said it takes 5 days and they’ll contact if any issues. Not ideal. Anyone else have this issue? I did try 2x35k and it may be restricted to one voucher of each size but surely they’d have just contacted me if that was the issue.
I am having similar problem with receiving Avios via Aerlingus. Avios want nothing to do with it as they say the Groupon deal was via an unauthorised agent.
When does the old COT card stop working? Want to pay one more bill if I can!
You can request the new card on the CoT portal already (er, no thanks!). But there it states the old card will be retired in “January”.
OT: Red by Dufry – I have received a “birthday” code via notification for the Red by Dufry app which promised 1 month of platinum membership. When I enter it in the promotional code field, it says that the code is invalid. Has anybody at some point received a similar notification and managed to redeem the code?
Does anyone know how long the Groupon deal is expected to run? I’m hoping to make a purchase to boost my points for a redemption but not sure which package I’ll need just yet and don’t want to miss out!