Bits: Aer Lingus stops storing payment cards, Dell XPS discounts for Amex Business cardholders

News in brief:

Aer Lingus to stop storing payment cards

I got an interesting email from Aer Lingus yesterday saying that it was deleting the credit card details that I had stored in my Aer Club account profile.

It said:

“We are making changes to how we store account holder’s payment card details across AerLingus.com and the Aer Lingus app.

As of 7th April, you will no longer be able to use saved payment card details to make purchases with us or save new payment card details to your account in the future.

These changes are being made to meet the highest industry standards in payment card fraud prevention and to meet our commitment to PCI (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance.“

I’m not entirely clear if Aer Lingus is actually saying: “our IT is rubbish and doesn’t meet modern security standards, so we can’t look after your credit card details any longer” or if it is genuinely taking a pragmatic stance that the risk vs reward trade-off is no longer worth it.

The large fines dished out to British Airways and Marriott over data breaches may be a factor here. I would imagine that a company is less likely to face major punishment if a breach only revealed frequent flyer and email details as opposed to payment card numbers.

Dell XPS discounts

A quick deal for any American Express Business Gold or Platinum cardholders who have yet to use their Dell cashback.

Until 12th April, there are additional discounts on the new 2021 versions of the flagship XPS series, as used in the HfP office by Rhys and Anika:

• £250 off the new XPS 13 – click here

• £300 off the new XPS 17 – click here

There is no specific offer on the XPS 15 but you should get the standard 14% sale discount using code SAVE14SB.

This discounts will stack with your £50 (Business Gold) or £75 (Business Platinum) cashback, plus – if you are targetted – the additional Amex offer of 10% back on any Dell purchase up to £750. It will add up to a decent saving.

Remember that you MUST opt-in to the Dell £50 / £75 half-yearly rebates via this page of the Amex website.