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News: Heathrow free bus travel ends, Amazon Kindle Unlimited offer

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News in brief:

Heathrow to end all Free Travel Zone bus travel on Friday

Regular readers will know that Heathrow announced last year that it was ending its financial support for the Free Travel Zone.

As well as subsidising employee transport to and from the airport, this allowed anyone to use the local buses around Heathrow without charge. You were most likely to use it when travelling between the airport and one of the off-airport hotels.

The removal of free bus travel has been happening in stages. It was removed from routes 4, 7, 8, 442 and 555 on 1st January.

Heathrow has now confirmed that free bus travel will end on all remaining routes on 12th June.

Full details are on this page of the Heathrow website.

Free 3-month trial of Amazon Kindle Unlimited

All week we are covering some of the special offers that Amazon has launched for Prime Day, which is coming up on 21st and 22nd June.

Whilst clearly off-topic for us, these are all good deals. We also get a small commission from Amazon if you buy anything, and with hotel and flight booking commissions massively down we’ll take what we can get …..

Today’s offer for Prime members is with Kindle. If you have a Kindle device, or are happy using the Kindle app on your iPad, other tablet or smartphone, you can claim a FREE three-month trial to Kindle Unlimited via this link.

You MUST be an Amazon Prime member to take part.

Kindle Unlimited allows you unlimited access over 1 million books, thousands of audiobooks and selected magazine subscriptions.  You won’t struggle to keep yourself busy for the next three months.

The terms and conditions of the offer are here.  You can’t take part if you’ve had a free trial in the past 36 months.  The link to cancel your recurring payment of £7.99 from Month 4 is in the terms.

You can sign up is here.  The offer ends on 22nd June.

Comments (90)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Adam M says:

    So I called Amex this morning regarding the Economist Offer. Nothing posted on my account. They have assured me that it will be posted and that I did quality for the offer. They said the account can take up to 90 days to show the £45 and gave me a reference number.
    They could see that I added the offer to my card and that I purchased it after it was added.

    • JustMe says:

      I had a very similar comversation with Amex. The agent said they can see I added the offer to my card and then made a qualifying purchase, but stated the 90 days (from promotion end date) then sent a chase to the back office team.

      Fingers crossed, but at the end of the day, as long as the Avios post without any issues, 1.19p/avios isn’t a disaster.

      • gtellez says:

        Just contact them through the online chat, first ask me if I used the link in the T&Cs. After I said no but explained that the T&Cs just mentions that is “available at” that link (and not that the link must be used), they told me that due to technical problems they can´t check the eligibility now and I have to contact back in 24h… Really poor customer service. I asked if they could contact me back and they said not possible.

  • Alex says:

    Also cancelled this morning via economist live chat.

    Maybe thinking now I should have given it a go with Amex but nevermind.

    Not really a pressing need for Amex so maybe a speculative purchase wasn’t ever a good idea, though I actually quite enjoy the economist and have been a subscriber before so will keep eyes out for other offers.

  • Andrew says:

    In what way does “economist offer available at XXX” have possible different meanings? To argue that you bought it at YYY and amex didn’t say you couldn’t so you expect them to give you £45 is really stretching things.

    By all means complain to Amex, in the interest of good customer relations they may credit your account, but if they don’t all this talk of the FoS or legal action is ridiculous.

    • Genghis says:

      Terms don’t say “Offer available at xxx”, just “Available at”.

    • NFH says:

      One meaning is that the offer is available at the very long URL (amongst other options). The other meaning is that the offer is available only at the very long URL. These are the two different meanings.

      • Andrew says:

        Who would read “save 50p off weetabix, available at Tesco” and possibly think they’d be entitled to the same offer at Sainsbury’s?

        • Rob says:

          Terrible example, Andrew.

          It is perfectly normal for Weetabix to run adverts saying ‘Weetabix are great’ and at the bottom put ‘Available at Tesco’, because they can get a few quid off Tesco to subsidise the ad, even though the offer is available in all stores.

          We do it ourselves. If we write about an aviation book we’ll write ‘Available at Amazon’ at the bottom with a link because we can get a few quid off Amazon. It clearly doesn’t mean you can’t buy it elsewhere.

  • RussellH says:

    I had a very good Amex offer a few days ago!
    I agree that the vast majority of the offers are useless, but we had decided to splash out on some high quality new mattresses.
    Brooke and Wild had a 50% off offer in a newspaper + an Amex 15% off offer is currently running. These stacked.
    The card charge debited on day 1, the 15% rebate on day 2. Plus a bit of icing on the cake – Brooke and Wild are on Shop Small, so an extra £5 credit also applied on day 2. Plus a 50% uplift in Avios for the transaction.
    All our other Shop Small transactions are crediting very quickly too.

  • mutley says:

    Poor show from Amex. I won’t be cancelling though. as it can be claimed as a business expense, the 18000 Avios and anyhow its a good read.

  • Will T says:

    Having read the T&C of the Kindle Unlimited, it suggests that anything you have downloaded cannot be accessed once you have stopped subscribing. Does anyone know if this is what actually happens when you stop the subscription?

    • Erico1875 says:

      Yes. Just like Prime. you are basically borrowing the book.
      Personally.I cant read fast enough to get any value out of Unlimited. I get by with Prime, and a lot of the books on Unlimited are only 99p to own anyway

  • LessCleverAndrew says:

    So to be clear, as long as you sign up for the economist at the correct link in the Ts&Cs, then it will stack with the 45GP?

    • Rob says:

      Allegedly ….

      • Dave says:

        Wouldn’t you miss out on the avios if using the Amex link?

        • Rob says:

          Yes!

        • LessCleverAndrew says:

          After saving the offer to my card, I applied via the British Airways Executive Club Rewards App. Just received an email to say that my Economist offer was used and my Amex account will be credited in 5 days. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen.

  • Kathy says:

    Is anyone else having problems with their shop small at the moment. I have had 2 not credited. They showed up on the map and they accepted my card. Does the shopkeeper have to opt in or similar?

    • RussellH says:

      Do not know yet!
      I have had 4 track instantly on my BA Amex (ie e-mail within seconds of the transaction and £5 credited) the last one just 25 hours ago.
      But today’s on my gold Amex has produced no e-mail (yet). Shop worked fine twice last time. I have made a screenshot of the listing, though, just in case.

      I had one not track last time around – which did not surprise me, as it was a large BP garage on the edge of town I felt it was probably a mistake (and not on this year’s list). Complained anyway, and did not need to submit my screenshot, but told I would have to wait the official 90 days. Mentioned it again when I had to phone up about something else and got my refund.

    • mark2 says:

      The time taken for the statement credit to appear does vary quite widely for no discernible reason.

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