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News: get 20% off Harvey Nichols drinks, 100% bonus buying IHG points, win a Virgin cruise

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News in brief:

Use your £50 Amex Platinum credit for two bottles of Harvey Nichols champagne, delivered

If you have an American Express Platinum card (Amex Platinum review here), you have a new benefit – £100 per year to spend at Harvey Nichols.

This is split into 2 x £50 credits, one for January to June and one for July to December.

Until 20th February, Harvey Nichols is offering 20% off most of its own brand wine and champagne.

The ‘food and wine’ home page is here.

This link takes you to the own-label champagne. It is reduced to £23.60 per bottle. Put two in your basket and, with UK delivery, it comes to £52.20. After the Amex Platinum credit, it costs you £2.20!

Remember to join the new Harvey Nichols Rewards scheme before ordering. Our article on why you should join Harvey Nichols Rewards is here.

Thanks to Andrew for flagging this in our forum. There is a dedicated thread on the Harvey Nichols / Amex Platinum offer here.

Get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG Rewards points

IHG Rewards has launched a new 100% ‘buy points’ bonus, which is as generous as you ever see.  This is the first time that we have seen a 100% bonus since last October, assuming that everyone is offered the same target.

The maximum number of points you can buy is 300,000 (ie 150,000 plus the 150,000 bonus). 

The page to buy points is here.

With a 100% bonus, you would be able to buy up to 300,000 IHG points for (at current exchange rates for $1,500) £1,105.

I usually value IHG Rewards points at 0.4p.  You are paying 0.37p here so from that point of view you shouldn’t lose money. The skill is to use them at hotels where you can get substantially more than 0.4p per point of value, although this got a little harder since IHG moved towards revenue-based redemption pricing recently.

You can buy points via this link. The offer runs to 18th March.

Win Virgin Voyages cruise

Win a Virgin Voyages mini-cruise

Virgin Red is offering you the chance to win one of 10 cabins for two people on the second Virgin Voyages cruise ship, Valiant Lady.

You won’t be heading to the Caribbean, unfortunately. The prize is for a 3-night trip from Portsmouth to Zeebrugge and back, including a day in Zeebrugge itself – or Bruges or Ypres if you want to travel further afield.

There is a choice of travel dates between 18th March and 2nd May. All food and entertainment is included.

The competition runs across Virgin Red, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Money, Virgin Media, Virgin Active, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Experience Days, Virgin StartUp and Virgin Wines, with 65 cabins in total to be given away. If you are a customer of any of these businesses apart from Virgin Red, you will be contacted separately and given an additional chance to enter.

You can enter via the Virgin Red app or go to virg.in/vvcomp. The competition closes on 28 February 2022.

Our two-part in-depth tour of Scarlet Lady, the first Virgin Voyages ship, is here.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points. 

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

American Express Platinum card, IHG One Rewards, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (26)

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

  • Wally1976 says:
    11 Feb11 February 06:24

    I recently got the Amex platinum card. How do I activate the Harvey Nichols offer?

    • ClaireF says:
      11 Feb11 February 06:32

      I’d be interested in this too. Should it appear automatically or do I phone up. I upgraded from green if that makes a difference.

    • Nicholas says:
      11 Feb11 February 06:46

      Should be in your offers. Just save it before buying anything.

      • Wally1976 says:
        11 Feb11 February 07:26

        It’s not showing in my offers. Guess I’ll need to get on the chat to them.

    • Rob says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:05

      It will appear in a week or so – and if not, contact them via webchat and they can do it manually.

  • Iain says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:34

    Excellent TY: five bottles of Sauvignon Blance for £3.75!

  • Wally1976 says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:54

    Another question: if my wife uses her supplementary platinum card in Harvey Nichols, will that trigger the offer?

    • Graham Walsh says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:04

      I think it’s just primary card that will trigger it as supp cards have their own offers.

    • Andrew J says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:08

      Main card only – like the Addison Lee offer. Not loaded on any supps.

  • Maria J says:
    11 Feb11 February 09:24

    Thank you so much for that! @ bottles of Champagne for£2.80. Happy days!

  • yorkieflyer says:
    11 Feb11 February 09:32

    Quite brassed off with Amex offers recently, offers not tracking and now the economist offer disappears after being saved before being used.
    How can you buy with any degree of confidence?

    • Wally1976 says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:41

      I’m also finding the points for adding supplementary card holders aren’t posting grrrr!

    • Cranzle says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:48

      There are very, very few reports of Amex not paying out.
      Having to wait upto 90 days, yes. But I have more confidence in Amex than other c4shb4ck sites or BA Avios portal.

      • Mr. AC says:
        11 Feb11 February 12:51

        Indeed. I recently had Amex pay out (without any prodding) on an offer that I triggered in October and forgot about.

  • Sam says:
    11 Feb11 February 09:42

    I only got a 90% IHG Bonus! Harsh.

    • Young L says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:57

      Same, I actually wanted to buy some points if it were 100%

    • BJ says:
      11 Feb11 February 12:42

      I got the headline 100% however the bonus points do not show in the drop down box like they usually do so I’m reluctant to proceed with purchase.

  • Alex Sm says:
    11 Feb11 February 11:20

    I jumped through the hoops of Virgin Cruises competition entry only to discover a message that I have already participated. I can’t recall doing so. Could it be that it erroneously picked up my partner’s entry from the same IP address (though he has a separate VR account)?

  • JdeW says:
    11 Feb11 February 11:37

    Just a word of warning that champagne isn’t champagne isn’t champagne!! Before rushing to use the Plat Amex offer and load up on HN own label champagne (made by Lombard & Medot) you may want to read this review by Gentleman’s Journal which gave it a fairly miserly 5.5/10.

    QUOTE.We had our worries when we saw the bottle. There’s something a little bit basic about those birds — and even all the flapping and fluttering in the world couldn’t distract us from the bizarre taste of Harvey Nichols own-brand champagne. A frankly baffling bottling, it’s almost salty; a seaweed-tinged tipple with a sharp, bitter finish. Considering the department store’s usual stringent standards, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth — literally. UNQUOTE. Even for £2.20…?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      11 Feb11 February 15:22

      that was going to be my question!

    • Andrew J says:
      11 Feb11 February 16:29

      The review shows its age as they haven’t had that bottle design (which oddly seems to the be bulk of their concern about this product) for quite some time, so potentially new bottle design = new contents. I’ve always found it quite nice to drink but maybe I’m easily pleased with free champagne when I’m in the personal shopping suite.

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

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