News: Crowne Plaza Kingston hotel shuts, United Airlines / Amex £250 cashback extended

News in brief:

Crowne Plaza London Kingston hotel to close

The Crowne Plaza London Kingston hotel – formerly the Holiday Inn Kingston South until it was rebranded in 2018 – is closing for at least 10 months.

In a mysterious email to people with confirmed reservations, guests were told that “the hotel has to close unexpectedly”.

It’s not closing for one night or one week, however. It is closing until 1st August 2023. This seems a rather long term given that the closure was “unexpected”. It is also odd that it feels confident to give a specific reopening date 10 months in advance, given the “unexpected” nature of the shuttering.

At the time of the 2018 rebranding, IHG said that “the hotel is considered to be one of the top performing hotels within Europe” and was “a finalist for Hotel of the Year 2017 at the IHG Europe Conference”.

Amex / United Airlines cashback deal extended

Finally, a quick note to say that the generous United Airlines / American Express offer appears to have been extended by two weeks to 10th October. Our original article is here.

You would receive £250 cashback with any ex-UK flight booking for £500+ booked on the UK version of the United Airlines website.

The offer is no longer available for registration as far as I can tell, but if you saved it when we originally wrote about it, you should see the expiry date extended.

If you’re interested in learning how to earn United Airlines MileagePlus miles from UK credit cards, we wrote an article here.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – September 2023 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

SPECIAL OFFER: The sign-up bonus on the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard is doubled to 30,000 Virgin Points if you apply by 2nd October. You receive 15,000 Virgin Points with your first purchase and a further 15,000 points if you spend £3,000 within 90 days. Apply here.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.