[Luca M]

I second UMU but the dining credit will not cover very far for three people ( used mine last year there).

With regards to Hakkasan, I have been going there for over 15 years and cannot fault the food, still one of the best, if not the best, modern Chinese in town. Yes it can be loud and dark, but I find the design of the place still valid, albeit dot as sensational as when it first opened. I never been at lunch, so not sure about the atmosphere, but I know a fellow Platinum Cardholder that used his credit there for lunch and was very happy.

As a different, not Asian option, Pollen Street Social can offer a great option for lunch ( I think they have actually reduced the prices recently).

[Luca M]

Just to make it clear though, regarding the Avis free week end voucher, they have just communicated that they will not longer be issued and new benefits will be coming out in about 8 weeks

[Luca M]

Sorry, I was not aware there was a blue version of the ICC.. when I looked at it there was only the green version to start with, at £60pa fee per currency card (was looking into both USD and EUR).

Indeed it is a shame that you cannot at least upgrade to the green version.

[Luca M]

The ICC is still operating for UK resident introduced by their private banks.

I regret not getting the basic EUR and USD card when I had the chance as the amount of spend I do in these two currencies would have at least resulted in some rewards (yes I know effectively lower earning rate than the GBP cards, but better than nothing).

I am guessing, you can still use the card you have and if so, I would not cancel it for sure.

[Luca M]

tiberius wrote:

Luca M wrote:

I believe since November 2022 Amex Platinum gives you Hertz President Circle and Avis President Club, without having to status match each other.

I already had President Circle with Hertz via HSBC Premier MasterCard World Elite (if you have any World Elite Mastercard you should be upgraded), but they were very picky asking to send a picture of the card, which I did only after agreeing to blur the card number but for the first 6 digits (BIN).

I have used my Platinum to upgrade my Avis Account, and to be fair, they have consistently offered best prices, upgrades and even week end vouchers (they have just communicated recently that this is changing though).

Slightly off topic but where did you manage to find the Avis free weekend voucher? I have the same status for a few months now but have never found the voucher and assumed, like the Enterprise scheme, they came randomly via email? This would help as I consistently find Avis to be the most expensive car hire option (Hired a Hertz Polestar for 4 days over this weekend from Manchester Airport for £50!?)

As the other poster said, the Free Week end voucher was achieved after the THIRD rental in one year. Officially was not even meant to be given to President Club members (it is not on the listed benefit whilst it is on the ones listed for the tier before), but I got mine last year, which I am using just before expiring. It is supposed to be automatically sent after the THIRD completed rental, but as I did not receive mine, I had to chase it and they forwarded me the original email (maybe it was stopped by the spam filter).

To be fair, I do not actually rent in the UK, but I often do when travelling across Europe and North America, where I find Avis to be the cheapest or virtually level with the cheapest (within £10 extra on occasion), but as I have had 100% success rate with upgrades (more then once of two classes), I rather not risk it with Hertz or even with Sixt, Enterprise, Europcar or National where I also held high status via status match schemes

[Luca M]

EwanG wrote:

Both the Amex enrolment page, and a Hertz page say Plat gets you to Five Star, not PC. Nothing about it expiring and moving you down a tier, although the Terms pdf on the Hertz site still refers to 24 month point expiry (which changed to 18 and most recently to 12 months).

Are the accounts linked through the Amex Hertz enrolment page?

There was a discussion on this on one of the forum on this site. TPG US site also has an article about it. I have had 0 rental with hertz and I am still PC.

[Luca M]

I had two stays booked at Marriott through the BA portal last year and both had to be claimed manually, on the other end the best price guarantee scheme at Marriott is the best out there and both those stays were matched to international tariffs (both from South America), even though I booked from the UK

[Luca M]

I believe since November 2022 Amex Platinum gives you Hertz President Circle and Avis President Club, without having to status match each other.

I already had President Circle with Hertz via HSBC Premier MasterCard World Elite (if you have any World Elite Mastercard you should be upgraded), but they were very picky asking to send a picture of the card, which I did only after agreeing to blur the card number but for the first 6 digits (BIN).

I have used my Platinum to upgrade my Avis Account, and to be fair, they have consistently offered best prices, upgrades and even week end vouchers (they have just communicated recently that this is changing though).

[Luca M]

SteveJ wrote:

Luca M wrote:

Each card has its own referral limit

Not quite true. Each card ‘family/currency’ has it’s own limit. If, for example, you had two MR reward earning cards you have one MR referral limit. If however you happened to have the two cards under two logins you’d end up with double the MR referral limit.

I did not even think about that scenario to be fair, but yes, more in different card families. Nevertheless, balances are definitely separate

[Luca M]

To help the OP, I can share what I learned when my 100,000 bonus did not materialise initially and a very helpful Complaint Manager took it upon himself to see the resolution though:

Apparently bonus Avios (as opposed to standard earned Avios) are managed by a separate team that allocate them on a monthly basis and once those are processed, cannot be tracked. I was specifically told that if the Avios did not land in my BAEC account after the complaint manager was finally told by the separate bonus team that my bonus was processed), I had to be prepare to show evidence of last few months transactions on my BAEC etc. Luckily the bonus did land at the end, but it was an helpful insight of what a shamble of a set up have Barclays/Barclaycard put together for this Avios partnership

[Luca M]

Aston100 wrote:

The one advantage I can think of for having multiple accounts is that they have their own separate balance and (importantly) referral limits.

Each card has its own referral limit and balance, not sure why you believe it to be otherwise.

I have had a single log in account for years, I have the Platinum Chargecard, The BAPP and the Blue Chargecard, each comes with their own balance, offers, referral limits (I tend to do the 90,000 MR on Platinum first and then I move to BAPP for any extra ones, easy to do with the regular enhanced 18,000 MR offer per referral).

When you log in, you have a main overview dashboard but then need to select each card to go into the specific card account view, and need to go back and select another card to see that other account.

There is not actually a way to see a “total/aggregated balance” as opposed to their own separate balances, which is standard

[Luca M]

Not fully sure about the Priority Pass /Amex gold set up, however my understanding is that if you hold any sort of PP membership (which the 4 inclusive entries type should be part of), you still use the same membership to enter and will be charged by PP directly on your Amex, or at least this is what I have experienced with the PP from Amex Platinum and the LoungeKey (now PP as well) from my HSBC Premier MCWE card (and also with DragonPass whilst travelling with her/her membership). This is because Priority pass charges a flat £25 fee (used to be £20), whilst on the door prices by the lounge can vary greatly, up to £49 or more in some lounges.

And if this is the case (as expected) probably the 3 entries would be automatically deducted by your 4 totals rather than 2 been deducted and one being charged at £25.

[Luca M]

The Barclaycard Upgrade voucher is not of great use, especially compared to the BAPP Amex 2-4-1, so paying that fee for the extra 0.5 Avios only may not be a great deal (my spend on my Barclaycard Avios (free one) when Amex is not accepted is probably 3-5% of my UK spend annually). I would only sign up to the Barclaycard Avios Plus if another mega sign up bonus comes along.

For the record I have The Amex Platinum Chargecard, BAPP, Barclaycard Avios and HSBC Premier for my GBP Spend.

[Luca M]

Lux wrote:

You’re right @guernsey, I’d held the card for so long that i likely only broke even on the fee and points. But it was useful when I was doing some parallel banking in my USD-paid days.

As for earning on USD spend, this is why my legacy MBNA Horizon card will never be cancelled – 0.5% rebate on an exchange fee-free card is an ongoing benefit, although I’ve never looked into the underlying exchange rates.

I also have the MBNA Horizon Cashback VISA (alongside many other legacy reward/forex spend cards not opened to new applicants), and I occasionally use it to keep it alive (it use VISA standard exchange rate), but right now the best forex spend reward cards are probably the NatWest/RBS Black MasterCard Word Elite (carry a fee) or the Chase UK MasterCard World Elite MasterCard (1% capper at £15 per month though- £1500 equivalent spend), both offering MasterCard standard exchange rate, which for the majority of currencies and time, beat VISA rates

[Luca M]

I am one of those that still find the Platinum Chargecard to give plenty of benefit and so at the moment planning to keep it even with the fee increase to £650.

With regards to the commentary above, in terms of MR points earning, the rea flagship, the centurion, is equally bad, so it makes the Platinum earning rate not a big issue. I personally use the BAPP for most of my spend, and the Platinum for offers related spending only.

With regards to the free additional green/gold cards on our Platinum Chargecard account, my understanding is that no matter the colour of the card, the earning rate will still be the one of the underlining card account, and thus the platinum, am I wrong?

[Luca M]

As the other poster have mentioned, you need to ensure that the Voucher transaction is processed through the normal restaurant till, this is particularly a problem for those restaurant that have a webpage selling gift vouchers and/or are situated within an hotel, as they are set up to charge those transaction via a separate system.

I had contacted about 5 restaurant in Italy in my last solo trip in November and only two said it was possible to go in person, make a Pre-payment deposit for a future dinner (rater than a gift voucher that they would have handled as well as a separate transaction) and the one I ended up doing, basically sent me an email confirmation of the Prepayment deposit, which I need to spend within 6 month, and I will do when I return with the wife (2 Michelin stars restaurant) in the new year, when hopefully they will still be on the Amex list and I can therefore manage the tasting dinner menu for 2 fully paid (it is €170 euro per person, which is roughly £150)

[Luca M]

Probably worth few TP runs, particularly using BA holiday double TP offers: it would work something like this, just as an example:

Booking 1: 5 days RTN CE + car rental LHR-SOF (day 1 to day 5), pick the car and park it somewhere, need 1 night sleep though as need to actually collect the car. 320 TP
Booking 2: RTN CE SOF-LHR (day 2 to day 4), on day 5, pick the car from where it was parked, return it at the airport, fly back with return leg of Booking 1. 160TP.
For around £500 should return 480TP.

Booking 3: positioning flight in CE to a domestic airport. 40TP
booking 4: RTN Domestic in CE, 80TP

[Luca M]

I do this all the time (5 ppl family):

Download mine at the end of check in. I then have to go back to the screen of MMB where it shows all passenger and the status of checked in, and have to click on each, select download BP, and then the option to add to wallet. Once I complete, I send three of the 5BP to the respective family members with a Mobile phone and only use my phone for my 7YO and myself at security.

[Luca M]

I think it was discussed on a separate thread when Amex first sent around the offer in the 21/11. Today the same offer was circulated by BA.

Strangely, when I signed up on the original offer and pressed the link again by mistake, I got the message that I had already enrolled. However, when I did follow the link from BA today, it made me enrol again without the message that I was already enrolled.. I hope that it did not reset the clock as I had quite a lot of spend going through since the 21/11

[Luca M]

aq.1988 wrote:

Tom wrote:

Is my wife allowed to refer me for the Platinum Card, even though we are both active Amex cardholders already. I want to maximise my points but don’t want to fall foul of Amex rules.

I’ve done it before, and received the points for it, even though my wife was not eligible for a bonus being an existing Amex cardholder. This was more than a year ago, though. We also always add each other as supplementary cardholders on each others cards for the extra points (don’t request at the application stage, but add after using the link you can find online).

It is a bit odd… I have referred two existing cardholders in the last round of 18,000 enhanced offer for me, one applied immediately and I got the points 2 days later. The other applied closer to the deadline and the points never arrived.. after chasing it for weeks, I was finally told that as the friend did not qualify for a SUB, I would also not get my referral points…

[Luca M]

@NorthernLass I think what the other poster was trying to say is that with Qatar most fares have free seat selection, albeit you cannot select some better seats.

With regards to BAEC and Privilege Club status, these are separate FF scheme with the oddities that Avios can actually be transferred, but they are still separate (Like IberiaPlus, AirLingus and few others). So when booking with QR PC account, your Qatar FF number is automatically added. What you could have done is to use another OneWorld airlines website MMB to call out your booking, remove the FF number and then add your BAEC one. I have used Royal Jordanian in the past but I believe Finnair also allow it. If you had to do something similar with BAEC, I believe there is the option to book for someone else, and for that someone else you add your exact name but the different airline FF number

[Luca M]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

What are the other airports?

Once you add in the cost of getting from them to Rome the difference may not be that grant.

I am guessing Naples, Florence, Perugia and Pisa. Obviously I do not know the OP dates but looking at the app cheapest fare option for a 7 days return in CE, it gives me £440 for Rome, £302 for Naples, £388 Perugia, £252 Pisa.

Italian train fare are reasonably cheap but connecting from airport to train station may cost a bit extra (taxi) and a fair amount of time.. Also time needed overall to reach final destination may not be great

[Luca M]

I remember noticing the potential clash of the BA Amex being advertised at the Entrance of the Galleries Club Lounges and the new Chase Account and Debit Card being ideal for travellers inside the same lounges in early 2022, within few months of the original Chase UK Launch in September 2021.

[Luca M]

I have not used Emirates for a couple of years but if I am not mistaken, and has not changed recently, the earning rate of the head of the household is only a portion of what should be the full miles earned for any given flight, so not really great. To be fair, I believe Skyward is possible the worst FF program out there.

[Luca M]

If you can convert every two months there is a slightly better return (2350 Avios for £20 it is the sweet spot) , so I do that myself