Bits: Four Seasons walks away from the Wharf, latest Amex offers, Tesco NOW TV offer

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

News in brief:

Four Seasons walks away from Canary Wharf

Four Seasons announced yesterday that it is dropping management of its hotel at Canary Wharf in London. This is presumably linked to the opening of its new Tower of London project in a couple of years.

Canary Wharf was certainly a second tier Four Seasons property, nowhere near the standards of Park Lane, but it was pleasant enough. It will be interesting to see which operator takes it over – it may well be a redemption opportunity at that point. Hyatt, for one, would love to get a presence in the area I’m sure. Starwood is also under-represented.

The last day under Four Seasons management will be 30th April.

Four Seasons Canary Wharf

New American Express cashback offers launched

Amex officially launched three new cashback deals yesterday, albeit they have been showing online for Amex-issued Amex cards for a while.

The deals are:

Monsoon & Accessorize: spend £50 get £10 back

Holiday Extras: Get 15% back

Gordon Ramsay Restaurants: Spend £100 or more and get £20 back

You can register an Amex-issued Amex card under the ‘Offers’ section of your online statement or via cardmemberoffers.co.uk. Closing dates and restrictions vary.

MBNA, Lloyds, TSB and Barclays Amex cardholders can register via Amex Network.

480 Avios and £10 off with a £15 NOW TV box

Finally, I wanted to mention this Tesco Direct offer again. I ran it last week but you still have three days to buy one. If you don’t have a ‘smart TV’ it is a very good deal indeed for a modest £15 outlay. The 480 Avios you receive on top are an extra bonus.

Sky’s NOW TV box turns your TV into a smart TV. It lets you watch Sky channels without a contract and also streams catch up TV straight to your TV. The only downside is that it won’t let you watch Netflix (get a Google Chromecast) or Amazon Prime (get an Amazon Fire Stick).

Tesco Direct is offering three special packs at £10 off. More importantly, you will receive 100 Clubcard points with your order. Even better, at present the Tesco website is ‘glitchy’ and is adding 200 Clubcard points (480 Avios) per box.

There are three packs to choose from depending on whether you prefer sports, entertainment or movies. These passes offer excellent value for money even if you ignore the value of the NOW TV box – £15 is not a bad price to pay to get access to Sky Movies for two months, for example.

Click the link below to be taken to the appropriate Tesco Direct page:

2 day passes for Sky Sports

3 month pass for Sky Entertainment

2 month pass for Sky Movies

The NOW TV offer runs until 17th January.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express, Marriott Bonvoy American Express, Tesco Clubcard

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

RIccati says:

14 Jan14 January 05:00

Definitely would love to see Starwood or Hyatt presence at Canary Wharf but redemption rates for London likely to be prohibitive (e.g., other uses of points are better than spending 16K a night).

What is more likely is to look for the low occupancy periods and cheaper rates.
- RIccati says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 05:01
  
  Speaking of which, hotels in Singapore have special rates for the residents of the city who wish to spend a Christmas, Easter or weekend on staycation.
  
  Are there similar offers, apart from Accor’s Mondays?
Tom C says:

14 Jan14 January 06:36

The link to enrol in the Gordon Ramsay offer just goes to a page that says “Sorry, The URL entered is invalid. Please try again with correct URL.”

Even though the offer excludes Petrus and Royal Hospital Road, which are easily his best restaurants, Maze and Maze Grill are well worth going to.
- Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 16:58
  
  Gordon Ramsay Group has a good 2-4-1 set menu offer on at the moment. E.G. £20 for two people having two courses each at Maze Grill. Makes it trickier to hit £100 though!
  
  https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/whats-on/january-offer/
  - Worzel says:
    
    14 Jan14 January 17:43
    
    ‘We’re bringing our distinct mix of sushi and grilled delights to you all through the month, and you and a friend can enjoy two sumptuous courses and a glass of wine each for just £20. We’ll start off your meal with an appetising Spicy Salmon Roll, and then it’s onto a tasty Beef Pie with mash and spring greens for your main course. You won’t be disappointed. Wash all these tasty treats down with a refreshing glass of wine that complements your meal perfectly’.
    
    £20! – just visualising Gordon firing up his biggest frypan to place the marketing person’s backside on! 🙂 .
Daftboy says:

14 Jan14 January 06:47

Note you can get Netflix via Amazon Fire TV (box anyway, presume stick too) – if you have Amazon Prime and Netflix accounts it’s a very handy device to have.
- AndrewC says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 08:10
  
  I can confirm you can on the Amazon Fire Stick too. At first thought it seems a bit absurd that Amazon allow this, but Netflix is hosted by Amazon Web Services so presumably they’re happy profiting out if it that way instead.
harry says:

14 Jan14 January 06:53

You can double dip with Holiday Extras. The MSE portal offers the sharpest prices – use this link http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-airport-parking
First, go through HEx link (Amex, in the HFP article) and choose what you want to buy. Hit ‘buy’ but stop there. Then open the MSE link for HEx, in the same browser. It should open on the same page with the same purchase choice but you’ll find the prices are cheaper. (In the case of my 5 airport car park reservations this week, a meet & greet service, 31% cheaper.) Go through to purchase with your Amex card & you’ll get both the cheap price and the 15% statement credit.
- Axel says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 21:37
  
  thanks Harry
  
  seems to have worked for me at EDI
harry says:

14 Jan14 January 07:18

For some reason HFP has been set up to reject the MSE HEX link & delete the post! Why is that, Raffles? But you can double dip with Holiday Extras by going first through the Amex link to get 15% statement credit, choose what you want to buy and click buy then open up the MSE HEX link which will be a lot cheaper. 31% cheaper in the case of my 5x Meet & Greet carpark reservations this week. You’ll also get the statement credits (already applied to my Amex a/c).

31% off + another 15% off = 41.5% off in total.
- Sussex Bantam says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 08:36
  
  Unless I am misunderstanding you don’t need to go via and “AMEX link” to get the statement credit so just save the offer to your AMEX card and then buy as normal via the MSE HEX link.
  - Sussex Bantam says:
    
    14 Jan14 January 09:14
    
    We must have a different offer then – mine is definitely a “save to card” offer
- Rob says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 09:18
  
  Anything with 2 links in it automatically gets blocked as suspected spam. Other comments get flagged as spam if the system feels like it!
- Simmo says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 09:22
  
  Any reason I don’t seem to have the Holiday Extras 15% on my AMEX account? I cant seem to sign into the Amex connect either (my cards are all AMEX issued)?
  - harry says:
    
    14 Jan14 January 09:24
    
    As I said earlier, you don’t need to register, just use link http://www.holidayextras.co.uk/?agent=WK352
    - Simmo says:
      
      14 Jan14 January 09:32
      
      Sorry to be slow on this one…
      
      So:
      
      1)Open Amex link
      2)Search for the parking you require
      3)Click buy? (guess not second click to payment page?)
      4)Open the MSE link? or copy/paste into the same window?
      5)continue to buy as usual?
      - harry says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 10:15
        
        4) open MSE link, again click (say) Hotel car parks – and if it opens to the same page ie same days you input earlier (via Amex link) & need, time details – bingo the cookie has moved from one site to another and you’ll get the 15% on top of the MSE special prices.
      - harry says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 10:44
        
        Just booked 4 days meet & greet @ T2 for next week, got the Amex ‘success’ email before I got the car park confirmation from Holiday Extras 🙂
        
        Will be £28 (£7/ day) after statement credit which is absolutely excellent for meet & greet service @ short notice
      - Simmo says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 12:24
        
        Still couldn’t get this to work! couldnt get the AMEX site price to lower, so just bought from the MSE page with AMEX. was only a £20 booking so no worries! thanks!
      - harry says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 13:44
        
        The Amex price won’t be lower, you get the 15% statement credit later.
        
        1. Higher price Amex link to HEX site, get ready to book —> 2. MSE link to HEX site, buy —> 3. Amex success email —> 4. 15% statement credit
  - Andy says:
    
    14 Jan14 January 13:59
    
    Diamond Club MBNA Amex here, one register link takes me to “invlaid URL”, the other takes me to the registration page which lets me fill in my details and then says “Unfortunately, the offer is not active at the moment. Please check the offer start and end dates.” Ahhh well, I’ll give it a go again tomorrow.
- AndyR says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 15:41
  
  Harry I don’t think you need to go via the Amex link you can buy direct with thr MSE link. Amex aren’t gonna know which link you used, they’ll just see the transaction from HEX and give you the credit.
Simmo says:

14 Jan14 January 09:10

Curio by Hilton would get my vote for points stays.

Staying at the EX Four Seasons Philadelphia next month, looks impressive.
- flyforfun says:
  
  15 Jan15 January 00:08
  
  Shame it’s going. I had my wedding reception in their restaurant just shy of 10 years ago. Fantastic staff and a great alternative to some other venues. Liked their Sunday Buffet as well, but watching the waistline means foregoing all you can eat venues. Never feel like your getting value from them.
  
  I hope it’s a decent chain that moves in and not something that lowers the tone of the neighbourhood. 😉
  - Rob says:
    
    15 Jan15 January 08:32
    
    We went there for lunch on Christmas Day about 10 years ago!
StevieM says:

14 Jan14 January 09:35

Sky Movies ordered! 🙂 ……free for 2 x months AND 215 Points!
- flyforfun says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 23:53
  
  /I’ve got it and it’s not bad. Make sure you get your 14 days free first, then use the voucher. I have Sky TV but never paid for the movies. This seems an easier way to catch up on movies I’ve missed at the cinema. I’ve got a 55″ HD TV and was worried that the quality wouldn’t be good, but it’s fine once you select the right setting.
  
  Question I have is can I buy more than 1 of these units with the 2 months movie pass? At £7.50pm that’s better than Sky’s and Now TV regular rate.
Scott says:

14 Jan14 January 09:51

Don’t know if anyone else has posted this but the link below is the new ‘Upgrade to Platinum’ offer. As a Gold card holder the offer appears to be 20k MR bonus points for spend £1k in 3 months (and pay £450 annual fee, assume like other amex fees would be refunded if you downgraded).

https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/content/upgrade-to-platinum/index.html
- Simmo says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 10:00
  
  Plat fee would be refunded, but you’d need to pay the full gold rate.
  - Ben says:
    
    14 Jan14 January 10:20
    
    I’m in my 2nd year of gold. I wonder if I upgrade, get the points, then go back to gold, would I still receive double travel points. I spend £2000 on diesel a week, so it’s quite a bit to lose!
    - Brian says:
      
      14 Jan14 January 10:31
      
      Ben, are you still getting double points for fuel? I thought that stopped…
      - Ben says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 10:59
        
        Yep! I don’t really want to give it up in case it is a glitch! Not sure if I would be better off keeping the gold, or churning them!
      - Wilson says:
        
        14 Jan14 January 15:55
        
        I’m in my 2nd year of gold and all petrol costs still grant me 2 MR / £ and it’s strangely classified as “travel bonus”. In my first year it used to give me 3MR/£. I’m not complaining though 🙂
- Mike says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 10:23
  
  It was discussed yesterday – it would appear to be a standard offer circulating at the moment, in particular with first year gold card holders probably thinking about cancelling their cards before the £140 fee kicks in. Obviously someone at Amex is on the ball and thinking of ways to retain gold card customers. I’ll pass on it, 20k reward points doesn’t swing it for me.
- Rob says:
  
  14 Jan14 January 12:32
  
  There is an issue over whether this is targetted or not. If anyone tries this who was not targetted and gets approved OK then I am happy to write it up. Bit risky otherwise.