Bits: video of ‘The Concorde Bar’ in Singapore, IHG sale ending, new Amex cashback offers

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News in brief:

Check out ‘The Concorde Bar’ on YouTube

Back in October, I published a brief reader review of ‘The Concorde Bar’ in the new British Airways lounge in Singapore.

This is a new model which BA is rolling out. Instead of a separate First Class lounge, there will be a separate room where you can go. The ‘bar’ does not have much in the way of dedicated facilities however.

A HfP reader made a short YouTube video of the Singapore ‘Concorde Bar’ which you can see here.

If you are heading to Dubai soon this should be of particular interest. The 2nd ‘Concorde Bar’ will be in the new BA lounge in the new Concourse D, should it ever open. I have lost track of exactly how late Concourse D is now and it is a little frustrating as I was hoping to use it next month.

Last 48 hours for the IHG Winter sale

A quick heads up that the IHG Winter sale, covering Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental etc ends on Sunday night.

You can save up to 30% on stays at 600 InterContinental, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo hotels across Europe. The sale rates are valid for stays until 29th February.

Full details of the IHG Winter Sale can be found at this special website.

The picture below is the new InterContinental Bordeaux which will be reviewed next month.

New American Express cashback offers

Four new American Express statement credit offers launched this week, with a very loose Valentines Day theme:

Hawes and Curtis fashions: Spend £100, to receive a £20 statement credit

Sofa.com: Spend £1,000, to receive a £100 statement credit

Monica Vinader jewellery: Spend £150 to receive a £25 statement credit

Appleyard Flowers: Receive statement credit to the value of 10 per cent of your total spend

These all run until the end of March except for Monica Vinader which expires on 29th February. American Express cardholders should find some or all of these offers under the ‘Offers’ tab on their online statement page.

Hawes & Curtis and sofa.com can also be accessed on the cardmemberoffers.co.uk site instead.

Holders of Lloyds, MBNA, Barclays and TSB Amex cards can register via the Amex Connect site here.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2021 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit or charge card, here are our November 2021 recommendations based on the current sign-up bonus.

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the top current deals:

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

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

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.

American Express Business Gold

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

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

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

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

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

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:

Barclaycard Select Cashback Credit Card

1% cashback and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios, IHG Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

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

grex9101 says:

5 Feb5 February 10:42

The amex offers have gotten progressively worse in the last few years (remember offers like £25 off £50 @ Argos and similar?).
I’m thinking of jumping ship.
- harry says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 10:44
  
  where to?
  - grex9101 says:
    
    5 Feb5 February 16:57
    
    Where to?
    A “better” type of card – “better” as in lower fees, higher acceptance, maybe a more sensible rewards structure.
    The Amex offers are becoming more niche and derisory, it’s not as worth it as it used to be.
    - harry says:
      
      5 Feb5 February 17:08
      
      Shop Small earned me not far short of £1000 🙂
      - John says:
        
        5 Feb5 February 21:45
        
        Nice. But earned me £0 as I prefer to spend December in warmer places…
      - harry says:
        
        5 Feb5 February 22:05
        
        same here, had to get my £1k in the first week as we were away for Xmas and getting ready for that got in the way
        
        otherwise would have been £2k over the campaign
Ian H says:

5 Feb5 February 10:54

Slighty OT so apologies.

I’m flying First to Joburg in August from T5. How long before departure are you allowed in the Concorde room?
- Jamie P says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 10:57
  
  As long as you want on the same day of departure really but I guess there are limitations in regards to the time you can check-in before a flight which will impact this
- Rob says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 13:01
  
  Whenever you want. Business and First pax for any flight can check in from 5am that day.
- Nick Burch says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 13:06
  
  If you’re flying in a Premium cabin (or have status), then at T5 you can checkin as soon as you want on the day of departure, then go through to the lounges. So, since that applies to you flying F, any time after about 5am!
Metatone says:

5 Feb5 February 11:27

OT – what do you think of the “convert tesco to avios and be entered into the draw” competition?
- Andy says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 11:42
  
  Discussed here: https://headforpoints.com/2016/02/03/an-avios-com-and-tesco-competition-but-no-sign-of-a-ba-or-virgin-promotion/
- harry says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 11:47
  
  Can’t see the odds are that brilliant- though to be fair there are quite a few prizes – 25x 15K Avios on both sites.
  
  A stab in the dark guess would allow me to hazard maybe 50,000 entries in avios.com comp & 30,000 on BAEC.
  
  If you were so bold as to gamble £100 of Tesco currency, you’d get 40/50,000 chance of winning one prize on avios.com = 0.08% – but as there are 25 prizes, your odds improve to 2%.
  
  If there were 100,000 entries, your odds would be 1%.
  
  For 25,000 entries, your odds would be 4%.
  
  Similar (slightly worse for non autoconverters) odds on BAEC – but here autoconverters got a nice advantage as instead of 1 entry for £5, they got 2.
  
  I’d say my middle range guess 2% chance of winning for 40 entries is pretty good, on the whole. As lotteries go 🙂
  
  Whereas if you keep your powder dry and wait for a 20% bonus conversion, you’d be ‘certain’ to get an extra 4800 Avios
  
  Mathematicians feel free to correct lol
  - James67 says:
    
    5 Feb5 February 16:32
    
    It could quite easily be a whole lot worse than your worst case guestimate Harry. I was comtemplating likely odds in Etihad raffles, and further research showed apple products typically had well over half a million entries. Even the current raffle for a single huawei smartphone is already approaching 30000 entries. It is true you can generate a barrel load of entries if you are prepared to stake a few thousand miles but that still doesn’t help much.
Adam W says:

5 Feb5 February 13:28

“Instead of a separate First Class lounge, there will be a separate room where you can go.”

Well, that’s quite strange. When I visited in Sept, the door was left open and even the lowly CW pax could enter. Not a separate room for BA F pax at all. Hardly exclusive at all and if I’d have thought that a youtube video of it had any value, I’d have uploaded one five months ago. 🙁
- Rob says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 13:30
  
  You should have! I have a friend who makes £1,000 a month from a YouTube channel of videos he made of his redemptions in BA First etc. Big market for this sort of aspirational stuff.
mark2 says:

5 Feb5 February 17:29

On Amex Cash Back in general.
Remember that it is the card which gats the reward not the account so get supplementary cards to use as well; I managed to use 13 cards at one shop for ShopSmall. The exception is with MBNA (Diamond Club, Virgin, Etihad …) whose supplementary cards bear the same number as the main so cannot be used. Real Amex and Lloyds have different numbers.
There are not many good offers at present but in December I filled my boots with Post Office, ShopSmall and Superdrug all with 50% cash back.
- mark2 says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 17:33
  
  You can add supplementaries to your online Amex account to get offers (sometimes you need to use Cardmember Offers).
  You only need one account on Connect for all of your other bank Amex cards.
- harry says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 17:38
  
  I wish Superdrug HAD been 50% back 🙂
  - mark2 says:
    
    5 Feb5 February 22:28
    
    Spend £10 get £5 back; what percentage do you make that?
    - harry says:
      
      5 Feb5 February 22:36
      
      Superdrug was spend £25 get £5 back
      
      20%
      - harry says:
        
        5 Feb5 February 22:39
        
        self correct http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/superdrug-spend-10-more-get-5-back-using-amex-2340154
Jerry says:

5 Feb5 February 18:11

I’ll upload my video of the Concorde room if it’s worth £1,000 a month in YouTube advertising (my shots are steadier too). Seriously we were underwhelmed on our visit last week, but then we’d just come from the First Class Qantas lounge in Sydney where they know how to treat (and feed) a First Class passenger. The outer area of the lounge (not the Concorde bit) is quite smart, bright and welcoming. The new showers leak terribly, so don’t leave your bag anywhere near the glass cubicle. The Concorde room is very dark (see the video) and was very hot. We pointed this out to the attendant who replied ‘you’re not used to the heat in our country yet?’ We suggested she turn air conditioning on (which then miraculously did happen). I found the touch-screen combination lock wouldn’t work the second time I tried to re-enter – this is possibly a known fault as the podium attendant immediately buzzed me in. The overhead light in our booth didn’t work, and the food is terrible, verging on inedible. So I’m afraid this wasn’t a highlight of our trip. Honestly the outer area is more relaxing and calming, but no champagne. Nothing to get excited about, honest.
- CV3V says:
  
  5 Feb5 February 21:12
  
  yeah on my visit to the Concorde lounge i was so underwhelmed i didn’t even bother to take any pics! Apart from when in the boardroom, sitting in a concorde seat!
  
  As for the food, it was the morning, so i had toast and champagne and i must say both were nice.
harry says:

5 Feb5 February 22:20

just had my first look at the video

where’s the commentary?

my kids do all the Minecraft stuff

hey guys, here’s a bar etc – there’s a guy looks dead – I’m going to end up popping a bottle of bubbly – sandwiches are OK – what’s all this blue? – why is nobody here apart from the dead guy? – I’m going to walk around a bit strange – I just had a long journey – nobody seems to know I have a camera on my head like a miner’s lamp – why’s everybody avoiding me?
Julie K says:

11 Feb11 February 06:35

Sorry if already posted but I got £20 off £100 spend at Harvey Nicks