Bits: Heathrow protest today, Etihad sale, update on 40,000 Nectar points deal

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News in brief:

Heathrow anti-expansion protest today may cause delays

British Airways has issued an advisory warning due to a protest against Heathrow Airport expansion which will take place today, Saturday.

To quote:

A peaceful demonstration against airport expansion is expected to take place at Heathrow Airport on Saturday 1 October.

Heathrow Airport is working with the Metropolitan Police who will manage any protest activities in and around the airport or terminal facilities.

Roads around Heathrow may see a period of disruption around the middle of the day and customers travelling to/from the airport may wish to allow extra time for their journey.

Etihad launches 96 hour sale – with bonus miles

Etihad is running a sale this weekend which runs until Monday evening.

As well as some decent prices in Business Class, the airline is offering 15,000 bonus Etihad Guest miles for every Business Class flight. Economy flights will attract a 5,000 mile bonus.

Whilst Etihad Guest was devalued sharply last year, the ability to top up your account via American Express Membership Rewards, the UK Etihad credit card, the HSBC Premier credit card and Heathrow Rewards makes their miles flexible. You can also redeem across the full Etihad Airways Partners alliance.

Here are some headline business class fares from London.

Abu Dhabi £1,500
Bangkok £1,550
Mumbai £1,552
Johannesburg £2,191
Perth £2,600
Melbourne £2,600

Whilst these are not the cheapest deals seen this Winter, you need to remember that I rate the Etihad A380 Business Class Studio as the best seat on the market. Heathrow will be operating a 100% A380 service from November.

These deals can be booked for travel until June 2017. Full details are on the Etihad website here.

Update on the ‘40,000 Nectar points’ credit card deal

Yesterday I wrote an article about the attractive American Express Nectar credit card promotion which launches today. If you are targetted via the Nectar app or website, you will receive a whopping 40,000 Nectar points for signing up.

Full details of the card are here although you should not sign up via this page.

This is worth at least – in the worse case scenario – £200 to spend at Sainsbury’s, easyJet, Expedia etc. However, if you use your points wisely during special offers, you could get as high as £400.

I missed out a key point in the early version of the article yesterday which was the version emailed out.

Anyone who is targetted will receive the 40,000 points as long as they have not had a Nectar credit card in the last six months. That statement was correct.

However … the terms and conditions state that you only receive the first year of membership for free if you have not had any Amex-issued Amex cards in the last six months. That will disqualify 95% of HFP readers, who will have a BA Amex, Amex Gold, Amex Platinum, Starwood Amex or similar.

You WILL still get the 40,000 points but you need to be resigned to paying the £25 fee. This is still very small in contrast to the sign-up bonus, however, and is refundable pro-rata if you cancel the card.

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

British Airways and Avios, Etihad and Etihad Guest

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

rams1981 says:

1 Oct1 October 07:46

OT gift cards from Tesco. Found one with Amazon and John Lewis. Went to till when lady on register called her manager who said it was a limit of £50 per person. When I pointed out Amazon gift cards were in £100 denominations he said oh, OK the limit is £100.

When I queried his clear made up limit he said it was because of fraudulent credit card usage… I said what if I show my ID and he then made up a limit of £400…

You’re an odd man Billy from Tescos near Brent Cross.

Went to another Tesco after and they didn’t give a shit when I took £500 worth to the till. Will just keep buying there instead! Have some house works going on which will need kitchen appliances from John Lewis so can really get a load of Clubcard points. Is there a limit?
- Steve says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 07:58
  
  There is possibly a limit.
  
  For example Debenhams have a spend limit of 4 giftcards in store and 2 giftcards online.
  
  Other retailers have no limit.
  
  Call John Lewis to be sure.
  - Jonty says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 11:06
    
    Debenhams will happily load multiple gift cards onto one reloadable one, which you can then use in store or online
  - John says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 12:45
    
    If there’s a problem you can always just buy something with 3 gift cards, then refund it onto one.
- Johnnycl says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:25
  
  There’s no limit really unless they feel like making one up. I had an issue at Tesco store last week that wouldn’t let me use a Tesco gift card to pay for a third party gift card, so just went to a different store and it was fine.
  - Johnnycl says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 08:27
    
    Having said this I have found that sometimes the cards don’t always activate when you’re buying more than half a dozen in one go, so I guess it is best to buy in smaller batches.
    - rams1981 says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 09:46
      
      The till seemed to highlight ones that didn’t go through and just got another card to replace it.
      
      Will buy more later I think.
      - Gavin says:
        
        1 Oct1 October 10:16
        
        When I bought £600 in one go once and one gift card didn’t activate it took me about half an hour to get it sorted and I got a mini-interrogation from the manager who wanted to know why I was buying so many! I now only buy £200 at a time, means more visits to Tesco but less hassle!
- Boris says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 09:54
  
  My cust services in the local Tesco told me 5 cards was the limit.
  
  So bought 10 £50 Amazon cards plus 2 bags of Mini Cheddars going round twice.
  
  Buying £100 Currys cards next.
  - Genghis says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 11:12
    
    Cashiers make things up. There isn’t a ‘from HO’ limit as far as I know
    - N says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 11:32
      
      There is. 20 cards per person per day.
      
      I’ve had to stand there and call the customer services line on speakerphone while a manager of a certain very large Tesco on the A40 in a former vacuum cleaner factory building stood there listening.
      - TGLoyalty says:
        
        1 Oct1 October 11:48
        
        Just keep going round there’s no limit if you use a different cashier.
        
        Find the limits are made up e.g. £500 max. When I’ve bought £1k a previous occasion. What I do know is £100 cards make it far easier and more environmentally friendly.
      - Mycity says:
        
        1 Oct1 October 12:27
        
        I bought 30 cards the other day so no limit as far as I know
- Oliver says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 12:43
  
  How can it be fraud if I know the pin code to a card? Hate old people thinking they are the CEO
  - Graeme says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 14:18
    
    Isn’t that how ATM (skimming) fraud works, they can then effectively go on a shopping spree once the cash withdrawal limit is reached, and gift cards, once purchased, are a lot easier to sell on I would imagine.. I suspect the cashier has the best interest of everyone at heart regardless of his/her age rather than aspirations to be CEO…
  - Mr Dee says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 20:32
    
    No point arguing with the Tesco zombie cashiers just try another
- AndyR says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 18:26
  
  Any idea if the JL cards can be used at Waitrose?
  - mark2 says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 19:43
    
    It says so on the back
Talay says:

1 Oct1 October 08:04

The Etihad sale is poor vaue IMHO and Etihad is my main long haul carrier to to Asia.

Until this year, we routinely had during the last few years at least, 3x and even 4x points in business class. 15k points is circa 2x mileage accrual on my routes.

Additionally, on my main LHR-AUH-BKK routing, the “sale” price “from” £1550 is essentially the non sale target price and what with near permanent 10% off to occasional 20% and 30% off, this looks poor value.

YMMV of course depending on routing but April next year is running at £2500+ each and that is ludicrous.
- James67 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:53
  
  +1 Most Etihad sales I see have comparable or higher fares than those ‘normal’ fares leading up to the sale. I recall too that you could not only get x3 or x4 but you could stack these with full earnings on breaking deals and discount codes too. A huge differents in merits of Etihad since devaluation. If you are happy to pay cash for your fligts you might now want to consider Finnair which have comparable fares but give you option to collect avios and TP as opposed to EG miles.
  - Talay says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 11:29
    
    Looked at FInnair for the last trip but they jumped from their longstanding £1209 to BKK to a daft £1800/2000 figure. Going to BKK via SIN in a terrible 13+2 but the return to LHR on Finnair is an equally gruesome 10+2 whereas the 2+10 on the way out is usually ok. Limited flights also makes it an overnight in BKK as well whereas on the ME3 I can fly each way overnight. Chauffeurs on 2 of ME3 of course as well.
    
    You are right about stacking the 3x and 4x on discounts. I actually got one on 30% off plus 4x points for 3 of us !
    
    What you can see is that their points for redemption also change in line with discounted fares. Thus, what might have been 280k points might drop to 200k points when the cash fare drops from say £2000 to £1400.
    
    I have an option to get out of EY completely with a points and a little cash and switch but Emirates programme is poor I think and with 3 flying, I do value the family account at Etihad.
Mark says:

1 Oct1 October 08:28

Odd. Received email from Nectar about this months offers. No mention of Amex deal. Unless I use the left hand preview bit on my iPad, where it says “Boost your points balance with American Express this October”. However that text is not visible at all on the actual email 🙁
- James67 says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:56
  
  If you are logged into your account and you see that uder ‘my nectar’ I would tae a screenshot and apply.
Yuff says:

1 Oct1 October 08:31

OT: 20% bonus miles for conversion to Etihad 😉
Amex included this time 🙂
- Roger says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:36
  
  Where? Can’t see on Amex MR page.
  - Yuff says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 09:15
    
    http://www.etihadguest.com/bonus20?&CID=ext:&utm_campaign=Bonus20&utm_source=PT_edm&utm_medium=email&&CID=ema:&utm_campaign=&utm_source=&utm_content=&utm_medium=email
    - Yuff says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 10:05
      
      As someone posted only available to Amex holders in the US and KSA 🙁
- James says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:38
  
  Not in the UK it’s not
- Dannyrado says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 08:45
  
  Not UK amex as I can see…
Yan says:

1 Oct1 October 08:49

EY17/18 will be non-A380 on Wednesday
Liz says:

1 Oct1 October 08:57

OT: am I ok to use £850 worth of Currys gift cards to make a purchase at PC World in one transaction? I have 8 X £100 and 1 x £50. Hoping there will be no problems when I get there !
- Mr Dee says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 09:15
  
  Yes done more than that before, there is a limit of 3 but that is only for the digital top up cards I believe, the printed on the front value have not limits.
  - Liz says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 09:36
    
    Thanks for the confirmation – 2550 club card pts for my daughters laptop!
    - Mr Dee says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 16:28
      
      Instore of course 🙂
    - Scallder says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 10:47
      
      Worth putting £1 or so on a credit card as that then gives added benefit of being able to claim on CC if there’s any issues with product
Mr(s) Entitled says:

1 Oct1 October 09:13

A point of clarification on the Amex issued: does this include the Virgin Amex/Visa double pack?
- Rob says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 09:15
  
  No. Only cards directly issued by Amex eg Gold, Platinum, BA, SPG.
Nick says:

1 Oct1 October 09:21

Are people gift card hunting this morning? It seems so. Does any one know if it’s possible to use Curry’s gift cards for an online purchase with a home delivery service only?
- Boris says:
  
  1 Oct1 October 10:01
  
  Not quite the same, but I tend to order online under click and collect, which keeps my right of return, then pay in store with a GC and I think I have home delivery for larger items.
  - Boris says:
    
    1 Oct1 October 10:21
    
    IIRC I think they insist on home delivery.
    - Genghis says:
      
      1 Oct1 October 11:15
      
      Only ordered once from Currys recently but ordered online, paid with GCs online and then collected in store.