Bits: Luxury Travel Diary auctions, Amex Travel cashback deal

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News in brief:

Luxury Travel Diary auctions

The Luxury Travel Diary site dropped me a line about another wave of its auctions closing soon.

Interesting options closing in the next 48 hours include four nights at the Sofitel in Essaouira, Morrocco and two nights at the Four Seasons Nile Plaza in Cairo. If you are near Batley, there is a £100 voucher for the Potting Shed Spa currently at £3. Not everything will work for you, either in terms of location, length or dates, but you’ll probably find something of interest if you poke around.

New American Express cashback travel deal

American Express Travel is currently offering £50 back on a £200 spend. This should show as an offer on your online statement page and needs to be ‘saved’ to your card in order to activate it.

The transaction must be made online, which limits you to simple transactions which do not require a telephone call, and before 28th February. This could be attractive for some prepaid hotel bookings and cheaper flight bookings although you would need to weigh up the risk of any hotel stay being non-qualifying.

Annoyingly, a generous offer of £200 back on a £1,000 Trailfinders booking seems to have reached its cap of 4,000 registered cards very quickly. I can no longer find it against any of our six family cards.

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 Airlines and AAdvantage, American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy

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

the real harry says:

3 Jan3 January 18:14

Just heard on Sky News the BA second tier cabin crew are going on strike 10-12 January
- James67 says:
  
  3 Jan3 January 18:25
  
  They beat BBC by 15 minutes then, just heard it this minute.
James67 says:

3 Jan3 January 19:29

OT: Norwegian reported to be launching services from Edinburgh to US East coast using 737MAX. Somewhat sceptical that they will have the range in practice as they are only just capable on paper. Should be a little more doable than LGW though. Wish they would do EDI-BKK direct using a 787, I’m sure the market’s there for several days a week.
- Anon says:
  
  3 Jan3 January 19:51
  
  Saw that in the Scotsman / Herald.
  Yep BKK would be impressive.
- Leo says:
  
  3 Jan3 January 22:54
  
  That’s an economy only flight though isn’t it?
  - James67 says:
    
    3 Jan3 January 23:36
    
    They have a premium cabin with 46″ pitch cradle seats with decent recline and leg/foot rest. I could live with that for a nonstop EDI-seAsia; no worse than the old United business seat I shuttled back and forward to SFO on twice monthly for years.
- pr99 says:
  
  3 Jan3 January 23:47
  
  Given the South American experience how close to the range of the aircraft are the flights going to be?
  - James67 says:
    
    4 Jan4 January 08:53
    
    If you mean the flight with the football team, I thing it was reportedly underfueled. Regarding the 737MAX I believe on paper it has a range of about 300nm more than UK-US East coast destinations. In practice it is unlikely to be as much but there are ways around it, mostly through weight reduction so it is very likely possible. I’d be a little uneasy myself going Eastbound but reality is many airlines routinely fly many aircraft on routes close to their range and they do so safely.
ron says:

3 Jan3 January 19:48

Has anyone been successful getting this amex travel offer via a telephone booking with an agent. Stupidly just upgraded to platinum. Currently cardless and concerned flights with go up ……
- Trev says:
  
  4 Jan4 January 11:55
  
  If you’ve just upgraded to platinum from gold, your gold card should continue to work and have platinum benefits as soon as you upgrade until your platinum card arrives and you activate it…
Nick says:

3 Jan3 January 22:30

Just seen this on my Hilton Account,
We’re hitting reset! Sorry for the inconvenience, but we’re in the process of updating your status bar for the new year. Check back soon.
- James67 says:
  
  3 Jan3 January 22:59
  
  And the ‘Happy You Year’ now featuring as main page of the app.
  - Rob says:
    
    3 Jan3 January 23:14
    
    There is a lot of good stuff Hilton could do:
    
    * last room availability like SPG and Hyatt (if they have a basic room, you can have it on points)
    
    * simple to understand upgrades to premium rooms or suites, either via points or bookable as a cash premium to a standard room (like Marriott)
    
    * added benefits for Diamond members to create a gap between Gold and Diamond (but the risk is they devalue Gold, which is the best mid tier status of any chain)
    - James67 says:
      
      3 Jan3 January 23:43
      
      Yes, I’m begining to think it might be good news given it is being much heralded. Hilton seem smarter than IHG, they have cottoned on to idea that they can create a lot of goodwill amongst their customers at little extra real cost and I suspect the diamond status match has been a massive success for them.
      
      Did you get my email about Tesco last week? It finally went through at third time of trying.
Tony says:

4 Jan4 January 12:56

Looking at redeeming some hhonors points as a gold and not seeing the 5th night free on any of the search results. 5 nights at an 8000 property totals 40000 points, 5 nights at a 30000 points property totals 150000 points etc.
- Trev says:
  
  4 Jan4 January 15:45
  
  It won’t show unless you are logged in and then go through to the booking summary, then you should see 5 nights with a lower rate against each night (e.g. If the rate is 30k/night and you book 5 nights I should show 24k/night)
John says:

6 Jan6 January 07:06

Just had a night away at the Cadbury Court Double Tree to ensure 4 stays and subsequent Gold until March 18 (temporary diamond from IHG status match). £62 for a twin, upgraded to deluxe twin, plus voucher for breakfast and a bottle of red delivered to the room.

As far as I’m concerned that’s being looked after.

Thanks to a heads up off here I registered for the visa 5k offer and thanks to other stacking offers ended up with 11.5k points. Almost the points for my next stay there; £40 plus &12k points.
Corrine says:

6 Jan6 January 22:47

Im about to use the £50 amex travel offer, booking a hertz rental in Boston for nearly 3 weeks. Will I still get the Amex benefits ? upgrade and additional driver ? or do I need to book direct with Hertz to get these extras ? thank you 🙂