Bits: 500 Avios from Tesco, Aer Lingus launching Philadelphia, new Amex Hong Kong lounge

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News in brief:

500 Amex points or Avios when you spend £10 at Tesco

A few readers have been in touch about a very generous offer which has appeared on their American Express online statements.

Once you have registered, you will get 500 Amex points, or 500 Avios, when spending £10 or more at Tesco by 3rd December.

Neither one of us has this offer (unfortunately), but it’s worth checking your Amex account for it, across all of your cards. The offer is valid once for the first 50,000 members who save it to their card so it can’t be that rare!

Aer Lingus to launch Philadelphia this week

There are strong rumours that Aer Lingus will launch a new route to Philadelphia this week. It will run four days a week from March 2018, using a Boeing 757.

This would be another excellent low-cost Avios redemption from Dublin to the US. As a reminder – although we will run through all this again when the route is officially confirmed – business class redemptions for Avios on Aer Lingus tend to have under £100 of taxes and charges.

Centurion lounge hong kong

First American Express lounge opened in Hong Kong

American Express has opened its first ‘Centurion’ lounge outside the US.

A few years ago Amex launched its own proprietary lounge network after they lost their deals with several major airlines who used to let Platinum card holders use their lounges.

Until now these Centurion lounges were only at selected US airports, but with the opening of the Centurion lounge at Hong Kong International Airport Amex has started its global extension.

Platinum (and Centurion) cardholders can use the lounge for free and bring up to two guests.

Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, here are the three options to get FREE airport lounge access via a credit or charge card:

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Plaza Premium, Delta and Eurostar lounges. Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

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

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with two free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here.

Additional lounge visits are charged at £20. You get two more free visits for every year you keep the card.

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus. Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey network. Guests are charged at £20 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer. Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub, American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Platinum card, British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard

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

Simon says:

4 Oct4 October 07:36

While it may be due to bitterness that I didn’t get this Tesco offer, does it really help any of our causes when Amex drop another 25million Avios in to the system.? Even on a 50% take up. that is another 100 Club World Return Redemptions used up…..
- Alex W says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 09:48
  
  I doubt 500 Avios is enough to tip 100 people over the edge between affording a redemption and not. It’s a nice top up, though.
Ade says:

4 Oct4 October 07:45

Can i ask a question about supplimentary cards?

The tesco offer has appeared on my wifes BA card, an account on which i have a supplimentary card. How do these offers wirk with supplimemtary cards

A) its only the main card that can activate the offer…

B) any card on the account can activate the offer

C) they stack, and both cards can activate the offer seperately

Thanks
- Anna says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 07:54
  
  I’m sure it’s the account that counts, as it were, not which card is used for the spend.
  - Genghis says:
    
    4 Oct4 October 08:01
    
    C
  - Brian says:
    
    4 Oct4 October 08:28
    
    Most offers apply only to the card to which the offer is loaded so spend must be on that card.
Mark says:

4 Oct4 October 07:47

Does any now if the BA Platinum card gets you into the Amex Centurion Lounges?
- filipino_chino says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 08:21
  
  If you mean the BA Premium Plus (black card) then no, but the Amex Plat does…
  
  Just been in the Centurion lounge in DFW… it was very good.
Neil says:

4 Oct4 October 07:48

Got it on my Gold and my wife’s BAPP. Rarely goto Tescos following an argument with the store manager years ago, but will make an exception for an easy 1000 Avios!
- Anna says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 07:55
  
  No need to go in just order £10 of socks or whatever from Tesco Direct.
Alan says:

4 Oct4 October 07:49

Nope. Nothing on my new gold card.
Amit says:

4 Oct4 October 08:01

O/T any active QR promo codes, or EY that I can use on a multi city trip? Have tried google but cannot find anything
Thanks
Mark says:

4 Oct4 October 08:21

Is the Amex lounge in Sydney the same chain? They let me in there with my BAPP. When i tried the same in Miami they said they were too busy and only accepting Platinum on that day.
- filipino_chino says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 08:22
  
  As far as i am aware it’s only Platinum holders and not BAPP card holders too.
Tom says:

4 Oct4 October 09:02

I didn’t get the offer on my card but someone very kindly posted the link for the offer. I chopped it into my browser after logging in ad then the offer appeared in my account. I was at Tesco last night so I used my card and got an email immediately saying that I had redeemed the offer. Result!
- Scarlett says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 09:35
  
  Hi Tom, would you mind sharing the offer link (if you still have it) please? Really appreciated, thanks 🙂
  - Down the Back says:
    
    4 Oct4 October 09:42
    
    +1
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 15:30
      
      No Harry I don’t
    - the real harry1 says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 15:32
      
      ELITE? or other PM?
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 15:49
      
      Hubby signed up but not sure what I am doing
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 15:52
      
      Ok he is Whisky66
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 16:02
      
      WIll do & thanks – heading out to EDI will look at it tomorrow!
  - Tom says:
    
    4 Oct4 October 09:50
    
    Hi Scarlett,
    
    Steve shared the link in his article;
    
    https://headforpoints.com/2017/10/03/alan-boswell-insurance-avios-2/#comments
    
    His text explaining how to do it is below;
    
    When you login in the browser address bar you can see summary.do?request_type=&Face=en_GB…
    
    I just replaced it with:
    offers.do?method=enrollOffer&Face=en_GB&sorted_index=0&offerId=8E23BF7359DF4F13BF0E4E69
    
    and hit enter.
    
    Also be careful the comment section seems to be stripping the offerId.
    It is offerId=8E23BF7359DF4F13BF0E4E69B6F19862
    - Sarah says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 10:02
      
      Thanks, although I just get this message when I try that: We are sorry, it doesn’t happen often, but offers are currently unavailable. Please try again later.
    - Nicole says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 10:24
      
      Thanks! I’ve managed to use it to add the offer to one of my cards, but can’t add to others as the URL has no way of distinguishing which card I’m on – says I’ve already saved the offer no matter which account I start from. Oh well, 500 points anyway, thanks again!
    - Allycat says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 10:42
      
      I have successfully added it to three or four cards using the method above, but have noticed that the offer says 500 AVIOS on the Amex Gold Card. The Amex Gold Card does not offer Avios, it offer Membership Reward points so I wonder if it will work if and when I try to spend on those cards. Should be OK on the BAPP card. I assume that there is a different offerId code for the Gold cards which would then say 500 MR points ?
      
      Can anyone capture that offerId string when they activate the offer on a Gold Card ?
    - ADS says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 11:20
      
      “We are sorry, it doesn’t happen often, but offers are currently unavailable. Please try again later.”
    - Doug says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 11:49
      
      I think it is missing this bit:
      offerSourceId=FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF&offerFullfillType=COUPONLESS
      
      I don’t have this “FFFF” part, but if someone could give me that 🙂
    - gs says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 13:19
      
      Many thanks. Worked for me.
    - TripRep says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 13:22
      
      Doug – don’t think you need the offerSourceId
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 14:38
      
      Me and technology are not getting along at the moment cos I can’t get this to work either.
    - the real harry1 says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 14:44
      
      @ Liz – have you got a HUKD ID?
    - Liz says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 15:31
      
      No Harry I don’t!
    - Louise says:
      
      4 Oct4 October 17:54
      
      I get the following error when trying to save to my Platinum Card
      
      ‘Unable to save offer at this time – please try again later’
- RTS says:
  
  4 Oct4 October 14:05
  
  Do you have the offer ID?