Bits: new HfP IT set-up, HfP reader wins 1 million Avios!, Charles Tyrwhitt Avios

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News in brief:

We’re back in business …..

….. after a day off to finalise our IT server move. Everything has gone to plan, I’m pleased to say. Page load times have fallen sharply and we have hopefully seen the back of the ‘503’ errors.

I need to thank Neil Barrett for the huge amount of work he has done over the last week. This involved rebuilding HfP from scratch, rather than just copying the old files across, to allow us to ditch some of the issues from six years of messing about with the old underlying WordPress database. We also put in some overdue security improvements with SSL to follow in a few days.

Neil is a regular HfP reader but was actually recommended to me by another reader off the back of my request for support a couple of weeks ago. I bribed Neil with the promise of a plug on HfP if he delivered everything he promised, and he has, so here it is. He has been very easy to work with and I intend to keep using him for IT work on the site.

Neil is an IT consultant working in web technology for over 20 years and with a particular emphasis on the troubleshooting, functionality building and security of websites. You can get in touch with him here. As well as his bespoke consultancy services, Neil has run Enbecom since 2002 providing domains, hosting, security and marketing for websites – the more ‘off-the-shelf’ types of services.

As a gesture for HFP readers, Neil has offered 10% off domains, web hosting, SSL and marketing packages bought through the Enbecom site until 31st December 2018, including any monthly or annual renewal payments which are made before then. Just use this discount code at checkout: HFPREADER2018.

HfP readers wins 1 million Avios!

Reader Robert was the winner of 1 million Avios in a competition that Iberia Plus was running in conjunction with Avis. This was discussed in the HfP comments although I never mentioned it in an article as it was only for Spanish rentals.

Avis has been giving away 1 million Avios per day from 1st to 10th December. When Robert turned up to collect his car in Spain on Friday, he was presented with this:

Win 1 million Avios with Avis

…… a cheque for 1 million Avios as the daily winner. Well done Robert.

Earn Avios in the Charles Tyrwhitt shirt and tie sale

If you are coming to the Head for Points Christmas party on Tuesday, you will receive a very generous goody bag gift courtesy of Charles Tyrwhitt. The company has also kindly donated a business suit as one of our raffle prizes.

The company has already launched its Winter sale, with shirts from £19.99. You will also receive 4 Avios per £1 spent, either online or in-store – just give your BA Executive Club number to the cashier. Full details of the sale are here, details of the Avios partnership are here.

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

British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

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

Cate says:

10 Dec10 December 14:14

Well done Robert. Nice bonus for your break!
Mart says:

10 Dec10 December 14:14

OT
Those Aussie qatar fares still there
Just booked x2 adults PCSPECIAL promo code
Osl-cnb-arn £1220 each in march
30k bonus miles each
Bargain!
Tom H says:

10 Dec10 December 17:24

I have bought 2x30k spg points over the last year in two accounts and hoping to get a third 30k on a third account which has been linked to the same address for over a year and then transfer all into one account, I have done this before between two accounts but not the third, anyone know if that will work or will SPG block the third transfer in?
- mark2 says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 18:04
  
  Have you thought of transferring from third account to previous donor and then repeating previous transfer so that your main account only receives from one source.
  i.e. if main account is A, other account is B and new account is C, you have already transferred from B to A. Instead of transferring from C to A, move from C to B and then B to A. This will also put a delay in as it takes up to five days. In practice I suspect that the people doing it (it does appear to be persondraulic) just check the addresses, but if the accounts are in the same name that may pique their interest.
  Please report back as I intend to do a similar operation, and I am sure that others would be interested too..
  - G says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 23:05
    
    I have 4 accounts in the same household. Had no problem transferring from 3 accounts into the 1 ‘main’ account. But this is for smaller amounts of mainly 1,000 but upto 12,000 and I have had no problems
- Adam says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 22:35
  
  I think there was also a special 40K link floating around if anyone made a note? Also is anyone aware as to whether you can ‘split up’ your 7 nights in the same country ie. I would like to do 3 in Tokyo 4 in Osaka.
Graham Walsh says:

10 Dec10 December 18:02

Marriot Twitter RewardsPoints. Answer is 15 yards
- thehornets says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 18:08
  
  Thanks Graham. Don’t forget the hashtag! I.e: 15 yard line #RewardsPoints
  - Graham Walsh says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 18:13
    
    Yep. Did that. Got a reply within seconds from them which is unusual.
- Genghis says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 18:27
  
  Thanks
- Peter K says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 19:39
  
  Thank you very much. I always forget about this until it is mentioned on HfP so thank you again!
  - Leo says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 22:25
    
    +1 Many thanks.
- BLT says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 19:45
  
  Thanks for the reminder
The Original Nick says:

10 Dec10 December 18:16

O:T, NOW, can anyone help out here. I think Harry maybe good for this. My BA flight has been cancelled from AMS-LHR. Flight due to depart at 17:30 today. I’ve been put onto the 19:45 tomorrow automatically by BA. I guess it’s my Silver status that helped me there. The queue in AMS at the BA desk with one girl at (poor her) around 50 ft long was ridiculous. I didn’t want to wait in that to find which hotel BA were putting people up in. (I Booked a refundable room around 3pm today at the HIX at the airport. BOOK EARLY.
Will I be able to claim back from BA for the hotel because I didn’t use their hotel?
Will I be able to claim compo for the cancellation?
I have Amex Platinum too.
Any help would be great. Thanks. Time for another beer now I suppose.
- Nick says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 18:45
  
  Cancellation compensation – no, it’s clearly caused by weather, which even BA can’t be expected to control and is a major exemption from the EU261 compensation rules (I’m two miles from LHR right now and there’s 5cm of settled snow so it’s not unreasonable to cancel flights IMO)
  However, your hotel should be claimable, unless BA rules that you’ve been ‘unreasonable’ in your choice (i.e. paid more than they consider acceptable). I very much doubt a HIX crosses this line so claim away, they’ll pay pretty much immediately. Note that you can claim for meals at ‘normal’ meal times (and one alcoholic drink to accompany lunch/dinner) but other than that they won’t pay for booze or snacks. They’re pretty good at paying ‘duty of care’ claims without argument and I’d be surprised if you didn’t have an offer by next weekend.
  - The Original Nick says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 18:51
    
    Thanks Nick. I did think about the IC Amsterdam but that would of been pushing it.
  - KP says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 19:30
    
    I believe the limit on hotel is £200
    - the real harry1 says:
      
      10 Dec10 December 19:56
      
      actually – there is no limit
      
      BA will happily pay out £200 per room per night/
      
      but if the circs demand that you have to pay out (say) £400, claim it
  - the real harry1 says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 19:41
    
    £200 for hotel will be fine with food & drink on top – get receipts and alcohol not mentioned
- TripRep says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 18:56
  
  Holy moly, see they’ve cancelled some long haul too, at least Silver should get you lounge access, expect it’ll be busy in there, was reasonably quiet early yesterday eve. Hope you get going ok tomorrow…
  - Cate says:
    
    10 Dec10 December 22:20
    
    Heathrows been trending on twitter all day and not in a nice way. It’s so embarrassing…..
  - TripRep says:
    
    11 Dec11 December 03:09
    
    Might be amusing for anyone that resides in the Northern regions…
    https://twitter.com/WindyWilson88/status/939745279921795072
Peter K says:

10 Dec10 December 19:56

Love the new look website Rob, hard to find my way around it now, ha ha. Seriously though, well done on building the site up to the point where it needs such an update! 🙂
- the real harry1 says:
  
  10 Dec10 December 20:09
  
  he’s planning a special section on the only non-gluten in the village
Tom says:

10 Dec10 December 21:41

O/t Amex Q’s.

Amex – if I upgrade from gold to plat – is it 20,000 bonus points, and is there a spend target to hit, or do you just get the points as soon as you pay the £450?

how long after upgrading do the points post, and the hotel status and lounge passes come through?

Can anyone have the supplementary card? For example my brother who lives at a completely different address? And he would also get the hotel statuses.

Thanks in advance!
- Genghis says:
  
  11 Dec11 December 06:15
  
  Usually spend £1k in 3 months for 20k.
  Points post a couple of days after you spend the £1k
  Lounge passes normally come before you get the card.
  You need to apply for the hotel statuses on the Amex site
  1 Plat supp is free. I’ve never given a supp to different address but don’t see why not possible.
  - Tom says:
    
    11 Dec11 December 12:58
    
    Excellent, thanks.
Gavin says:

10 Dec10 December 22:08

Off topic – anyone struggling to log into avios (I’m trying via the app). Tried to change password which was done successfully but it will still not permit me to log on
- Gavin says:
  
  11 Dec11 December 09:43
  
  Now working fine. Obviously Gremlins yesterday