Bits: Club Eurostar Shop opens, has the Avios reward chart vanished?, Cathay Pacific sale

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News in brief:

The Club Eurostar Shop opens for business

One aspect of the new Club Eurostar programme I haven’t touched on yet is the new Club Eurostar shop.

This offers a new redemption option for those travellers who are – in the nicest possible way – sick to death of Eurostar after weekly commutes and would prefer to use their points for something totally different!

The Club Eurostar Shop is only available to mid-tier Avantage and top-tier Carte Blanche members. You will find a link on your home page after you log in.

There is certainly a lot on offer and the quality level seems to be pitched right given the target Eurostar market.

Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that the value you get is not great. I ran a few examples and you seem to be getting around 3p per point.

This isn’t Club Eurostar trying to rip you off, it is simply logical because of how these schemes work. If you redeem for, say, a Pure Evoke H3 DAB radio (3,460 points) then Eurostar has to buy it for you for £120. They would be happier if you redeemed for a Eurostar ticket which costs them virtually nothing in comparison. This is why you get around 10p to 15p per point for train redemptions.

That said, I am always in favour of giving people more choice when it comes to redemptions and the Club Eurostar Shop does add a lot of new options.

Has the Avios reward chart vanished?

I was trying to find the Avios pricing chart on ba.com yesterday. Since the site had its revamp, however, I can’t find it anywhere.

If you want to know how much a redemption costs, it seems that you need to plug in your route into the redemption flight calculator here.

I also looked on avios.com. It still has a zonal map but nothing as simple as the table below.

This is, of course “not a good thing”. An unwillingness to be upfront about what redemptions actually cost is the first step to removing reward charts altogether and moving to some form of variable pricing.

The zones relate to the distance flown:

Zone 1: 1 – 650 miles
Zone 2: 651 – 1,150 miles
Zone 3: 1,151 – 2,000 miles
Zone 4: 2,001 – 3,000 miles
Zone 5: 3,001 – 4,000 miles
Zone 6: 4,001 – 5,500 miles
Zone 7: 5,501 – 6,500 miles
Zone 8: 6,501 – 7,000 miles
Zone 9: 7,000+ miles

Cathay Pacific launches its winter sale

The Cathay Pacific sale is now on, with headline prices to Asia from £489 in Economy.

Business Class deals start at £2999 to Australia and New Zealand, £2359 to China, £2469 to Japan and Korea and £3619 to Hong Kong. (Hong Kong is never a great deal with Cathay because it is a direct flight from the UK, other destinations require a change of plane.) These are for travel from 9th January to 30th September 2018.

Cathay Pacific is a member of oneworld, so you will earn Avios and British Airways tier points when you fly with them.

Don’t forget that Cathay also flies from Manchester as well as Heathrow and Gatwick.

Full details are on the Cathay Pacific website 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, Cathay Pacific and Asia Miles, Club Eurostar

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

nick says:

19 Dec19 December 10:01

On Sunday, my Amex account was suspended. When I rang them on Monday morning, I was informed that my account was “subject to a financial review”. They promised that someone from their specialised team would ring me by end of yesterday – still have heard nothing yet.

I have a Platinum card as well as a BA Amex – for at least 4 years. Never missed a payment. Card used regularly. No strange online transactions, no cash advances ever.

Any ideas?
- Rob says:
  
  19 Dec19 December 11:12
  
  You get these occasionally but they are more common in the US. Tends to happen when they worry that their exposure to you via the charge card is too high given some new information they have discovered about you. They will want to see proof of income etc so show you are as solvent as you once claimed.
  - nick says:
    
    19 Dec19 December 11:33
    
    Just been informed it was due to the shop small promotion – that my main cards and the supplementary cards were used at the same shop in quick succession. I explained it was due to splitting the bill (£10 per card) to take advantage of the promotion.
    - Genghis says:
      
      19 Dec19 December 13:29
      
      Surely that’s normal behaviour for SS?
    - mark2 says:
      
      19 Dec19 December 16:07
      
      As Genghis says, that sounds normal. I used the three cards on some accounts within seconds in the same shop on some occasions with no comment from Amex.
    - Louise says:
      
      19 Dec19 December 19:16
      
      Interesting I had a missed call from Amex today, maybe it’s because of this, I did the same with small shop
    - the_real_a says:
      
      20 Dec20 December 00:23
      
      Was this really a financial review or just a routine fraud check?
Tom says:

19 Dec19 December 10:31

OT – I upgraded my Gold amex to the plat to get the extra 20kMR points for the £1k spend which I have hit in the. past 24 hrs. The MR were showing in my account and I have transferred the points out immediately and settled the final balance on the card.

I haven’t to date been charged the £450 for having the card. So;

1. Do I need to wait for the MR’s to hit my BAEC account before cancelling the card?
2. Can I cancel the card from now and the transfer will still hit my BA accounts?
3. Will I get hit with a pro rata cost of the card hen I cancel?
- MarkH says:
  
  19 Dec19 December 11:10
  
  Better off waiting until the points hit BAEC before cancelling just to be sure.
  
  No you won’t get hit by pro-rated fee. Amex charges full fees and pro-rates is you cancel early but not the other way round.
  - Tom says:
    
    19 Dec19 December 18:04
    
    Cheers – does anyone know if the hotel status benefits remain for the period after you cancel the card?
    - Genghis says:
      
      20 Dec20 December 04:29
      
      Yes
- CV3V says:
  
  19 Dec19 December 11:48
  
  they might also pro rata the refund to when they billed the membership fee (and not when you got the card). They can sometimes be very slow to bill the membership fee 🙂
Optimus Prime says:

19 Dec19 December 11:19

Interesting – Visa fees go up and MC ones go down…
Rob says:

19 Dec19 December 12:01

Top man, thank you.
Matt says:

19 Dec19 December 12:38

Just another data point for Amex referrals. I have referred myself for an SPG card from my own BAPP card and 9000 avios have just landed in my account for the referral. I even put my BA PP card number in the “do you have an Amex already?” box, so even if it’s not explicitly allowed they’re not making any effort to block it.

This is probably good for them, because I’m probably going to get and keep the Platinum card, to refer myself and my wife for all the other cards in future.
Matt says:

19 Dec19 December 12:52

On a related note: Rob – have you done (or could you do) a comparison of the small business and personal Platinum cards?Is there any problem/difference with referring to personal cards from the small business card?
- Rob says:
  
  19 Dec19 December 13:32
  
  Not sure about the referral angle.
  
  Key differences are:
  
  * Insurance is better on Business Plat – covers you to 80, no need to pay for things on the card to be covered
  
  * Priority Pass is worse on Business – you don’t get a free guest (although your main supplementary cardholder still gets one, so OK for a couple)
  
  * I don’t think you get one of the hotel statuses on Business (Hilton?)
Nick Burch says:

19 Dec19 December 14:39

OT Has anyone else had a decent slug of Nectar points removed by a strange Sainsbury’s bonus?

My account is showing, for last week:
13 Dec 2017 BONUS! You earned -8,000 Pts at Sainsbury’s

That’s right, a negative bonus! Nectar are claiming it’s a Sainsbury’s IT issue, but refusing to explain any more, refusing to say when it might be resolved, if it’s a breach or a bug, and also refusing to put the points back…
- Mark LLL says:
  
  19 Dec19 December 16:47
  
  I had a series of negative bonus transactions applied to my nectar account a couple of years back.
  
  Thought I’d been hacked but when spoke to customer services they explained I had not used my nectar card in 12 months so my points had expired.
  
  They re-instated a few hundred points while I was on the line, but said they were unable to do any more.
  
  Worst ‘bonus’ I ever remember getting.
James Wagner says:

19 Dec19 December 15:45

So BA is about to screw us yet again.