How does American Express AccessLine work? Is it worth it?

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• Rich says:

  16 Feb16 February 07:55

  I use AccessLine. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say how much we pay as a fee. If it works for you it can be incredibly worthwhile, however, it’s only likely to work if you would otherwise be using some form of invoice financing anyway. You also need to qualify for corporate. I’m not certain if the criteria (?) but I think it’s something like £5m turnover.

  There are business cases where invoice financing is desirable. For ourselves, we tendered for a supply contract to a new customer who insisted they were given 60 days from date of receipt to pay their invoice. Large companies in certain industries often operate like this, with rigid payment terms. As an SME, we simply don’t have the cash flow sitting there to buy all the raw materials, manufacture product, send it around the world to our customer, then wait 60 days for payment, so we built the cost of using an invoice financing facility into the quote for doing the work.

  I have found it a very effective way to generate huge numbers of points, but as I say it probably won’t work for you unless you are using something like this already. Worth a look if you use traditional bank factoring, or one of the fintech alternatives.

  It works on the ICC (Euro/Dollar) cards, as well as the Sterling cards.

  • Will says:

    16 Feb16 February 10:29

    Thanks really helpful.

    • Cate says:

      16 Feb16 February 15:52

      +1

• Mike G says:

  16 Feb16 February 07:56

  Does anyone know the fee for using AccessLine? That piece of information does not appear to be on the linked page.

• Jonathan says:

  16 Feb16 February 08:22

  Are there any other similar services to BillHop and AccessLine?

• Tilly says:

  16 Feb16 February 08:40

  OT – how long does it take for Hilton honours to upgrade to gold with the amex plat? Enrolled online with my Hilton account number a few days ago. Got a stay booked in 2 weeks so would be nice to have gold status target than my current silver.

  Also – Gong Hey Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year!

  • Tilly says:

    16 Feb16 February 08:41

    Rather not target.

  • JamesB says:

    16 Feb16 February 09:55

    About a week in my case.

    • Tilly says:

      16 Feb16 February 10:29

      Great thanks. Will give it until next Tuesday then before I pick up the phone to amex.

• Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

  16 Feb16 February 08:51

  OT: There are business class flights LHR-USA on VS/DL selling for around £1.1k. Seems to be on BA direct routes that VS/DL service indirectly (e.g. OAK, SJC, PHX, SAN). Tends to be VS metal for the transatlantic hop. Plenty of availability in Nov/Dec, a couple hundred more in Sep/Oct.

  • Louise says:

    16 Feb16 February 13:33

    Thanks!

• AK says:

  16 Feb16 February 10:02

  OT:
  I asked Amex CS last sat about merging my two MR accounts together as I had to create a separate account for my PRG credit card. These accounts still haven’t been merged despite the CS agent saying that it’ll be done by mid of this week. Anyone have any experiences with merging MR accounts and how long it took for them to be merged?

  • Stu N says:

    16 Feb16 February 10:29

    Mine got merged overnight – I had to call Membership rewards to sort it as the chat agent said he couldn’t do it.

    • AK says:

      16 Feb16 February 12:13

      Might do the same then! Do you have a phone number or a link to where I can find a number on you by any chance?

      • Stu N says:

        16 Feb16 February 12:54

        The chat agent gave me the number, didn’t note it down I’m afraid.

• Toby says:

  16 Feb16 February 10:17

  O/T

  can anyone tell me if its worth using avios to buy return flights from ncl to lhr next month? The cost to buy in cash is £414.13 versus 24800 avios + £105.61 in taxes. Would this be good use of avios?

  Many thanks in advance.

  • PJS says:

    16 Feb16 February 10:53

    Unless you need the tier points, I would consider RFS to be a better deal at 15500 avios + £50 tax in Club.
    Seems to be availability through March.

  • Lady London says:

    16 Feb16 February 12:00

    If I hadn’t qualified for RFS pricing by earning at least one avios in BA or avios program in the past 12 months, and if I didn’t need the tier points, then I’d seriously look to see if there was a deal on the train for this one. Train might not take you much longer than flying if you’re going to London. Look at split ticketing (e.g. google “ticketysplit”) if initial train pricing looks too high.

• Gareth says:

  16 Feb16 February 10:19

  OT:
  I got lucky in the timing of the Qatar Airways sale and used it to book Madrid to Windhoek in BC for a software conference. I’m flying BA LHR to MAD to position. It’s the first time I’ve done a positioning flight and I have a noob question:

  I’m flying HBO and checked in online. BA arrival terminal is the same as QR departure. Am I just like any other transfer passenger that can walk between flights, or does the fact that I’m flying on different tickets mean I have to go through passport control and then back through security in MAD?

  One further question: is there any travel insurance product that would compensate me for missing the QR departure due to delayed arrival?

  • Yan says:

    16 Feb16 February 10:56

    Airside transfer in MAD T4S should be easy. You might find this FT guide useful: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26195435-post866.html

    • Gareth says:

      16 Feb16 February 11:34

      Thanks!

    • Gareth says:

      18 Feb18 February 22:47

      Follow up – that FlyerTalk advice was spot on. However, it appeared Madrid security had never seen a mobile boarding pass before and it took some negotiating to get through to “S” gates.

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