The HfP chat thread – Monday 14th September

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• BJ says:

  14 Sep14 September 05:28

  New amex offer at Teso. £5 back on £40 spend by 30/10 in store or online. Unfortunately only valid once per card so the fab Morrison offer it isn’t. Go quick, first 20,000.

  • David D says:

    14 Sep14 September 05:34

    The new offers for me today are three separate Radisson ones for specified hotels. Radisson Edwardian Manchester, save £40 off £200. Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street, save £60 off £300, and The Mayfair, Radisson Collection save £80 off £400.

    • BJ says:

      14 Sep14 September 05:41

      Just spotted Radisson too and came back to post. My variant is spend £300 get £60 back. Didn’t check participating hotels.

      • Harry T says:

        14 Sep14 September 07:15

        I’ve got offers for three separate specific Radisson hotels on my Platinum card… maybe they are targeting people who spend money at other hotel chains as I’ve been spending a fair amount at Marriotts.

    • Harry T says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:13

      Same for me on Platinum. Tesco is on my Gold, thanks BJ.

      • meta says:

        14 Sep14 September 09:14

        On all cards apart from Bonvoy on which we’ve been doing all grocery shopping and Bonvoy stays. I also have Blacklane offer on my BAPP. Spend £100 get £25 back. Valid till 14/12, but has to be single transaction which will be a bit difficult.

    • Ming the Merciless says:

      14 Sep14 September 11:23

      I’ve got £50 off £200 spend at marriott, on my Marriott AMEX…

  • Ian says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:10

    Not seeing any new Tesco offer on any of our 6 Amex cards

    • BJ says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:31

      As per my comment below it might be a good idea to restrict all supermarket spend to a single amex card. I’ll hazard a guess that with only 20k available few, if any, cards that have had recent Tesco spend will have the offer but happy to be proved wrong. Hope this means we will see Morrisons offer back soon.

      • Harry T says:

        14 Sep14 September 07:33

        It’s on two of our cards where we haven’t been spending on groceries, so it’s a solid strategy.

      • Travel Strong says:

        14 Sep14 September 13:05

        The Tesco offer *only* appears on my BAPP, which is the only card I’ve used on spend at Tesco! (Due to the previous extra avios offer which expired on the 12th). Not showing on Plat. I’m sure there’s some algorithms at work, but I don’t hold much hope of trying to figure them out!

        • Rob says:

          14 Sep14 September 15:08

          On my Plat and my wife’s Gold (and her supp Plat).

    • Wollhouse says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:48

      For the recent Tesco offer, I bought Amazon gift cards- the offer has disappeared. I thought it was 2 bonus Avios for every £1 spent, but it looks like I’ve only been given 1.5x base points. Do bonus Avios show up later or have I got it wrong that Tesco was included? Thx

      • avidsaver says:

        14 Sep14 September 08:42

        Amex Tesco double points bonus ended on the 12th September.

      • Andrew says:

        14 Sep14 September 08:44

        Tesco, Waitrose and M&S were included (perhaps one other, can’t remember).

        Offer ended on Saturday (12 September).

        It posts on my BAPP as a normal transaction then 1-3 days later the bonus avios get posted under “Amex Offers”. They seem to lump together all qualifying spends for a day and post as one bonus (so, for example, if on the same day you spend £20 at Tesco and £30 at M&S, it would post together in a single 100-avios “Amex Offers” entry).

        • Wollhouse says:

          14 Sep14 September 12:19

          Great, thanks. Transactions were within offer so I’ll wait to check that the bonus points post.

      • Worzel says:

        14 Sep14 September 08:46

        Good Morning Wollhouse, the offer expired on Saturday(12th). I’ve looked at our statement and the bonus avios appear 1or 2 days following expected avios earn.

  • Claire says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:15

    Thanks for the heads up, it is on my account 🙂

  • Genghis says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:21

    Thanks BJ. Easy money.

  • Anna says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:23

    Not got Tesco, they must have fallen out with me, but got 2 x £10 off £40 spend at GAP which will go towards Xmas jumpers.

    • BJ says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:35

      IIRC GAP giftcards have no expiry date so good for gifts too. I suspect with covid many more giftcards will be given as gifts this Christmas.

      • Brian says:

        14 Sep14 September 10:06

        Just make sure you don’t get gift cards for a brand that might go bust…

  • Secret Squirrel says:

    14 Sep14 September 08:09

    I read it was only on Platinum – is it on any other cards?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    14 Sep14 September 08:19

    Got it on gold and BA cards

    • TGLoyalty says:

      14 Sep14 September 16:53

      Already used it twice 😉

• Mycity says:

  14 Sep14 September 06:49

  Morning All, looking for advice please. My BA Premium Amex renewal has come at £190. ASI have 3 vouchers currently and little chance of using them just wondering what I should do. What the general advice should I downgrade to the basic blue card with no fee or cancel completely and reapply in say 9 months? That assumes I can upgrade back of course will they let me?
  Thanks

  • BJ says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:16

    Given the current circumstances and your 3ax vouchers I would cancel asap, wait 24 months and reapply for BAPP via referral. However, don’t forget you need to have (supp is ok) or access to an amex card to use your vouchers.

    • Mycity says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:26

      Thanks BJ, yes have access to a sup card so ok there.

      • BJ says:

        14 Sep14 September 07:42

        I’m not a fan of the 24 month strategy myself as I do a lot of referrals. However, if you don’t do many of those there is a case for 24 month full or partial strategy at the moment. Whether you usually make use of hotel
        and/or other offers should factor in your decision too.

• DJ says:

  14 Sep14 September 06:55

  How long does it take for a new Amex account/card to start receiving offers?

  Opened a new card last week, and have been putting spending on it throughout the week, but I’m still not getting any offers. Whereas the card I didn’t use at all are getting good offers.

  • Anne says:

    14 Sep14 September 07:07

    I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to this other than ‘it varies’. Some people report never getting offers at all! But as an idea, my partner got a new Plat card about 3 weeks ago and the first serious batch of offers (8 in total I think) have appeared today.

    • BJ says:

      14 Sep14 September 07:25

      Agreed, 1-3 weeks is a good rule of thumb but time and quantity of offers is quite unpredictable. I think use helps in general but I try to keep all my supermarket and hotel spend on one card to boost my chances of getting offers for them on the others. I also limit spend on an MR card hoping that triggers a general spend threshold bonus.

  • Rahaney says:

    14 Sep14 September 10:39

    They are coming through slower and slower – there were comments about it last week with several having to manually add shop small (now finished).

    Not sure if you’ve opened/closed other Amex cards this year, as there was a comment that in this case offers are being very slow – sometimes months and that there may be some sort of connection

  • Sukes says:

    14 Sep14 September 11:45

    2-3wks. Experience on a new Amex Gold credit coupled with frequent everyday spending. Didn’t even have the ‘Shop Small’ offer showing at first.

  • Charlieface says:

    14 Sep14 September 14:41

    I think the reason is that offers are only added when they are released to live cards. If a card becomes live after the offer is released it doesn’t get the offer. So you only ever see new offers on new cards, not old offers that are still in date.

    • Sukes says:

      14 Sep14 September 22:06

      Hi Charlieface Shop Small did show around 2-3wks after getting the card. It had already been live as an offer for many weeks.

• Andrew says:

  14 Sep14 September 07:39

  Wheely offer working fine – made 3 central London journeys of around 15 minutes at the weekend – total cost £54, got the Amex email after the third journey confirming the £50 credit. All in very nice Mercedes with professional suit-wearing drivers.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    14 Sep14 September 09:11

    Great offer that. Might make use of it this coming weekend. I’m assuming they hope most people do 4 trips not 3, I’ll have to remember to do 6 split over a couple cards before it runs out 🙂

  • Marcin says:

    14 Sep14 September 09:11

    Triggers even if you spend less than £50 during 3 rides.

    Did this thanks to part suspended Jubile line, got paid for 3 rides from / to West Hampsted 😃

    • Andrew says:

      14 Sep14 September 09:47

      That’s good to know, I was assuming it would as it didn’t mention a minimum spend, just happened that my journeys went over £50 for what I needed to do. Will aim to do another 3 on another card before it runs out.

• Spk says:

  14 Sep14 September 07:52

  Hsbc WE MC – can it be downgraded online? Or do we have to call customer service?

  • Gareth says:

    14 Sep14 September 08:16

    Call- could try live chat though at same time

    • memesweeper says:

      14 Sep14 September 08:30

      Definitely not online — you can call up, and they send you a fresh paper application form for the free version of the card. Classic HSBC process, loads of hassle for a simple request.

      • Paul says:

        14 Sep14 September 10:38

        Same in reverse too if upgrading from basic to premium version I found out last month when called them to clarify.

• Jane says:

  14 Sep14 September 07:52

  Morning, back at the start of the pandemic someone posted on here about a French hotel refusing a refund (??? despite it being a flexible rate) as there was some new French rule / law passed about this being acceptable ? Was there a final outcome to this with a cash refund or was it definitely vouchers only. With naive optimism I booked a French ski hotel for Christmas just before reading this assuming we would be back to normal by then but it’s looking increasing unlikely that we will be going so need to get my arguments straight before I call them. Booking should have been flexible (minus £60) but after booking got an e-mail in French which I just managed to translate about vouchers. Should have cancelled then ! many thanks

  • Aston100 says:

    14 Sep14 September 10:10

    Sounds a bit like my situation.
    Hotel was refusing a refund. IHG customer service were being useless. I escalated and their next tier was just as useless. I asked for a further escalation and was told firmly that the local laws in France trump everything else. After some kind HfP members pointed me to the IHG t&cs, I cited the following: “Governing Law. These terms and conditions shall be governed by, construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Georgia, United States, without regard to its conflicts of law rules. Any dispute not covered by the terms of the Arbitration provision set forth in these Programme Terms may be filed only in the state or federal courts located in the State of Georgia, United States.”, but IHG customer services were not interested and pretty much closed the matter off!

    However, for some odd reason, the hotel decided to provide a full refund. SO I was OK in the end, but only because the hotel and IHG customer services are clearly not on the same page.

    • Jane says:

      14 Sep14 September 10:16

      Yes, I thought it was an IHG hotel, thanks for the update. I’ve e-mailed the company this morning to ask the question, let’s see what they say. a voucher wouldn’t be the end of the world but no idea when skiing might get back to normal so would rather have a refund.

      • Lady London says:

        14 Sep14 September 13:22

        chargeback or Section 75 using the Georgia clause above

        • Jane says:

          14 Sep14 September 14:54

          Thanks Lady London, that was the plan if they don’t pay up. Mine isn’t an IHG hotel though. Small chain I think, called Belambra.

• BSI1978 says:

  14 Sep14 September 08:49

  Morning all, happy Monday.

  Query re an Avios booking I have previously made, been unable to get through the handful of times I have tried in order to cancel; if I do this online and take the voucher (which in this instance I am content to do as I have another booking to make) presumably I will get the full value of the Avios less the £1 charge?

  Can I then use said voucher online or is that only for cash bookings and I will need to phone up?

  Apologies as I am sure the main thrust of my ask has been covered previously but am perhaps being lazy and not going back through the various threads….!

  • memesweeper says:

    14 Sep14 September 09:03

    If you take the voucher there’s no loss of value of points or cash — it’s a free process.

    You cannot use the voucher online (yet, probably ever)… call wait times can be significant.

  • antoinette says:

    14 Sep14 September 09:11

    I just called now for an avios booking (0900) and there was no waiting time.
    When you cancel a booking and request a voucher online the voucher arrives within minutes in your inbox.

• DJ says:

  14 Sep14 September 08:59

  This Marriott status matching thing is getting really annoying …

  They just rejected me for the second time despite I followed everything they mentioned in the webpage, and other readers’ suggestion ..

  I guess I won’t be staying with them this year 🙁

  • TGLoyalty says:

    14 Sep14 September 09:13

    Not to sound judgmental

    But unless you do actually spend time staying at Marriotts what’s the point?

    Really is nothing except 4pm checkout vs 2pm with gold on offer right now. All rates include breakfast, lounges are shut and occupancy is so low you’ll probably get them same treatment as gold.

    • DJ says:

      14 Sep14 September 09:48

      Haha, it’s okay, I get where you coming from.

      I am about to book about two weeks worth stay for the upcoming months, so I thought it would be nice to put it as part of the challenge. Otherwise I will have to book it with IHG instead 😅

      • Alan S says:

        14 Sep14 September 12:12

        I managed to get it to stick 2nd time around.

        Used my Hilton Gold and a folio from that account, as they rejected my IHG Spire application.

        Just used a pdf of the stay folio from last November and a PDF screenshot of my online gold membership card.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        14 Sep14 September 13:24

        If you are planning on staying anyway then fair enough it would come in handy next year, but again only worth it if you are going to stay enough next year.

        I just think we can get drawn into these ‘offers’ when in reality there’s not much in it at the end of it all.

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