Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: Curve / Creation news, Accor launches new ‘experiences’ rewards, Pret Perks, 99p Audible deal

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

News in brief:

Were you caught up in the Creation credit card cancellations?

If you are one of those people whose IHG Rewards credit card is being closed down this week, you may find this correspondence interesting. It will take 30-60 seconds to download.

A reader has used a Freedom of Information request to get hold of the internal emails between Curve and NS&I on this issue. See what you make of it.

HFP IHG Rewards Club mastercard

Accor launches new ‘experiences’ rewards including BST Hyde Park

Accor Live Limitless, the loyalty programme for Novotel, Sofitel, Ibis, Mercure, Fairmont etc, is ramping up its ‘Limitless Experiences’ programme in the UK with a range of new events.

This is good news, as the ‘Limitless Experiences’ programme is one way of getting better value for your points than the fixed 2 Eurocents you get when booking a hotel.

The experiences programme is also a win for Accor, since it encourages you to sit on your points and build a balance, rather than redeeming immediately when you hit the 2,000 required for a €40 hotel voucher.

I have listed below what is currently bookable via the Accor Experiences website.

Where the pricing says ‘from’ it means that there are a variety of packages available, some of which include a hotel stay. Some packages offer different levels of VIP treatment depending on how many points you use.

All packages are for two people and usually include other perks on top of your ticket:

  • Amy Winehouse: Beyond The Stage exhibition @ The Design Museum (multiple dates) – 1,000 points
  • Jake Whitehall @ Eventim Apollo (20th December) – 4,000 points
  • Romesh Ranganathan @ Eventim Apollo (15th January) – 3,000 points
  • Russell Brand @ Eventim Apollo (1st February) – 4,000 points
  • Ronan Keating inc ‘meet and greet’ @ Eventim Apollo (3rd February) – 18,000 points
  • Mamma Mia! The Party (19th February, 12th March) – from 25,000 points including a hotel stay
  • Ludovico Einaudi @ Eventim Apollo (23rd March) – 8,000 points
  • Elton John @ BST Hyde Park (24th June) – from 18,000 points
  • Eagles @ BST Hyde Park (26th June) – from 18,000 points
  • Pearl Jam @ BST Hyde Park (8th and 9th July) – from 10,000 points
  • Duran Duran @ BST Hyde Park (10th July) – from 10,000 points

In terms of ‘read the small print’, Mamma Mia! The Party wins. You get:

  • Tier A seats including a four course dinner, drinks package and official merchandise party pack
  • ‘Meet and greet’ with the cast
  • Overnight stay with breakfast at the Novotel Canary Wharf
  • Pre-show cocktails and canapes
  • Transfers to the O2 via Thames Clipper boat, including a glass of prosecco, with a taxi transfer to the hotel after the show

You certainly get a full night for your 25,000 points.

You can redeem your Accor points for any of the above on the Experiences site here.

Apollo Hammersmith

‘Pret Perks’ launches today

A couple of weeks ago we had the exclusive news about the launch of ‘Pret Perks’, the new Pret A Manger loyalty scheme.

The programme finally goes live today. However, it will be in beta for a few weeks and can only be accessed by people with a Pret coffee subscription and an iPhone.

You will earn one ‘star’ for every purchase and stars can be redeemed for ‘perks’. You will require 10 stars to receive a free product from a rotating list of rewards. You do not get your choice of any item in the store.

Once you have hit 10 ‘stars’, you will have 30 days to claim your free product. Your free gift will expire at this point.

You will NOT earn ‘stars’ when claiming a free coffee from your subscription unless something else is bought at the same time. All Pret coffee subscribers will receive a nominal one star per month as part of their subscription. You need to scan a QR card in the Pret app to receive your stars.

One attempt at gaming the system is already blocked in the rules. Any purchases made in quick succession will be amalgamated together, so you cannot buy a coffee and a sandwich in two transactions and earn two ‘stars’.

Full details should be on this web page from this morning.

Last call: get 3 months of Audible audio books for 99p

Audible, Amazon’s audiobook subsidiary, has been running a special promotion over Black Friday.  See here.

Until tonight, 30th November, you can claim 3 months of Audible for just 99p.  This works out at 33p per month.

You can choose one free audiobook per month during your trial.

The offer is not available if you have had an Audible trial in the last 12 months.  If you don’t see the 99p offer like this when logged in to your Amazon account:

Audible 99p trial

….. then you don’t qualify.

The link to sign up is here.  The offer ends tonight.

(I know this is non-core to HfP, but we have a good relationship with Amazon who always keep us up to date with their offers. The commission we earn if you sign up keeps us ticking over whilst airline and hotel advertising remains weak.)

Category

Accor Live Limitless, Curve Card, IHG Rewards

Comments (399)

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

  • Flamingpenguin says:
    30 Nov30 November 13:16

    My IHG card is also being closed down – I was charged the annual fee in July and am about £1600 from the £10k spend needed to qualify for the next free night voucher. I paid the fee and used this card for spending in order to get the free night voucher.

    No explanation has been given for why my card is being shut down (I’ve only used it with Curve once and it was for genuine allowed spend) so I don’t believe this is fair. Have people who’s account anniversary was more than a month or so away had any success complaining to Creation and getting either a refund of the fee or a pro-rata value of the free night certificate? If the later what value is reasonable to use for the free nigth certificate?

    • Phil W says:
      30 Nov30 November 13:28

      People who have been charged the fee, following notification of the termination have received refunds. However, nobody who has received the termination notification has received a pro-rata refund, been issued with Free Night Vouchers or received a pro-rata value in lieu of the voucher. In addition, nobody is seeing any points transfer from Creation to IHG for the last month or so.

      Creation can cancel any card they wish, there is no real need for fairness in their decision. However, they do have to treat customers right if once they’ve made that decision.

      You may wish to consider raising a complaint with Creation and once they’ve failed to do anything with it after 8 weeks, escalate to FOS.

      • jj says:
        30 Nov30 November 15:31

        Not all people have received refunds – I haven’t for example. but your advice to lodge a formal complaint and, asuming that is not resolved, to refer the issue to FOS is sound.

  • Air Crash Investigator says:
    30 Nov30 November 13:52

    Just got an email from IHG. Long story short, two rewards stays are being cancelled and all 700k points removed due to obtaining points the ‘unorthodox’ way…

    Oh well…

    • Mikeact says:
      30 Nov30 November 13:53

      Tell us more….

    • DJ says:
      30 Nov30 November 13:57

      Perhaps you could expand on the “Unorthodox way”?

    • Char Char says:
      30 Nov30 November 14:16

      Er long story please otherwise sounds like a scaremongering message from Solihull

      • The Urbanite says:
        30 Nov30 November 15:18

        Sounds like it’s direct from IHG. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of this happening, though interested to hear what they consider to be unorthodox.

      • Air Crash Investigator says:
        30 Nov30 November 16:02

        Sure, I woke up today with the intention of scaremongering Char Char.

        • Rachel Robinson says:
          30 Nov30 November 16:13

          Your post does have a clickbaity air about it. You knew fully well that posting it here without further details would result in questions and requests for detail yet despite having revisited the post to respond you haven’t provided any. You’re obviously not obliged to, but you can’t also claim that the response from others wasn’t foreseeable.

        • Char Char says:
          30 Nov30 November 16:40

          You did a good job then!

        • Lady London says:
          30 Nov30 November 18:33

          H***, it worked 🙂

          Good one.

          2 reports seen seem to imply if you dare make a complaint to IHG about a hotel, even a justified one, then if your account holds lots of points IHG may use the fact you”re complaining as an excuse to close your account and – more importantly – cancel your points.

          So far the minimum balance to risk this action by IHG, looks to be around 1.4 million points.

          For a minute there I thought it had gone down to 700,000, for someone to be targeted for this by IHG.

    • Anna says:
      30 Nov30 November 14:40

      But your account is staying open?

    • SteveJ says:
      30 Nov30 November 15:38

      ACI are you trolling us?

    • Colin MacKinnon says:
      30 Nov30 November 15:40

      Now IHG is going to standard pricing, was thinking of moving my stash to AA miles – this might just prompt me!

      • Anna says:
        30 Nov30 November 15:46

        I cashed in a few for a B & Q voucher, just to test if it worked! But transfers would leave an electronic trail and you don’t want them sharing any info with other schemes you belong to.

    • Air Crash Investigator says:
      30 Nov30 November 16:06

      Account was the first thing to go. You all pretty much know what happened. Money-go-round and round… I can’t go into detail cause they have thrown some legal things in there. Will update at some point.

    • BP says:
      30 Nov30 November 16:13

      Glad I’ve been spending my points almost as quickly as I could earn them! Still got 200,000 left so hopefully I keep those.

    • Chrism20 says:
      30 Nov30 November 17:40

      Thats a new tactic/approach from IHG when closing accounts then as their normal approach is simply to send an email saying you are shut and CS won’t engage with you at whilst they refer you to Mr Lawyer.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        30 Nov30 November 21:54

        That’s the legal stuff obviously

        • Chrism20 says:
          1 Dec1 December 08:59

          Seriously doubt it and strongly suspect it’s BS.

          IHG just shut the accounts and when queried you get a brick wall from CS and directed to Lawyer who is some mad time zone and nigh on impossible to contact.

          They don’t engage in why and other than direct you to Lawyer they certainly don’t throw some legal stuff in there as suggested.

          There’s enough threads and posts about IHG closing accounts on the internet over various sites and blogs and they never divulge why even when it gets to Lawyer if you can actually make contact.

          Very odd that they have changed tactic all of a sudden imo.

  • flyforfun says:
    30 Nov30 November 15:00

    https://www.paul-uk.com/loyaltyapp

    Download an app to your phone that you can link a credit or debit card to so you can pay and load points in 1 swipe.
    As well as collecting points for £ spent, there is an hot drinks card that gets stamped too. They often have 3x points weeks and bonus food offers.

  • Christina says:
    30 Nov30 November 15:44

    #Top50

  • @mkcol says:
    30 Nov30 November 16:09

    The Pret Perks works fine even if you don’t have an iThing.
    You download the new QR code & save to your Google Pay wallet & simply scan from there: if you’ve got the subscription you can still use that for your “free” drink & if you make other purchases at the same time that scan counts towards your Perks too.

  • Char Char says:
    30 Nov30 November 16:39

    Out of all this NSI saga it seems that NSI were not the ones that had the main concern and it was Mr X who based on everything seems like Creation.

  • Rachel Robinson says:
    30 Nov30 November 17:01

    Love that this has now turned into a Line of Duty style hunt for Mr X. Where are Steve Arnott and Ted Hastings when you need them?

  • Anastasia Beaverhausen says:
    30 Nov30 November 17:26

    When Curve said “Carry just one card!” what they really meant was that all your real cards will get cancelled until a Curve card is all you have left.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Learn more on our About page.

VAA

Latest comments

Latest Forum Posts

Get 30,000 points bonus with American Express Platinum

Amex Gold

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.3 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

Get 20,000 bonus points and your first year free with American Express Gold

Amex Gold