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My review of the Amex Centurion Lounge, Stockholm
American Express has only two Centurion lounges in Europe, one in London and the other, quite surprisingly, in Stockholm. I’m intrigued by the reasoning behind, and as I’m flying from Stockholm I get to try it out.
Stockholm ARN is also one of the airports where Amex Platinum cardholders are entitled to security fast track. They have recently upgraded the screening technology, so you can carry large-volume liquid and don’t have to remove anything from your bag, which is a game changer. Hope all airports follow suit as soon as possible!
As you can tell from its strange name, it is a pop-up lounge rather than a conventional one. The formal lounge is still under construction so the pop-up is just a temporary alternative. If I remember correctly the pop-up was also recently relocated due to a dispute with the airport operator.
It is located at Pier F before border control.
The lounge look quite… temporary:
Thoughtful of them to have established a private section for Centurion members though:
It looks more of a restaurant than an airport lounge:
A small work zone:
Newspapers appear to be all in Swedish:
It’s a-la-carte dining only.
“Crayfish” caught my eyes immediately and I ordered it without a second of hesitation. However, it came out totally different to what I had expected, err something similar to the Italian bruschetta?
It’s served cold and can’t say that I’m impressed. Luckily I’m not hungry so the soup and coffee will do.
If you are in a hurry there are takeaway bags in the fridge by the entrance. I didn’t look inside but my bet is on sandwiches.
As it’s just a temporary lounge it would not be fair to judge it by the normal standard. There are places to sit, hot food and drinks to order, which is adequate I suppose.
Instant GHA Titanium status with Mastercard
GHA has a long-term partnership with Mastercard, allowing cardholders in Asia Pacific for an instant status match. Geographically it might not fit the majority of our audience, but it’s worth a refresher.
If you have a Mastercard World Elite issued in Asia Pacific, you can claim GHA Titanium status by registering at the Mastercard redemption portal. Note that they now verify full card number, expiry date and CVV so you must have a valid card, although they don’t run a name check.
Despite that I have an eligible card, this approach doesn’t work as I couldn’t see the GHA match offer in my account. There’s an alternative though – you could register with Mastercard Travel & Lifestyle Services, link the card and email [email protected] for a manual match.
After two days I received a response along with a link to activate my Titanium status, which came through and is valid till the end of 2025!
I don’t stay at GHA hotels often at all, but when I do the double upgrade and 4pm late checkout are very useful.
Use BA’s companion voucher on Iberia flights
I was never a fan of the British Airways Premium Plus Amex card, mainly because I was, for the most time, a solo traveller. Its companion voucher went through a major overhaul in 2022 though which made it much more appealing, and I will take a close look it today.
The Travel Together Ticket issued by the Chase British Airways Visa Signature card is, as far as I know, exactly the same, so the following discussions hold for both.
To earn the companion voucher, you need to spend £10,000 in a card year. The voucher is issued right after you’ve met the spending criteria, and valid for two years from that date.
- Applies to redemption tickets on BA, EI and IB metal
- The cardholder must travel
- The origin can be anywhere
- Works on one-way, return and open-jaw itineraries
- Works on all cabin classes
- Save 50% in Avios for one or two persons
- Full taxes and charges are still payable
There are two major improvements: firstly, solo travellers can use it for 50% discount; secondly, it’s extended to Iberia and Aer Lingus flights too.
Unfortunately due to the constant efforts of BA to devalue Avios, long-haul redemptions are, very often, no longer very good in value even when the voucher is applied. For short-haul redemptions the math works out better, but in absolute terms you aren’t saving a lot.
The best way to use this voucher lies with Iberia, as they have a very generous redemption chart.
A one-way flight from Madrid to New York, in business class, costs only 34,000 Avios. For South America it’s 42,500 or 51,000 Avios. This is incredibly cheap compared to BA.
Taxes and fees are also very reasonable. For Madrid – Buenos Aires return it costs 102,000 Avios + £236.30 – superb value! Note that the chart above is for off-peak dates, and it will cost more in peak season.
With the companion voucher applied, departing from Madrid in off-peak season, you will pay the following figures for a return trip per person:
- New York – 34,000 Avios + £215.60
- Bogota – 42,500 Avios + £224.20
- Buenos Aires – 51,000 Avios + £236.30
Note that you need to book on ba.com rather than iberia.com to use the voucher. You could add your positioning flight to / from Madrid in the same booking with the 50% discount applied too. However:
- Don’t add London – Madrid to the same booking, otherwise it incurs the hefty APD
- Don’t mix with BA flights, otherwise it increases the cost significantly
My recommendation is to book e.g. Madrid – New York – Madrid – London using the voucher, and then sort out London – Madrid separately. Here’s my trip to Bogota:
It costs 48,875 Avios + £244. As it’s an open-jaw booking, it’s not possible to do it online – confirm online that there’s availability and then call BA to book it, mentioning that you want to use the companion voucher.
My review of the Amex Centurion Lounge, Buenos Aires
Having finished my trip in Buenos Aires I am making my way to Santiago. There are two airports in the city – AEP, which is rather central, mainly focuses on domestic and short-haul international flights, whereas more flights depart from the remote EZE. The time difference to travel to by car though isn’t significant, so I chose EZE which has a more friendly departure time.
All international-bound passengers need to clear emigration first before arriving into the waiting hall. Terminal A and B are linked, so you should be access any lounges no matter what your gate is.
There is a Star Alliance lounge near Gate 9 which is open to Priority Pass members. Dragonpass on the other hand works with VIP Club – confusingly it has the Visa Signature brand, but when I try to enter with one (Chase Sapphire Preferred) it’s not accepted.
Surprisingly there’s an Amex Centurion Lounge as well near Gate 15. Follow the sign upstairs and you’ll see the familiar logo.
It’s opposite to the Aerolineas Argentinas Lounge (Skyteam).
Entering the lounge you’ll first come across the working area.
If you’ve been to a Centurion lounge before the living wall and wall of suitcases shouldn’t be new to you.
Moving on there’s the station for snacks and drinks with a posh Nespresso machine. There are some sandwich for grab-to-go.
Dining area:
There’s a small salad buffet and a bar.
You can help yourselves to all the alfajors in the fridge, an Argentinian dessert specialty.
The American Express Centurion Lounge at Santiago airport is very new and spacious with all the facilities you need to either work or rest. However, there’s no hot food provided, so don’t expect to have a nice meal here before your flight.
Great deal: complimentary 3rd night with Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts and The Hotel Collection
If you hold an Amex Platinum or Gold card, there are some pretty good hotel deals to be had with their exclusive preferred programs.
You can refer to the promotion page here, which lists the hotels that currently offer a special deal. In my opinion the best sweet spot is Complimentary 3rd Night, as it gives you 33% discount on the best flexible rate in addition to the benefits.
Fine Hotels & Resorts – for Platinum cardholders, benefits include free breakfast, $100 credit, room upgrade early check-in and late check-out.
- InterContinental Osaka
- Conrad Seoul
- Capella Bangkok
- Rosewood Bangkok
- The Murray Hong Kong
- Capella Shanghai
- Four Seasons Hotel Shenzhen
- The Langham Melbourne
- Corinthia London
- Conrad Dublin
- Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris
- Regent Berlin
- Mandarin Oriental, Munich
- InterContinental Porto – Palacio das Cardosas
- Hospes Infante Sagres Porto
- Andaz Prague
- Raffles Istanbul
The Hotel Collection – for Platinum and Gold cardholders, two-night minimum stay required, benefits include $100 credit and room upgrade.
- The Strings by InterContinental Tokyo
- NH Collection Venezia Murano Villa
- NH Collection Venice Grand Hotel Palazzo Dei Dogi
- Fairmont Windsor Park
The lists above are not exhaustive. Although the promotion page is from Amex UK, the offer should be global – I checked with my U.S. card account and could see the same discounts.
Claim free Hertz President’s Circle status
We wrote about an Avis promotion in 2021, in which you can claim an instant upgrade to their President’s Club status courtesy of the Mastercard partnership. There is a similar route for Hertz as well.
There are two offers to join Hertz President’s Circle:
- Strawberry Hotels Platinum members
- American Express holders of select U.S. cards
Just like the Avis offer, there isn’t any eligibility check and you can simply claim the upgrade by signing up using the link. Hertz President’s Circle benefits include free second driver, guaranteed one-level upgrade and 50% bonus points.
My spending strategy in Argentina under the new foreign tourist dollar policy
Argentina is a great country to visit, but unfortunately they’ve been experiencing extortionate inflation over the last decade. Spending money there as a foreign tourist becomes unnecessarily complicated as a consequence, as there’s an official exchange rate that is almost irrelevant, and another “blue dollar rate” at which people actually exchange currencies.
Luckily the Argentinian government has finally decided to do something. They introduced a thing called Foreign Tourist Dollar this year, which allows credit cards issued in countries other than Argentina to trade at a preferential rate, which is great news!
[How it works]
Per the official announcement, only Visa and Mastercard are mentioned in the new deals. However from my personal experiments, as well as online reports, American Express works the same way too. I’m not sure how other credit cards such as Discover and Union Pay work, but I hope you have at least one of the three cards above.
They work slightly differently though:
- Visa transactions post at the preferential MEP rate immediately
- Mastercard / Amex transactions post at the official rate initially, and an adjusted refund posts a few days later (5-10 days)
I noticed transactions in Argentina took longer to process too. Under normal circumstances it’s about two days before a transaction becomes confirmed from pending for me, but in this case it’s about four days for the ones I made in Argentina.
Although there’s no fundamental difference between the three card issuers, some might prefer to use a Visa card as it tracks the correct amount sooner.
[What the rates are]
MEP rate is already reflected in Visa’s and Mastercard’s exchange rate calculator. I couldn’t find a calculator for Amex.
I made quite a few purchases with all three cards and got the same exchange rate: 1 USD = 366 ARS. All transactions were made on the same day (April 4th, 2023).
Meanwhile, Blue Dollar rate or the black market rate is 385, which is what you get for exchanging mint $50 / $100 bills at the local Cambios. Double check the rate they offer though, as one attempted to fool me with a very poor 300 quoting the festive period (Easter holiday).
So the MEP rate is still about 5% worse than the Blue Dollar rate.
- Exchanging cash is still the cheapest deal, but you’ll have to carry bricks of money around in your bag! That said, personally I found Buenos Aires to be rather safe.
- Swiping the plastics on the other hand is much more convenient and safer, and if you have a rewards credit card it may partially or even fully offset the 5% loss
I used credit cards as much as I could but also had some cash with me just in case. Credit cards are welcome at most tourist attractions and restaurants. Remember that it’s a very cheap country (a very good meal costs $15~$20 per head), so don’t over exchange at the beginning.
I paid everything with my US-issued credit cards, but I assume cards from other countries work in a similar way.
[Hotels]
On the other hand, it is very important to understand that you should never pay cash at a hotel! Like many other South American countries, foreign tourists are exempt of a tax that would otherwise be payable by local residents. In Argentina the tax rate is as much as 21%!
In addition to being a non-resident, you have to settle your accommodation bill with a foreign credit card, i.e. you mustn’t pay cash. You can either pay cash for that 5% exchange rate advantage, or pay by card to save the 21% VAT – we are not looking at advanced mathematics here…
Check your final bill before you pay, as not all hotels waive the tax automatically. I stayed at two hotels – one was very chill about it, whereas the other one asked me to fill out a form, carried out some identity checks before they removed the charge from my invoice.
And it brings another interesting topic. Hotels in Argentina, at least the better ones, tend to be priced at USD. However, you will be billed in local currency exchanged at the official rate.
That means in fact you pay much less than what the price tag suggests. For example, if a hotel is priced at $100, you will pay 100 * 215 (official FX) = 21500 ARS at checkout. But if you use a foreign card that would actually convert to 21500 / 366 (MEP) = $58.7 only.
In short, you only pay around 59% of what the hotel asks, so Argentina turns out to be even cheaper than what we had thought 🙂
Final tip: use Uber or Cabify in Buenos Aires, as I tried the local taxi once and the meter was twice as expensive! Despite all this money chaos, Buenos Aires is an amazing city and I definitely recommend you visiting.
How to book LATAM flight with Avios
LATAM left Oneworld in 2020, which was a blow to the alliance as it was the only airline they had in South America. In 2018 I few to Peru on a cheap LATAM business class ticket which helped me earn BA Gold status, and I also redeemed Avios for some domestic trip which would otherwise be more expensive.
Fortunately, LATAM maintains its ties with most of its alliance partners except American Airlines. You can still earn Avios when travelling with LATAM if crediting the flight to BA, although you won’t earn tier points and BA elite benefits don’t apply.
More importantly, we didn’t lose the ability to redeem Avios on LATAM flights. You can do it with either BA or Iberia, and they charge the same:
Here are the catches:
- You can redeem LATAM tickets online with Iberia, however they are non-changeable and non refundable
- You cannot redeem LATAM tickets online with BA, and intra-continent economy class tickets don’t come with baggage allowance
If you are very certain about your trip, it’s better to book your trip on Iberia’s website. It’s hassle free and you are guaranteed one-piece baggage allowance when travelling in economy.
However, for the peace of mind I’d say flexibility is very important under most circumstances, so I’d rather book with BA and you can change / cancel for the standard £35 fee. You can check availability on Iberia’s website first and then phone BAEC’s hotline, but be prepared for a long call. Many of the agents aren’t well trained or familiar with the LATAM procedure, and even if they are issuing the ticket can still take quite some time.
Once the ticket is issued, you can manage your booking on LATAM’s website but it requires their own PNR. The quickest way to figure it out, from my experience, is by messaging @Latam_Chile on Twitter with your itinerary details. They are very helpful and prompt.
A final non-Avios-related tip for those who hold an US-issued American Express card: you might want to check the ticket price on Amex Travel too. It turns out LATAM is an Amex Insider Fares partner so you can sometimes get preferential rates:
In my case, the ticket from Buenos Aires to Santiago is more than 50% cheaper on Amex Travel for the Easter holiday period, as long as you have enough Membership Rewards points to pay for it. It also comes with free seat selection and one-piece baggage allowance.