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Amex retention bonus is back!
For those who are not familiar with the idea, if you call American Express’s customer service and “threaten” to cancel, sometimes they offer a retention bonus of points to keep you as a customer.
Given its ghastly annual fee, Amex tends to be quite generous to Platinum cardholders and has been offering up to 50,000 bonus points in the last year to persuade you to stay. I asked and got one last May, but being an early bird I didn’t get the biggest worm, as only 15,000 points was offered at that point.
Since a year has passed I tried again today, and after a couple of minutes of chitchat I cheekily asked if there’s any retention bonus in the system. The happy chap had a look at the computer and bang, I got 35,000 points!
That’s not a bad result. If you have an Amex Platinum card, you probably should try your luck as well.
Free 12-Month Mr & Mrs Smith GoldSmith Membership (Usually £400)
You probably have heard of Mr & Mrs Smith – Similar to Small Luxury Hotels they are a loose hotel alliance, or rather marketing platform for boutique hotels, with exceptionally strong presence in the UK and also good footprint in many other countries.
They have recently tied up with IHG, and many Mr & Mrs Smith hotels are now already bookable via IHG either with cash or points. If you hold a Vitality health insurance policy, you may qualify for up to 25% discount when booking their hotels.
Apart from their partnership with IHG, Mr & Mrs Smith actually has their own membership program:
- BlackSmith Free to join, 1% cashback on bookings and Smith Extras
- SilverSmith £100 annual fee, 2% cashback on bookings, Smith Extras and Priority Pass membership
- GoldSmith £400 annual fee, 3% cashback on bookings, Smith Extras, Priority Pass & Onda membership, room upgrade subject to availability and travel concierge service
Smith Extras is a complimentary add-on to your stay, which may be a welcome fruit platter, free breakfast, room upgrade or free set meals. SilverSmith and GoldSmith members may qualify for better Smith Extras at certain properties.
The Priority Pass membership offered doesn’t come with any free visits, which means you have to pay for each entry to airport lounges (£20 in the UK).
I’m not sure how the travel concierge or room upgrade works out in reality, but at the first look the GoldSmith benefits are quite underwhelming to me considering the whopping £400 annual fee.
But wait, didn’t I say free? Mr & Mrs Smith is running a promotion with American Express, where Centurion / Platinum cardmembers enjoy a free upgrade to GoldSmith and the remaining to SilverSmith. You can access the offer page here and enter the first 6 digits of your Amex card to see if you are eligible.
The thing is, it’s unclear what markets the offer is targeted at. The terms say that UK-issued cards are not eligible for the promotion and indeed my cards don’t work. However many of my friends tried their US- or China-issued cards and also no avail.
And after many trials and errors, I’ve found a BIN code – 371595 – which is eligible for the GoldSmith upgrade. You should be able to fill out your personal information on the next page to apply for your membership.
It may take a few minutes for the welcome email to arrive, and if not you could also try resetting your password which should also activate your account.
And here are the Smith Extras you can expect at certain UK hotels:
- London, Ham Yard Hotel – A cocktail each at the bar
- London, 11 Cadogan Gardens – Full English breakfast for the two
- London, The Franklin – £50 hotel credit
- London, The Portobello Hotel – A free room upgrade and bottle of hand sanitiser (!)
- Cornwall, St Mawes Hotel – A bottle of Prosecco and tickets to local attractions
- Cotwolds, Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa – Traditional afternoon tea for two
Remember that you can also book some of the hotels via IHG or even Amex FHR / Virtuoso, and here are some pros and cons:
- Amex FHR / Virtuoso Very limited selection of hotels; Priced at Best Flexible Rate so relatively expensive; Very good benefits (free breakfast / room upgrade / £100 hotel credit etc)
- IHG Good selection of hotels; Priced at Best Flexible Rate so relatively expensive; Smith Extras benefits; Earn & redeem IHG points
- Mr & Mrs Smith Direct Booking All hotels; Many (cheaper) rates available; Potentially better Smith Extras benefits thanks to GoldSmith
The membership is valid for 12 months. If you think you may set foot in one of the hotels in the near future, why not grab a free tier upgrade now?
How to Pay Your Utility Bill with Amex
As a point collector, it is in my greatest interest to put as much spend through credit card (and of course, ideally an Amex) as possible. So today let’s have a look at utility bills.
In the UK, we are free to choose whichever Gas & Electricity provider we want, although in my case the building uses communal heating so I can only choose one for electricity. The biggest factor when choosing surely is price, however being able to collect some points along the way is definitely a bonus.
Some providers only accept Direct Debit, whereas others let you pay with a credit card. Even better, the following providers are happy to take American Express:
- Bulb
- EDF Energy
- Ecotricity
- Green
- Igloo Energy
- Octopus Energy
- Orbit
- Outfox the Market
- OVO
- Spark Energy
Speaking for myself, I’ve been on Octopus Energy for three months and the experience has been quite good so far. I chose Octopus as a result of friends’ recommendation, and they have a pretty solid 4.8 rating on TrustPilot.
Should you be interested as well, please consider signing up using my referral link and we will both earn a bonus credit of £50 once your switch in complete.
Once your account is set up, change your Direct Debit payment amount to just £1 per month, so that you can pay the rest manually with a credit card.
Amex Cutting Tie with Shangri-La Golden Circle
Amex Platinum comes with substantial status benefits with certain hotel groups, which unfortunately has been shrinking over the last years. One more partner is biting the dust sadly.
As you can view on Amex’s page, the partnership is ending on April 1st. If you are an Amex Platinum cardholder and hasn’t linked your account yet, remember to do so by the end of March. Whether you have already linked your account or not, your Jade status should be valid until December 2021 at least, if not longer.
Shangri-la doesn’t have many properties in the UK or Europe, but if you ever visit Asia it offers decent choices, and Jade status comes with free breakfast and welcome amenity. Failing that, Jade offers 25% more value when you redeem points for dining, at the Shard London for example.
It’s a bigger disappointment than you think – Shangri-La Jade also enjoy reciprocal benefits with Taj Hotels and Singapore Airlines, which has been an indirect privilege for Amex Platinum cardholders.
Shop online to get the Amex Shop Small £5 credit
As we all know, Amex has launched the Shop Small campaign once again like in the summer and in previous years. It runs until 20th December and is a great way to save on your daily shopping.
But due to the current situation, it may be challenging for some to go outside and benefit from this offer. There is a workaround to this, although there’s no guarantee that it definitely works.
The thing is, some of the small shops have a website and support placing online orders. Depends on how the payment is processed, your purchase may trigger the £5 cashback offer as well.
Here is a list of such merchants, mentioned in the comments section of Headforpoints or reported by my friends:
- Silver UK – Jewellery seller
- Trouva – Clothing
- All Green – Gardening and environmental products
- Yard Sale Pizza – Pizza delivery
- Meat Me at Home – Butcher shop
- Reward Gateway – Employee benefits platform
As I mentioned earlier, these are past experiences and there’s no guarantee that your spend can still trigger the bonus, but you may wish to check it out by spending a small amount.
Jumeirah One double tier points & complimentary night enrolment offer
Jumeirah is a hotel group bases in the UAE. Maybe you haven’t heard of its name, but you must have seen their iconic “sailboat” hotel in Dubai: Burj Al Arab:
Jumeirah has three properties in London:
They also have a loyalty programme named Jumeirah One, which honestly isn’t super exciting. However, if you intend to book any Jumeirah hotels in the next month there’s a promotion worth noting:
- Booking dates: 1 November – 15 December
- Stay by: 30 September 2021
- All stays earn double tier points
You usually earn two tier points for each US dollar spent. With this offer you need an expense of $1,250 to reach Silver (5,000 points), which still isn’t cheap. However Silver tier comes with welcome amenity, free breakfast for two and 2pm late check-out.
Jumeirah One also has a long-running enrolment offer. New members earn a “complimentary one-night voucher” after the first eligible stay. It sounds very generous until you read the terms——
You must book a minimum three consecutive nights (or four nights at resort hotels) to use the voucher, at best flexible rate. So it’s not really a complimentary night, but more of a “Buy two get one free” discount voucher.
Anyway, the voucher may still save you some money if you stay at Jumeirah a fair bit. It’s valid for six months from the date of issue.
Royal Lancaster Hotel 40% off sale
Black Friday is coming in less than a month’s time – it’d be interesting to see how the hospitality sector responds this year, but I’m expecting to see some very strong offers.
And someone has decided to kick off early already. Royal Lancaster, a luxury five-star hotel near Paddington is running an early Black Friday deal in a couple of days:
- Opens 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th – 30th November
- Starts 6am and closes midnight
- 40% off executive rooms and suites
- Valid for stays through March 2021
- Free cancellation until 2pm on the day of arrival
Worth mentioning that the Landmark hotel shares the same owner so look out for similar deals. the Landmark is also on the Amex LHW £100-off deal list.
Marriott has extended its two promotions
The current Marriott’s global promotion, where you earn 2,500 points for each paid stay, has just been extended from 18 October to 10 November. So in theory you could earn 57,500 more points!
There’s an additional 5,000 points after the third stay. However no one has got it yet, so presumably it will be deposited when the promotion is over. If you haven’t registered yet, the link is here.
Besides this, there’s another amazing Marriott offer for some UK Amex Platinum cardholders – Spend £400, Get £400 back at select Marriott hotels in the UK and Europe.
The UK Hotel list is:
- JW Marriott Grosvenor House London
- The London EDITION
- Bvlgari Hotel, London
- W London – Leicester Square
- The Park Tower Knightsbridge, a Luxury Collection Hotel, London
- The Wellesley Knightsbridge, a Luxury Collection Hotel, London
- The Westbury Mayfair, a Luxury Collection Hotel, London
- The Langley, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Buckinghamshire
- Trump Turnberry, a Luxury Collection Resort, Scotland
The deadline was set to 23 November at the beginning, which was very short as you’d have only a bit more than a month to use it. It’s been extended to 19 December now, which is good. However I’m not sure how relaxed travel restrictions will be in two month’s time.