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Double dip on the Amex Leading Hotels of the World offer

American Express has added quite a few hotel offers recently, including Marriott, Hilton and IHG. I have very happily saved all of them, but today I’d like to talk about a different hotel group.

You may have this offer appearing on your card account:

Maybe you’ve never heard of the name Leading Hotels of the World, but don’t just close the tab yet! Similar to GHA Discovery or Small Luxury Hotels, LHW is a soft-branded hotel alliance for high-end independent hotels, therefore you can expect some very good properties here.

The full list of participating hotels is here, covering UK and some European countries. Interestingly, the following hotels are affiliated with another hotel group too:

So you could book via the respective group, enjoy elite benefits and earn points, and also get the Amex cashback!

You must ensure that you get charged directly by the hotel though, not by the hotel group or any third-party aggregator. If you pay at check-out it’s definitely fine (no matter through what website you booked), but for prepaid rates you should be careful – I vaguely remember that my Melia booking was charged by the group instead of hotel once, but I may be wrong.

Has Amex Platinum increased their retention offer?

When you attempt to cancel a credit card, especially one with a high annual fee, they will sometimes offer you a retention offer to keep the card.

American Express is known to have marks on your card account. If the agent tries to start the cancellation process, they will see a retention offer right away, if available.

A few months back, it’s widely reported that Amex Platinum cardholders were offered an offer of 15,000 or 20,000 points when called to cancel. I myself was offered 15,000 points as well, which I happily accepted 🙂

However, it appears that Amex has decided that the incentive was not strong enough. Two readers called to cancel recently, and received 30,000 / 40,000 points respectively. This is a 100% increase compared to the last batch.

If you hold the UK Amex Platinum card, feel free to call and make the inquiry, and there may be a nice surprise awaiting!

The Amex airport and lounge benefits that you don’t know of

American Express Platinum is one of the most premium credit card product out there which is publicly available. One benefit that many people value most is airport lounge access.

Amex has a dedicated webpage listing all participating lounges. The mostly known and used ones are probably Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, and Centurion lounges. However, this list isn’t really exhaustive, so I’ll list a few more options which you may find useful. The list blow is not limited to airport lounges, but also other ones plus fast track services.

Obviously all benefits are applicable to the Centurion card as well, if not at all enhanced.

[United States]

Plaza Premium is one of the major lounge partners with American Express. What you probably don’t know however, is that they operate most of Virgin Atlantic’s clubhouses. Actually all five clubhouses overseas (except the London flagship) are operated by Plaza Premium:

  • New York JFK
  • Boston
  • Washington DC
  • San Francisco
  • Johannesburg

You don’t need to be flying with Virgin Atlantic or Delta, and can bring one guest.

I went to the London Clubhouse recently which was swarmed with Delta passengers and it wasn’t the nicest experience one could expect. I was at the Boston one a few years back (when it was still operated by Virgin itself) and it was pleasant.

Note that Flyertalk has reported frequent access restrictions, which is unsurprising given how many Amex Platinum cardholders there are in the US.

[United Kingdom]

If you hold Amex Centurion or Business Platinum, you could use fast track security when departing from London Heathrow. Note that it doesn’t apply to personal Platinum cardholders.

You could also use the Business Premier lounges when travelling on Eurostar. It applies to all lounges across the Eurostar network, not just in the UK.

[Germany]

When flying Lufthansa, Swiss or Austria, Amex Platinum cardholders could use the Lufthansa business lounge regardless of the class of travel, or Senator lounge when flying business class; and Centurion cardholders could use the first class lounge.

The benefit was trialled at Munich and Frankfurt initially, and now extended to many global locations including Berlin, London, Paris, Milan, Dubai, New York and Boston.

According to Wikipedia, Centurion cardholders enjoy complimentary access to Deutsche-Bahn first class lounges when travelling by train.

[Canada]

Pearson Priority Security Lane (fast track) at Toronto Pearson Airport’s Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.

[Belgium]

Fast lane is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at Brussels airport.

[Austria]

Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at Vienna airport.

[Italy]

Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at the following airports:

  • Rome / FCO
  • Milan / MXP
  • Milan / LIN
  • Naples / NAP
  • Turin / TRN
  • Palermo / PMO
  • Catania / CTA

[Spain]

Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at any AENA airports. The exhaustive list is here, which includes many, if not all Spanish airports, such as:

  • Madrid
  • Barcelona
  • Seville
  • Valencia
  • Ibiza
  • Palma de Mallorca
  • Gran Canaria
  • Tenerife

Instructions say you must generate a QR code first via the Amex Experiences app. However, anecdotes suggest you can also show your (non-Spain-issued) card for the staff to take down the details manually.

[Scandinavia]

Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at the following airports:

  • Stockholm / ARN Terminal 2 & 5
  • Gothenburg / GOT
  • Malmo / MMX
  • Helsinki / HEL

[Australia]

Platinum / Centurion cardholders can access Virgin Australian domestic lounges with one guest with a same-day departing flight.

Note that some of these benefits may be limited to cards issued by certain countries only. For example, the Eurostar benefit is limited to UK- and France-issued cards, and the staff at St Pancras do always check.

Buy discounted Amazon Gift Card with Amex Shop Small

Shop Small is a promotion that American Express runs regularly (usually once in year) in some countries to encourage small merchants to accept their cards. There is a special edition going on until September 13th as a welcome back offer now that shops are opening again.

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Instant Ascott Platinum for Amex Platinum cardholders

Yesterday we spoke about the ludicrous buy points promotion from the Ascott group. Today I’d like to give an update on their membership tiers and status match programme.

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