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Complimentary Avis President’s Club membership for Mastercard members
Hertz, Avis and Europcar all have different partnerships with hotel groups etc that offer elite status and rent discounts. If you are a customer of Avis, there is now a such chance for free status elevation.
The offer which is through an agreement with Mastercard can be accessed here.
- Mastercard Black and World Elite cardholders receive complimentary President’s Club membership
- Mastercard Platinum, Gold and World or Business cardholders receive complimentary Preferred membership
Use the link on the page and the respective passcode shown to sign up. There doesn’t appear to be any verification though, unless I have missed something.
(EDIT: you do need to link your account with a Mastercard although I don’t know if they verify the card type too. If you have an Amex card, try the passcode Centurion instead.)
I don’t drive myself so can’t really comment on how useful the status would be. But from what I understand Preferred is a free scheme which anyone can sign up to. President’s Club seems to be the sweet spot as you can expect a single or double upgrade at least.
Morrisons deal is back – heavy discount on Amazon / Uber / Waitrose gift cards!
Earlier this year Morrisons launched a massive campaign which offered cashback incentives across many platforms. The deal appears to be back now which can be very ludicrous!
I have the following offers on my cards / accounts:
- Airtime: 7% cashback on £30+, or 1% otherwise (end date unclear)
- Virgin Shops Aways Instore: 6 points / £1 (ends 15/09)
- MBNA: 15% cashback, max £10 (ends 21/09)
- Virgin Atlantic Credit Card: 10% cashback on £30+, or 1% otherwise (ends 25/08)
The best part is you can double dip or even triple dip on these offers. Last time I took advantage of the VA credit card, Airtime and Shops Aways offers, which given the current conditions equates to 21% cashback if you value Virgin points at 0.7p.
Do I buy any grocery at Morrisons? No, but Morrisons sells gift cards of other merchants too, including:
- Amazon
- Uber / Uber Eats
- John Lewis / Waitrose
- One4all
…and so on. And purchases of such gift cards trigger all the aforementioned offers too, so enjoy!
Free vouchers from Amazon Music Unlimited and Mastercard
A couple of more offers from Amazon today.
First up is a new incentive for joining Amazon Music Unlimited. If you are eligible (haven’t signed up to the Unlimited service recently), you are entitled to a £5 Amazon voucher if signing up to a 30-day free trial. The offer ends August 4, and remember to cancel your subscription if you don’t want to pay after 30 days.
And a joint offer from Amazon and Mastercard. If eligible you’ll receive a £10 promotional voucher once you’ve switched your 1-click setting to a Mastercard. There’s no code needed and it’ll apply to your next purchase automatically.
Enjoy room upgrade, breakfast, $25 credit and more with Visa Luxury Hotel Collection
As a frequent traveller I’m sure you have heard of Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Impresario and Hyatt Prive etc. They are all dedicated VIP hotel booking programs which provide special channels for you to book high-end hotels with additional benefits.
However, these programs are not open to everyone – Amex FHR requires you to have an Amex Platinum or Centurion card, and for the others you must book via a qualified travel agent which is a bit of a hassle. Also such hotels aren’t usually cheap.
There is actually an alternative provided by Visa, which is much more widely accessible. The program is called Visa Luxury Hotel Collection, and you could try it out here.
You can expect the following benefits when booking via VLHC:
- Free breakfast daily
- $25 in hotel credit per stay
- Free wi-fi
- Room upgrade subject to availability
- 3pm late checkout subject to availability
They are not as good as FHR, since the credit is only $25 (v.s. $100), and late checkout is not guaranteed. VLHC also offers Best Rate Guarantee which is currently suspended – the rate usually is just the Best Flexible Rate though so I doubt you’ll need it.
First of all, as long as you have a Visa card you should be able to book, unlike Amex FHR. Although VLHC is supposed to be reserved for Visa premium cardholders, I tried my pleb Barclays debit card and it worked.
Secondly, VLHC covers many hotels that are relatively cheaper. Have a look at some hotels in London:
- The May Fair / £217
- The Stratford Hotel / £135
- Andaz London Liverpool Street / £199
- Conrad London St James / £225
You don’t typically see London FHR hotels going for under £300. You should always check all portals though as the hotel may offer significantly lower rate for booking direct (albeit without breakfast and $25 credit).
The main sweet spots are in Asia. Some Conrad / InterContinental / Hyatt hotels in China can be had for sub-£100, and if you head to Indonesia and Thailand, even under £50. These hotels are way too cheap to be placed in FHR, Impresario, LuxLife or Prive, thus booking a one-night stay with VLHC represents true value especially if you don’t have elite status with the hotel chain.
Similar to FHR, VLHC also runs complimentary-night offers. Some the current offers include:
- Shangri-la the Shard, London / Complimentary 4th night
- Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona / Complimentary 3rd night
- Park Hyatt, New York / Complimentary 3rd night
- Shangri-la, Singapore / Complimentary 3rd night
Compared to FHR, VLHC doesn’t provide as substantial benefits if you already hold elite status with the hotel chain. However, if you don’t have the elite status, have no access to FHR or are travelling in Asia, it can still provide you with some good value.
NEW: You can now prepay Amex FHR bookings
Amex has recently added a new feature to its travel services quietly: you can now prepay your FHR bookings. You will see both options appear when attempting to make an FHR reservation:
Historically Amex doesn’t charge you at all and you just pay at hotel checkout. So what’s point of prepaying for the stay? There can be two possible reasons:
- The payment is taken by Amex Travel, which means if you hold an Amex Gold card at the same time, paying with it earns you triple membership rewards points
- It will also trigger any Amex Travel cashback offers your card may have
A friend of mine has just booked an FHR hotel and prepaid, and he received an email instantly confirming that the current Amex Travel £50 off £200 offer has been triggered.
One thing I’m a bit sceptical is, are such bookings still treated as direct and earn points etc with the hotel’s loyalty program? Hopefully the answer is yes, but we will find out. If you are booking an independent hotel however, it doesn’t make any difference.
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.
Instant Indulged upgrade with Small Luxury Hotels
Small Luxury Hotels, or SLH, is yet another boutique hotels group with a decent spread worldwide. You may have heard the name from its connection with the Hyatt hotels that started a couple of years ago.
SLH has its own loyalty program as well, and members can enjoy some benefits when booking direct:
- Invited entry level with complimentary wi-fi, early check-in and late check-out upon request
- Inspired four nights per annum, with complimentary breakfast and room upgrade subject to availability thrown in
- Indulged thirteen nights per annum, with a free night voucher upon attaining status and invitation-only events
SLH runs quite a few promotions in collaboration with different organisation that gift you Inspired status straightaway without meeting the stay requirement. Even better, there’s even a chance for instant upgrade to Indulged, their top-level status.
You could view the offer page here. Through this offer, HSBC Jade members can enjoy a complimentary upgrade to Indulged courtesy of a special arrangement. HSBC Jade is a semi-secretive client tier within the bank, and you won’t get in unless you are very wealthy. However, this offer doesn’t require any validation – simply login or create a new account on the page, and the upgrade should take effect right away.
It worked for me briefly, and then dropped to Inspired a few days later 🤷♂️ To be fair, the stay benefits between Inspired and Indulged look almost identical.
Remember that you can also book SLH hotels through Hyatt, difference being:
- Not all SLH hotels are bookable through Hyatt
- Only Best Flexible Rate is available on Hyatt, whereas many discount rates on SLH
- Earn Hyatt points, or $300 voucher for every 12 nights with SLH
- Stay benefits are pretty much the same on paper, however I’d expect Indulged / Globalist members fare better with regards to room upgrade
Related Read:
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?