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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.
IHG Ambassador free night enrolment offer extended, Creation 5,000 bonus points
We wrote about the very impressive Ambassador enrolment offer back in July, and this offer has just been extended.

As you can see in the programme’s terms and conditions, the offer’s deadline is now 31 December, as opposed to the original date of 15 November.
This is great news to some – if you are an existing Ambassador member, it’s only possible to renew within two months of the expiry date. It means, if your membership is set to expire in February 2021, you will be able to benefit from this offer now. Unfortunately mine ends September next year so they need to extend much further!
As I’ve mentioned in the intro, IHG Ambassador is great programme and it’s sensible to join even if you are staying at an InterContinental hotel just once. With this free night offer on top, I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase or renew my membership.
On a separate note but still IHG related – many UK Creation IHG card holders have received an email today – between 1 November and 15 December, you’ll be awarded 5,000 bonus points on your first stay at any IHG hotel globally. You need to pay with your Creation IHG credit card (whether Premium or not).
It’s a decent bonus points offer, and doesn’t appear to be targeted.
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.
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:
- Hotel Kamp, Helsinki (Nordic Choice)
- Royal Monceau Raffles, Paris (Accor)
- Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, Hamburg (Accor)
- Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin (GHA)
- Gran Melia Fenix, Madrid (Melia)
- Gran Melia Colon, Seville (Melia)
- Gran Melia Palacio de Isora, Tenerife (Melia)
- ME Ibiza, Ibiza (Melia)
- 7Pines Kempinski, Ibiza (GHA)
- Gran Melia Hotel de Mar, Mallorca (Melia)
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.
Radisson Hotels 3-for-2 sale in Asia Pacific
Radisson Hotels has launched a pretty good 3-for-2 sale in Asia Pacific. I know most people can’t really travel there at the moment, but this promotion has a long lifespan so you may still find it useful.

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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