Donate $5 and Earn 2000 Hilton Points & 250 Delta Miles
If you’ve ever been to the US, you must have heard of the name Lyft. Lyft is a major competitor to Uber in North America, and it has partnered with several frequent traveller programs which allows you to earn points or miles when you ride.
They have just launched a Lyft Up initiative to help those who can’t afford to travel to vaccination centres in the US. Any Lyft members can make a donation, and even better it comes with returns:
- 2000 Hilton points, and
- 250 Delta Skymiles (limit to first 15,000 members only)
The minimum donation amount is $5, and the offer runs until May 31. Even if you don’t travel with Delta, 2000 Hilton points are worth around $10 already.
To participate, you’ll need to link Lyft to your Hilton and Delta accounts first. A mobile phone number is needed to create or login to your Lyft account, and my UK number works fine.
Remember to add a credit card to the wallet before proceeding to the donation page.
It’s unclear how much time it takes for the points to post. But anyway, it may be worth spending a few minutes and $5 to bag the some points and miles.
How to Change Your BA 50%-off Avios Tickets
The BA award ticket sale last October had up to 50% off on a lot of long-haul routes, and many of us took a punt at it. Unsurprisingly many of these flights have been cancelled (or will be), and it’s important to know what your rights are under such circumstances.
[Refund]
If you don’t mind losing the very good deal, you can of course just cancel the trip and ask for a refund.
Note that there’s still no refund option online and you must call. From my personal experience though, the refund comes through very quickly.
[Future Travel Voucher]
When your flight is cancelled, besides accepting a refund they’ll also push you to accept a Future Travel Voucher, or FTV.
Although it may make sense to accept one on few occasions, don’t do it if it’s a ticket from last year’s sale. An FTV is basically a voucher that carries all values of your previous ticket, which may include Avios, taxes and surcharges, seat selection fee etc.
It will act as part-payment towards your future booking. It means, if you accept a FTV and go on making a new booking, you’ll end up paying the current (full) price.
[Rebooking Online]
This is the best and most convenient option. Simply login to BA’s website and then rebook by selecting a new date:
You cannot change the origin or destination of your trip, however you won’t need to pay any fare difference either. You should be able to choose any flight on sale, as long as there are (reward) seats available.
[Rebooking over Phone]
It appears that online rebooking only works for direct flights though. If your flight has stop(s), or the trick above doesn’t work for you whatsoever, you must call BA’s customer service to rebook.
The biggest limitation here is, your trip must start by the original booking date + 365 days. As last year’s sale was in October, your trip will have to take place in October 2021 at the latest. It seems to be a restriction that cannot be bypassed if you rebook via the customer service.
My JER-LHR-HKG flight next week has been cancelled, and I called this morning to change my flight. As the current situation stands, I’m hoping to rebook to as far in the future as possible, which is mid October.
However, the agent from You First told me that BA will only fly to LGW from Jersey in October, which obviously is very inconvenient for my connecting flight to Hong Kong. I inquired about dropping the first leg so that I could start my trip in LHR instead, and was quoted £148 fare difference due to taxes.
I didn’t just give up and asked for a word with the supervisor. Another 15 minutes and the same agent came back telling me that their manager has agreed to move my flight and waive the charge, result! Unfortunately the trip still needs to take place by mid October or I’ll have to pay full Avios.
Hope my tips help.
Earn Freebies via Topcashback
Topcashback is a great way to earn rebate on your day-to-day online purchases. And if you are too bored of the lockdown, you could also spend some time to earn free cashback without spending anything.
And here are some examples:
Pick My Postcode
55p cashback for signing up
Experian
£4 cashback for creating a free account
20Cogs
£1.2 cashback for signing up
Survery Spotter
60p cashback for completing the first survey
Quote Searcher
Up to £3.5 quote for performing an insurance quote
Sage
£5.5 cashback for Business Cloud Accounting free trial
Note that the offers are subject to change. If you don’t have a Topcashback account yet, please consider using my referral link – you could earn up to £5 bonus cashback or gift voucher when there are campaigns.
IHG Fast Track – 5 Nights to Platinum
IHG has followed suit in the status match game, although it works a bit differently compared to Hilton and Marriott.
You need to sign up on this page.
- Register by August 31
- You have 90 days to complete the challenge
- Stay 2 nights to earn Gold status and 5 nights to earn Platinum
- The status is valid through 2021 and 2022
The challenge is open to everyone – you don’t need any qualification, nor any elite status from another hotel program. Only paid stays count though.
Don’t be too excited – IHG Platinum can be easily earned through various other routes already. You can pay $200 or 40,000 points to purchase an Ambassador membership, which comes with Platinum status. Spire Elite members can also gift Platinum status to someone.
And it doesn’t entitle you to any guaranteed benefits, although you could usually expect one-level room upgrade and 2pm late check-out for your stays.
If you intend to participate, remember to register to the IHG global promotion which earns you 2,000 bonus points for every two nights stayed by the end of March.
10% off and Virgin Points on Morrisons Groceries
A few offers just started circulating for grocery shopping in Morrisons – and even better, they would actually work as a nice discount for a great deal of other retailers too.
First up is American Express. Some of us have received a 10% cashback offer on the cards:
Others have received a variant of 7% instead. The minimum spend is £30 and the good thing is it’s valid every time until April 7.
For those who didn’t qualify for the offer or without an Amex, you can benefit equally through Airtime. They’ve got (almost) the same offer:
With some people receiving 10% and the others 7%. Remember that Airtime takes much longer to pay out though and it can only be redeemed against your mobile phone bills.
Even better, either of them can stack with the in-store offer on Virgin Shops Away, which should be another 6 or 8 points per £1 on your spend.
Last but not least, despite what the terms might say, you’ll earn cashback and bonus points on gift card purchase as well, or at least it’s how it worked previously. So even if you don’t shop at Morrisons, you may still want to stop by and grab a few Amazon, Uber, John Lewis (Waitrose) or One4all gift cards .
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.
iPrefer Hotels Elite Status after One stay
Preferred Hotels is a less-known hotel alliance and we’ve written about their fast track offer last year. There is a new incentive for Mastercard holders.
You can access the offer here.
- Eligible payment cards include Mastercard World, World Elite and Black
- Valid for bookings through 2021
- Stay by March 31, 2022
- Use code MKTMPE when you book, and enjoy
- 25% off for a 4-night stay
- iPrefer Elite status after the stay
There are three participating hotels in the UK:
- THE PELHAM LONDON – STARHOTELS COLLEZIONE
- EDGBASTON PARK HOTEL & CONFERENCE CENTRE
- THE FITZWILLIAM HOTEL BELFAST
Upon enrolment all iPrefer members can benefit from early check-in, late check-out and room upgrade subject to availability. Elite members earn more points and also receive welcome amenity for their stays in addition.
Flash Sale – 20% off Ascott Hotel Points
If you have any longer-stay planned in the near future, you may want to consider buying some points in Ascott’s newest sale.
The offer page is here. Until March 4th, you can get a 25% bonus when buying any amount of Ascott points, which is equivalent to 20% discount.
Ascott has a similar redemption system to Accor – points have a fixed value when redeeming for hotel stays, which is the same as to when you buy them. So buying points now essentially means a 20% discount on your future Ascott hotel stays, which is on top of any promotional rate hotels already offer on Ascott’s booking portal.
Remember that there was a 50%-off sale last year, and we don’t know whether or when it’s going to return. Ascott owns many serviced apartments around the world, with a few in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
You can also sign up to Ascott Rewards via a special link, which grants you instant Platinum status with them.