Tesco £5 off £50 spend, Amazon hidden gifts
Topcashback has a low-key feature called In-Store Cashback. Instead of making the purchase online, you could pre-register your bank card, purchase in the shop and still receive cashback. However, merchants’ participation in this programme is very limited so it’s not got much exposure.
There is an interesting new offer released today. Between 26 October and 1 November, you are awarded a £5 rebate on one Tesco in-store purchase of £50 or more. Quite handy if you do you usual grocery shopping at Tesco.
Remember that you need to register you card to activate the offer first, and American Express is not supported. If you don’t have a Topcashback account yet, you can sign up here.
On a separate note. It looks like Amazon is making its round of secret offers at the moment. I saw on Hotukdeals that someone got a “Read an ebook for £5 voucher” offer by going to the Prime membership management page.
I didn’t get the same offer – however I was offered a one-month extension of my Prime trial, which I’m very happy about. You may also try your luck and there could be a surprise for you as well.
My Review of University Arms Hotel, Cambridge
Oxford and Cambridge are not only university towns, but also very important tourist destinations. Unfortunately there are few branded hotels in both towns, and it’s tricky to find a bargain for hotel stays on peak dates.
This has improved with the expansion of Marriott. At Oxford, the new Courtyard hotel is an excellent deal at 12,500 points, and I enjoyed my stay in a Tower View room a few months ago.
For Cambridge however, the University Arms hotel, which is a member of Autograph Collection, is an option in a totally league, yet equally a great bargain at 25,000 points a night.
Located within proximity to the town centre, University Arms is a great base to explore Cambridge. It’s a 15 to 20-minute walk to the train station.
The hotel has three gates, opening to the Regent street. It’s easy to miss though as the gates are hidden inside and only one of them bears the hotel’s name, and Google Maps led me to the wrong side of the building!
The £80m refurbishment in 2018 obviously wasn’t wasted. Every detail of the hotel has the feel of class and elegance to it, and one thing I noticed is the many paintings on every wall in every room.
I was upgraded to a Superior Room with Park View. The room is bigger than what a Superior Room normally is, and looks very new.
Although the small “living room” is a bit awkward in terms of where it is. And the desk could have been larger.
The thing I like most about the room is the balcony, overlooking the Parker’s Piece:
The bathroom has also got a beautiful touch. Note that only some rooms come with the bathtub and / or balcony, so make sure you book the correct room type or request on the app if it matters.
I’m still confused with Marriott’s Platinum welcome amenity. Officially at Autograph hotels only 1,000 points or $10 F&B credit is provided, however since there’s no club lounge at this hotel, you could also choose between breakfast and 750 points in addition.
Breakfast is served in the Parker’s Tavern restaurant.
You could choose one side, one main and drinks from the menu. Weirdly I’ve read on Flyertalk that only filtered coffee is complimentary and you must pay for cappuccino etc.
I’ve only had porridges and pastry on the two days, and wasn’t very impressed by the quality.
The hotel is definitely worth a stay if you ever visit Cambridge and I don’t doubt it being one of the best in town. Thanks to Marriott, I’ve got the opportunities to try out more and more hotels at affordable cost!
Best advantages for having British Airways Gold
I’ve written about BA Silver’s benefits previously, and today let’s have a look at Gold.
You could see the list of Gold benefits on BA’s page here. To achieve Gold, you need to meet the following two conditions:
- Fly four eligible segments
- Earn 1,500 tier points
An eligible segment is a BA-operated or -coded flight, or an IB-operated and -coded flight. It must be on a paid ticket, i.e. award ticket doesn’t count.
The following benefits are in my preference order, and all (except the reward ticket ones) apply to any Oneworld Emerald equivalent.
[First Class Lounge Access]
One thing that distinguishes Oneworld from the other two alliances is that many Oneworld airlines have dedicated first-class lounges and, more importantly, Emerald elites are entitled to using them.
Being BA Gold, you could use BA’s Galleries First lounge at LHR T5, which to be fair isn’t that special. However, Cathay Pacific has a pretty good First lounge at T3, and not to mention the flagship ones at its home base HKG.
[Extra Award Ticket Inventory]
Extra award ticket inventory is made available to Gold card holders. More specifically, economy class V inventory is always open for redemption for Gold elites. You’ll see a message like this when searching for Avios tickets:
This is more useful than you think. I found it much easier to find award ticket in economy class once I turned Gold!
[Free Seat Selection]
Like Silver, Gold members can select seats for free at the time of booking. And this includes extra legroom seats in economy class on long-haul flights too, which is an improvement over Silver.
You could choose seat for anyone else on your booking as well. Even with separate bookings, you could call BA’s hotline to achieve this as long as your companions are travelling on the same flight and in the same cabin. This is called To Complete Party.
[Fast Track Security & Immigration]
You enjoy fast track security at Heathrow and select airports worldwide. From my personal experience it doesn’t make a huge difference though.
Fast track immigration at Heathrow is much more useful for me, as I’m a non-EU passport holder. It tends to save me, perhaps 30 minutes on average each time.
[Gold Priority Reward]
If there’s no award ticket space at all, you can still force open redemption inventory using this privilege. The only condition is that the revenue ticket is still selling, and you must pay double the original Avios required.
It cannot be done online, and you must book at least 30 days in advance.
I’m single so never had a chance to use this benefit! However, if you have children, therefore need more tickets and are restricted in terms of when you can travel, I do see how this privilege can be useful.
[Priority Boarding]
As Gold you are always placed in Group 1 when boarding. It means you are guaranteed to be amongst the first ones on board!
As I said before, it’s great when you are flying economy on a busy flight, as boarding early means you needn’t worry about luggage storage.
[First Class Check-in]
You can always use the First Class check-in counters at the airport. At Heathrow, there is a dedicated check-in area – First Class Wing (my review here) available which is a special experience.
[Extra Baggage Allowance]
Like Silver elites, as Gold you are entitled to an additional check-in baggage as well. However, Silver’s extra allowance doesn’t apply if the original allowance is already two bags or more, whereas there’s no such limitation for Gold.
It means, flying First you could carry 4 * 32kg pieces for free!
Note that however, it’s not applicable when flying Economy Basic – you still won’t have any allowance in the case.
Amazon top-up bonus and Music trial offers
Three new (or extended) Amazon bonus offers – note that the first two are targeted, and once you’ve clicked through you could see a message whether you are eligible or not.
Top-up Bonus Get a £5 bonus if you top up at least £80 in one transaction. You must be a new top-up user, i.e. haven’t topped up your account in the last 36 months.
Amazon Music Bonus Stream a song on Amazon Music and earn a £5 coupon against your next purchase. Valid until 31st January 2021, or when 5,000 offers are redeemed.
Amazon Music Unlimited Pay £0.99 for a three-month Unlimited trial, or four-month is you are Prime.
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.
Is another Avios devaluation approaching?
Right after the amazing 50%-off redemption sale, it appears that BA may be doing something dodgy in the background. I’ve just noticed something weird with the Avios pricing on certain routes.
One of them is Tokyo Haneda to London Heathrow. Earlier this year Japan outlawed fuel surcharge on most flights departing from the country (or at least it is my understanding), so HND-LHR should only carries £30-ish taxes.
When I try to book an off-peak economy-class flight on BA, although the fee does look right, you can see it tries to charge me 35,000 Avios instead of 19,500.
If you click continue it gets worse. Now the fee becomes £100 (first option)?! The standard Avios pricing is still available (19,500 points), however in this case BA wants £180 from you which is crazy.
I’m not sure if it’s even legal, when carrier-impose surcharge is banned by Japan. There are also a couple of amusing facts:
- Economy class on Japan Airlines costs only 31,000 Avios + £28.9
- Pricing on other BA cabins hasn’t changed – therefore premium economy on the same flight costs 39,000 Avios + £27.1, which works out cheaper than economy class!
Similar irregularity can be found on HKG-LHR as well. Japan and Hong Kong do have one thing in common: both of them have imposed restrictions on fuel surcharges. Admittedly the latter has lifted its restriction, however most airlines haven’t really increased their surcharge yet.
So is it a way for BA to pocket extra money / Avios from the fuel surcharge loss? It’s unwise for them to only execute it on economy class though, as that’s the least attractive redemption option anyway. Whether it’s an intended experiment, or simply an IT glitch (although unlikely) I have no clue, and I hope BA can make some clarification or fix it soon!
Radisson Blu Edwardian hotels 3for2 sale, with 8pm late check-out!
Radisson Blu Edwardian is speciality Radisson brand in the UK. I’ve never stayed at one personally, but from the look of it they are more “classic” than the usual Radisson Blu hotels.
They are running a good Third Night Free offer, which you can access here.
- Bookable until 1st January, 2021
- Every 3rd night of your stay is complimentary
- Free cancellation until 24 hours prior to arrival
It also appears that all Edwardian hotels are having a very generous extended stay policy. You can check-in from 8am, and check-out is by 8pm! It’s better than most, if not all early check-in and late check-out benefits offered by elite membership.
To book, you could either use the offer page or just search on Radisson’s homepage with code 3for2. Note that the per-night price displayed is incorrect, and if you click rate details it will suggest that the third night is free:
Here are some prices I found (per-night):
€20 rebate on Accor stays via their Super Points promotion
Amongst all hotel groups Accor isn’t the most keen or creative in terms of publishing bonus points offers. They have just launched a very good offer though for your stays in the UK and Europe.
You need to register here. Like always the t&s is unclear and somewhat conflictual, but I believe the offer is:
- Book by 16 November
- Stay by 13 December
- Valid for select countries in Europe and Central Asia
- You earn 1000 bonus points if your stay includes a Fri, Sat and Sun night, or 500 bonus points otherwise
- It’s triggered on your first five eligible stays
Full list of participating countries is: Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia , Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Réunion, Saint Martin and French Guyana.
There’s no minimum-stay requirement, therefore you could stay just one night at a cheap Ibis hotel and bag 1000 points which is worth €20.
Note the usual gotchas though: only new bookings after registration count, and don’t part-pay you booking using points!