Amex 20k points offer.

areksnumbr1sxylady

areksnumbr1sxylady

areksnumbr1sxylady

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Basically I am running short of 600 pounds to get the 20k rewards on my Amex card...

I am thinking, what would happen if I were to purchase lets say an item worth 600 pounds and then return it for a refund?

I need to spend these 600 pounds until August 9th, so if I do that and return item on around 20th for the refund, will they give me the 20k points? :D
 
Adam said:
Don't bother, I have 170k of the bloody things and they are very difficult to spend!
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Rubbish, they are dead easy to spend and easily transfer to a number of hotel and airline reward programmes. With 170k points you could do a wide range of things - I spent far less than that on 3 nights in a Sheraton in Vancouver which I'd otherwise have had to spend £400 on, for example.
 
[TW]Fox;26690731 said:
Rubbish, they are dead easy to spend and easily transfer to a number of hotel and airline reward programmes. With 170k points you could do a wide range of things - I spent far less than that on 3 nights in a Sheraton in Vancouver which I'd otherwise have had to spend £400 on, for example.
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My points are transferable between the avios website (awful) and the BA Executive club (more availability). Hotels are poor value for money as they are cheaper everywhere else, long haul flights have high taxes which mean you can find a flight elsewhere for the same or similar price without using your points and the experience days again are poor value.

Reward saver flights are reasonable, provided you are flexible and book a long way in advance. I like the idea of LCY to MAD for the champions league costing just £35 return (plus I have a companion voucher), but even so you'll have to get lucky for everything to fall in to place with availability and reasonable flight times etc.

The scheme was very appealing when I started, but I have been very unimpressed with it so far.

Edit: my card is provided by Lloyds TSB and to my knowledge I'm not able to take advantage of any of the gift vouchers or other rewards, please prove me wrong!
 
Adam said:
My points are transferable between the avios website (awful) and the BA Executive club (more availability). Hotels are poor value for money as they are cheaper everywhere else,
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Are we talking about the same thing? AMEX Membership Reward points are transferable to a heck of a lot more than just AVIOS and BAEC.

You can quite easily spend 170k Amex MR points.

The key to use them with BA btw is to use them to upgrade your class of travel, they are rubbish value for economy flights as the tax and YQ are the majority of the fare.
 
[TW]Fox;26690791 said:
Are we talking about the same thing? AMEX Membership Reward points are transferable to a heck of a lot more than just AVIOS and BAEC.

You can quite easily spend 170k Amex MR points.

The key to use them with BA btw is to use them to upgrade your class of travel, they are rubbish value for economy flights as the tax and YQ are the majority of the fare.
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I don't think we are. My lloyds credit card (premier duo) is linked to the avios.com website and I can then transfer them to the BA executive club which I also use. I don't have access to the AMEX website.

I think I am confined to just the two websites above, hence having little choice of how to spend them. I'm flying to New York next month, I looked at upgrading but because it's an economy class fare, again it worked out quite poor. Apparently PE to business is the way to do it well from what I read.

I'll just either sell tickets to my friends or have some weekends away, the points don't expire if you spend some within 3 years.
 
areksnumbr1sxylady said:
I am thinking, what would happen if I were to purchase lets say an item worth 600 pounds and then return it for a refund?
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Your will get the points but you have to use your points ASAP. Once they refunds goes back on the card you lose the points. So if you spend the points before refund goes back on your points will show -600, not a big deal if you plan to cancel the card so after.

Adam said:
Don't bother, I have 170k of the bloody things and they are very difficult to spend!
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Thats £850 worth of Amazon/Harrord/Selfridge vouchers
 
smokedog said:
Your will get the points but you have to use your points ASAP. Once they refunds goes back on the card you lose the points. So if you spend the points before refund goes back on your points will show -600, not a big deal if you plan to cancel the card so after.



Thats £850 worth of Amazon/Harrord/Selfridge vouchers
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Basically, how long does it take for Amex to credit the 20k bonus points after you reach the 2000 spend??
 
All the main grocery chains sell gift cards. Just prepay your next few month's groceries. Waitrose are especially good - they sell gift *vouchers* and give you change in cash. Eg buy a £3 sandwich with a £10 voucher, get £7 handed back to you - you'll have still spent £10 on your Amex to get the voucher.
 
Adam said:
I don't think we are. My lloyds credit card (premier duo) is linked to the avios.com website and I can then transfer them to the BA executive club which I also use. I don't have access to the AMEX website.

I think I am confined to just the two websites above, hence having little choice of how to spend them. I'm flying to New York next month, I looked at upgrading but because it's an economy class fare, again it worked out quite poor. Apparently PE to business is the way to do it well from what I read.
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The BA AMEX card is pretty good for flights. It's never worth it for economy flights but it's definitely worthwhile for business class. The big draw is that you get a companion voucher if you spend over £10k in a year, effectively doubling your points.
 
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