[AndyGWP]

5% LNER discount kicking about on Curve Rewards – expiry 24/2

[AndyGWP]

Just had an email from Uber offering me £5 discount if I buy a train ticket (as I haven’t used the app in a long time). Worth checking your emails if you’re in a similar position as me

[AndyGWP]

WelshGirl wrote:

I bought vouchers in person at an Ivy restaurant which was on the Amex list on Sunday. They have an offer -£100 gift card with a bottle of bubbly for £90. I added a £20 voucher so total spend £110 and the £100 credited today ..

I ended up doing the same in the end… there were no signs detailing the promotion was on, but when I asked to buy a £100 giftcard, the staff suggested I do the giftcard for £90 to get the free bubbly, and then I tagged a £20 voucher on top like you did.

Thanks for the tip off 🙂

[AndyGWP]

Thanks Kirsty – that’s really helpful, appreciated

I was short of time so played it safe and bought The Ivy after seeing @WelshGirl got a free bottle of bubbly, but will be back in January so will probably do one of the above instead 🙂

[AndyGWP]

I bought mine in 2017. Think you have to be signed up for promotional email from Audi. No idea if there’s any additional criteria.

AFAIK, they release tickets for every event at the O2 and at the Manchester arena (I think… defo the smaller venue as less of the bigger acts come up there)

No auction. It’s just free tickets, first come first served. One set of tickets permitted every 12 months

[AndyGWP]

Food is free. Drinks were limited to two per person from a limited range (what they have in the fridge… ie house white, house rose, beer, cider, soft drinks etc)

You could buy premium drinks tho (spirits) – they ordered on the till and went off to get them for you so saved queuing etc.

Weirdly, no non-alcoholic beer options!

Food was buffet style and consisted of a nice pizza, katsu chicken burgers, waffle fries, salad stuff, tortilla crisps etc

Food was much better quality than I expected for a buffet. Wine was average. Good for a freebie tho (and my partner wasn’t drinking so I had their free ones and bought them soft drinks 🤣)

We also had a couple of free wines from the Amex lounge on the way in so pretty cheap night.

Side note – I’m not fussed by Lady Gaga but she put on a really good show to be fair. Was opening night hence the late start. Apparently practice session ran over. My partner loved it but she’s more of a fan. Wanted to use the lounge offering as we’ve sold our Audi and I never got round to trying it so wanted the experience

[AndyGWP]

Aston100 wrote:

Oh what cards do you have trip.com incentives?

Currently showing on my MBNA (4% cashback till 29/10) – think I saw it somewhere else too, but can’t see where now!

[AndyGWP]

I notice TrainPal gets processed as Trip.com

No idea if this triggers the Trip.com discount I’ve seen on a few of my cards though

[AndyGWP]

Thanks again. Went last night and all plans were a bit scuppered as doors didnt open till 6:30ish so queues were massive. Found the suite queue on the left tho but entry was delayed versus the other queues.

Audi suite was good tho, decent position, and food was alright!

[AndyGWP]

Thanks all. Really appreciate the information

[AndyGWP]

davefl wrote:

Yes Tijuana would be insane. Crossing into Mexico takes seconds, coming back usually takes several hours and there’s nothing to see.

… but yet there’s always idiots that do it 👋🏻 😂

Yes – made this mistake many many years ago – parked up and took the few seconds to walk through some turnstiles to get into Mexico… then saw the queue coming back.

In the end we paid, along with a quite a few other people, a guy to drive us back over the border in his minibus. (In hindsight, could’ve been kidnapped though 👀)

[AndyGWP]

I signed up using the link that has been posted (not long after you posted it)…

It worked for me and I got the 30k

(apols, meant to post a reply at the time, but couldn’t find this thread – just realised I would’ve been looking in the Flying Club forum for it rather than this one!)

[AndyGWP]

Thanks – hadn’t clocked that (or the fact its been at 2000 points for the past month 😂) – oh well, I can’t recall it being mentioned recently 🙂

[AndyGWP]

Club Lloyds debit card looks to be the winner for me. This is a great site for comparing costs of your existing cards:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards/

[AndyGWP]

Yeah, I’ve heard similar (re: credit reports / financial distress) when I used the Halifax Clarity as my main source of cash withdrawals abroad, but have never had issues (this was back when cash was king) – YMMV

I will do a bit of research for an appropriate debit card though, and have a gander at the Trading212

[AndyGWP]

All the useful info above, and I still got caught for the interest on my cash withdrawal 🤦🏼‍♂️

[AndyGWP]

AndyGWP wrote:

NorthernLass wrote:

@lilly, that really is sneaky! I’d forgotten about that but recently got a new gold card after a 2 year break and it kept popping up asking me if I wanted to swap all my MR points for £2.70 off a Tesco shop, or whatever. I’m just waiting for them to roll over to a multiple of 1000 so I can transfer them out before I take my eye off the ball and do the same as you!

you can disable it being offered to your can’t you? Think there’s an article somewhere on the site

https://hfp2026mar.kinsta.cloud/2024/07/15/how-to-turn-off-amex-pay-with-points-pop-up-window/

[AndyGWP]

NorthernLass wrote:

@lilly, that really is sneaky! I’d forgotten about that but recently got a new gold card after a 2 year break and it kept popping up asking me if I wanted to swap all my MR points for £2.70 off a Tesco shop, or whatever. I’m just waiting for them to roll over to a multiple of 1000 so I can transfer them out before I take my eye off the ball and do the same as you!

you can disable it being offered to your can’t you? Think there’s an article somewhere on the site

[AndyGWP]

If only full business fare is available now (for a flight in Feb), from previous experience it would intimate to me that the flight hasn’t been pulled from the system yet, but will be in the next few days.

[AndyGWP]

Thanks Chris – good to know

(wish there was a ‘like’ button to acknowledge useful posts!)

[AndyGWP]

Stephen wrote:

From speaking to VWFS / garage , they said you keep the benefits even if cancel PCP

Confirmed this with them today… excellent, thanks! (Was their suggestion before I even had time to ask tbh!)

[AndyGWP]

On a similar note, we are looking at buying a used VW car and there’s perks to buying with PCP (longer warranty, longer RAC cover, etc) but we have no interest in having PCP and just want to buy the car.

Is there any way to wangle the perks, but shirking out / paying off the agreement?

The only tangible avenue appears to be buy the £99 two year service plan, and cancel the PCP the day after purchase for minimal interest payments but ideally would like the extended warranty etc

[AndyGWP]

Cheers – was completely unaware of that… annoying as we’ve just had a new flat roof (upgrading to an insulated one), and some new doors (though just checked, and the installers we used for those jobs aren’t listed anyways)

[AndyGWP]

I’ll start off with “… apols, I’m rubbish with understanding mortgages” but I’ll try…

Wouldn’t you be better getting the Premier Account first?

You could then access the mortgage rates available to Premier account holders? See here https://www.barclays.co.uk/premier-banking/mortgages/high-value-mortgages/

(whats the link to the heat pump grant? or are you just planning the remortgage will allow you some extra cash to purchase one with?)

[AndyGWP]

Plenty of availability seems to be coming back for me now (more so than last week when it started to re-appear)

Are people still having issues?