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Virgin Atlantic and Accor hotels launch American Express cashback deals

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Three new American Express cashback deals popped up yesterday which look interesting.

The Virgin Atlantic one is particularly good and is worth £250.

Let’s start with the hotel offers, however. As always, some, all or none of these deals will show under the ‘Offers’ tab on one or more of your American Express cards. You need to click ‘Save to card’ to register before making your transaction.

American Express hotel and airline cashback offers

Accor has launched two cashback deals

Get £75 back when you spend £300 at 25hours

Accor’s 25hours brand is offering £75 cashback when you spend £300 before 6th May. Cumulative spending is OK. Prepaid stays do not count.

The list of participating hotels is here. It covers Europe as well as Dubai and Jakarta.

If you’ve never stayed at a 25hours hotel, take a look at our review of 25hours Copenhagen Paper Island here, which is included in the offer. The website is here.

I have also stayed at Terminus Nord in Paris, which is DIRECTLY opposite Gare du Nord – exceptionally handy for Eurostar travellers.

Remember that Accor has a European double points offer for bookings of 2+ nights made by 16th February for stays by 31st March. Click here to register before booking.

You can find out more about 25hours, and book, on this page of the Accor website.

Get £75 back when you spend £300 at Pullman, Swissotel and Movenpick

Accor is offering a virtually identical offer at its Pullmann, Swissotel and Movenpick brands.

You need to stay by 6th May. Cumulative spend across these three brands counts.

The list of participating hotels is here. All are in Europe, except for Tunisia. There are two UK hotels included – Pullman London St Pancras and Pullman Liverpool.

Remember that Accor has a European double points offer for bookings of 2+ nights made by 16th February for stays by 31st March. Click here to register before booking.

The Accor website for bookings is here.

New American Express cashback on flights

Save £250 with Virgin Atlantic

Last April we saw the first ever Virgin Atlantic cashback deal. It must have gone well because it is back.

You will get £250 cashback when you spend £2,000 with Virgin Atlantic.

You must book by 31st March and depart from a UK airport. Cumulative spend is OK.

I am fairly certain that taxes and charges on Virgin Atlantic redemption flights WILL trigger the cashback as long as you hit the £2,000 threshold. They go through your credit card in the usual way. American Express will get details of the underlying flight but is it smart enough to weed out redemptions? The T&C don’t even explicitly block redemptions.

The cashback will NOT trigger on the purchase of Virgin Points because this is handled by a third party intermediary. Flights booked via Virgin Holidays will not count.

You can check prices on the Virgin Atlantic website here.


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Comments (34)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Robert says:

    Would you recommend Terminus Nord in Paris for a quick two night break to see Notre Dame? We’re arriving Eurostar from London and wanted to break the onward train journey to Nice.

    • The real Swiss Tony says:

      The hotel is literally across the street from GdN. Stayed there for the rugby a few years back and was great. The problem you will have is that Notre Dame and Gare de Lyon where you get the train to Nice from are both some distance away (and fairly close to one another).

      So I’d suggest staying closer to the river/GdL, otherwise you’re going to be shutting across the City more than you need to just to make use of the offer.

      • Robert says:

        Thanks for your advice, very helpful as I was just about to google which station we’ll be departing for Nice from. Early stages of planning this trip for 4 people in May, proving quite costly so far!

    • Chris says:

      Not sure about the hotel, but I always recommend Terminus Nord brasserie for a quick pre-train meal just over the road from the station, rather than worrying about getting there on time etc.

      Nothing groundbreaking, but usually a nice last Parisian feast in my experience…

      • Rob says:

        Agree, I ate there with my wife last year and it was very smart (bizarrely so given its at GdN!).

        • Chris says:

          Feels like a bit of an institution, the kind that so far keeps its standards up and you find every now and then in New York, Paris and the like. Long may it continue! I wish I knew anything similar at the London end, as I’m around there a lot more!

  • e14 says:

    Of course they couldn’t do the Pullman, Swissotel and Movenpick in Jakarta could they … Will see if I can use the 25 hours one

    • Axel Heyst says:

      Only hotel listed in Jakarta is in very dull sterile financial district.

      Movenpick in much more vibrant historical street and probably half the price.

  • Chris says:

    Unusually (as I tend to see whatever HFP post about on these deals) the Virgin Atlantic isn’t showing on my Platinum or other Amex cards. Quite limited?

  • Bigmaggot says:

    Annoyingly not on my Amex Platinum card! Have never used it with Virgin before, wonder how it’s targeted as didn’t get the last Virgin offer either

    • memesweeper says:

      I’m getting damn near no offers at all on my plat 😞

      • executiveclubber says:

        Me too! I have had maybe 4 irrelevant offers since start of year on my plat

  • Mike says:

    They stiffed me on the virgin deal last time as one of my bookings was made through the call centre, they said it didn’t qualify. Was using a voucher, so had to call.

    • Lev441 says:

      Annoyingly I had the same and only realised after booking…

    • LLLL says:

      That’s very annoying, but thanks for the heads-up on this. I was planning to do some bookings using the Virgin voucher and this.

      But sounds like I’m better off trying to push to £2k spend on the non-voucher (call Centre) bookings and then do the voucher ones separately.

  • Stuart says:

    Did you have to register before booking for it to count?

  • Jordan D says:

    Swissotel in Kazakhstan and Pull man is Azerbaijan also included. The former is a very generous description of Europe.

    It’s a shame the excellent Swissotel hotel in Zurich when bankrupt in the pandemic.

  • pbehal says:

    These offers are not there on BA PP card. This card seems to be worst for Amex offers.
    It did not even get the recent Amex dining offer of 20% off till March.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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