botham

I have just had the most frustrating conversation with a guy trying to seel me wine through the BA Wine Club.

My AMEX statement offers a free wine fridge with a mixed case of wine for £79.99 (12 bottles), under code QN57.

I couldn't find this code and the website wouldn't load BAwineclub.co.uk/qn57
so I telephoned to ask where I could read about the offer. I must have told the salesperson the ref no. a dozen times, but finally lost patience and hung up.

Are they always this inefficient?

David-A

N.b. 'UK resident' is not the same thing as simply having your own UK (permanent or otherwise) address.

Most, if not all, regular financial services providers in the UK will need you to have a UK address - not least for service - throughout the time they provide service to you.
They might also require you to be 'UK resident' at the time of appication and possibly also for the whole period they provide service, but they might not.

Banks will generally provide basic service to people who are not UK resident but do have a UK address.
Some will sometimes even subsequently allow you to move the address overseas.
However many other things beyond basic banking service, expecially any thing with with insurance or insurance attached, require you to be UK resident throught.

Credit cards are mixed, many require UK resident throughout, some are ok with just UK address and not resident. Almost none will allow you to be non resident and non UK address. [And whether they have insurance attached is not the guide to this.]

Increasingly firms are getting lazy and/or justifiably don't want the headaches of variations, so all off the shelf provisions are increasingly fully UK resident only.

I'm talking about off the main shelf stuff, such as where all the good consumer offers are. Yes you can easily have no UK address if you talk to the specialists - but don't expect any offers or loyalty schemes!

csdf

Having a UK address is easy enough - parents or indeed there are companies that will offer a UK mailing address. Unfortunately no bank telephone staff seems to have a clear understanding of their own T&Cs regarding UK residence.

HMRC has a form that lets you inform your banks that you are no longer resident for tax purposes. Unfortunately, the banks themselves don't seem to be able to tell me whether if I fill in this form, they will definitely keep my account open (or closed).

Edited to add; just seen that there's no tier point advantage for the country I'm moving to (i.e. the thresholds are the same as the UK), so there's relatively little point moving my account in the first place.

botham

Once again I have triggered my 2-4-1 several moths before I meant to, by not monitoring my spending closely enough, so I'd just like to warn fellow FT'ers to be very vigilant when the threshold approaches, in order to get maximum time for making your dream booking.

Cap'n Benj

Not so much of an issue now its for 24 months

botham

True, but I have triggered mine 7 months early and I am using the first one in November. I guess I'll just have to book another holiday!

pazza2000

Slightly OT.

I see today that lovemoney.com are selling the benefits of the BA Amex & the Lloyds Airmiles Card. However they seem to mention key points(again) IMO.

http://uk.travel.yahoo.com/p-promo-3311893

They discuss the 2-4-1 on the standard card, and the higher miles earning rate for the PP+ card however they do not mention the lower 2-4-1 threshold on the PP+ which is the reason why i opted for this card, and i am sure others too.

As for the Airmiles Duo card, they mention the 1 airmiles for every £1 if you sign up before June 1st, however they fail to mention that this is capped to the first £1,500 of spend.

2 pretty big points they fail to mention, especially when they go into so much detail about other aspects of the cards.

majoreyeswater

Apart from the PayPal card, does anyone know of a way to invest in Premium Bonds via Amex? Or some other way that I can move some funds into a reasonably safe investment via Amex?

I just can't bear the thought of writing a cheque if there is any way possible I can put it through the card and get the miles!

99redballs

i've just tried to pay off my amex with the pp and it was declined
checked online, money's been sitting there for a while and still there
anyone else had a problem, i've not tried it anywhere else.

99redballs

i triggered mine 9 months too early, so i just cancelled my hotel and now i'm £200 away from my target. funnt thing is though, on the statement is says i need to spend £200 , but online it says voucher is triggered???
are you able to refund back to the card?

pazza2000

Indeed.

Paypal Cards can be used at the Post Office to buy Premium Bonds. The Paypal card can be loaded with funds from AMEX(& earn you miles).

To confirm, this can only be done inside at a post office branch and not over the phone or online with NS&I

kirky

Paid mine the other day with no problems at all.

botham

Edited to keep schtum

weirdfish

removed as response to above

weirdfish

I find the holding off breaching the 2-4-1 trigger a bit strange to be honest. I try and put as much through my Amex as I can. The 2-4-1 is a bonus that I wont lose sleep over if one expires as there'll be another long at some point.

If I'd held off triggering my last one I'd have lost out on thousands of miles which compensate the 95quid annual charge.