Gaining Avios spend via PayPal with TUI
 

Hello,

I am a relatively new Amex British Airways Premium Plus credit card holder.

Unfortunately when trying to pay off a significant TUI package holiday, I realised they don't accept Amex as a payment method when trying to settle the balance online. However, I noticed they welcome PayPal payments.

If I link my Amex to PayPal and use this for the transaction do you know if this will qualify as normal spending that will trigger the card’s £1 spent to 1.5 Avios points reward?

Thank you so much

No direct experience of TUI but in general you can link Paypal to Amex and use it for transactions where the merchant doesn't usually accept Amex directly, and you will get the Avios. Not always though, sometimes Amex is blocked as a funding source by some merchants somehow.

Whether it's advisable is another question, you might check Paypal policies for chargeback if TUI were to fold. I'd rather spend on a credit card where the situation is much clearer.

Yeah my understanding is the transaction is then indirect so you "lose" s75 protection

Correct, Amex can refer you to PayPal in the event of a dispute.

I regularly use Amex via PayPal where a merchant doesn't accept Amex directly and it's worked fine.

I would strongly advise against paypal, especially when purchasing holidays or flights when changes/refunds etc are going to be an issue

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, aware I’d forfeit credit card protection. It is for a package holiday much later in the year and won’t be paying it until later also - I just wanted to clear up the Avios link.

Can you not pay off a small amount via a Visa or mastercard CC and the rest via paypal with Amex? That way you will be covered by S75 through your direct spend should you need protection. You would sacrifice a few avios obviously but worth it for having S75
Also in your original post you say 'pay off'. So if you've already paid the first installment with a non-AMEX cc you will be covered for the whole holiday with S75.... So your worries at this stage will be unfounded

Actually it was via debit but that’s a good suggestion. From my memory I think if I put £100 towards the balance via a MasterCard, as you suggest, that would give me the S75 protection for the whole balance. Great suggestion thanks.

I believe (and I'm not a financial advisor or expert) you can put a small amount, say £20 towards the total, and as long as the total product is over £100 you are covered.
See here, a £60 deposit on a £600 item covers you:
https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rig...mer-credit-act

That is correct

You always get the Avios / points when spending on your Amex via PayPal, irrespective of the retailer taking Amex directly or not.

For what it’s worth TUI cancelled one of my bookings last week. Received the refund email from PayPal about an hour before the TUI email to tell me! Quickest refund of all so far.

Whereas last year, my PayPal refund from TUI was one of the slowest to be processed - they were citing some unspecified technical issues with that payment method which
meant they were delayed. In the end I opened a dispute on PayPal and it was refunded within a few days, it sure how long it would have taken otherwise.

FYI there's also (perhaps targeted) offer on Amex right now.
Do check your amex offers in the app or online.

Paypal - Spend £70 and get £15, one time

Might be a nice extra.

My most interesting refund/cancellation anecdote of 2020 relates to TUI (Doesn’t really help the OP but still can’t believe this happened)

Paid a deposit for 2 of us in January 2020 on a fairly expensive trip for the June. Had paid a deposit of £400 at time of booking. Had to wait until after the scheduled departure date to go through their refund process. Got told it was being processed but they actually took another £400 from my card rather than refunding me.

They refused to acknowledge this happened as their systems said, “refund processed”. It took a number of months and multiple hours of calls, emails as well as provision of proof to get them to realise their error. I got all the money back within about an hour of them accepting they’d made the mistake.

Whilst not a large amount of money it wasn’t insignificant and I was completely at their mercy. My final threat of reporting them for theft seemed to be what called them to proper action.