The much improved Venice Airport lounge for British Airways passengers

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

• MarkJ says:

  11 Sep11 September 04:34

  OT Pay Send
  I’ve just opened an overseas bank account with a Visa card and found that it doesn’t work with SWIFT payments from the UK. And so after digging around it appears that the best way to transfer funds is using the Pay Send service. This allows me to make sterling payments from a UK Visa or MC to my new overseas Visa card. The rate I’m getting looks pretty good, better than I’d get on a swift payment, the transaction fee is just £1 and in my tests the transfer completes in around 15 minutes. Good so far…

  I’ve been lurking for a while and not very active in collecting but here i could use your advice… I need to move over 15K on Sunday/Monday.
  I have the Lloyds Avios Duo MasterCard and a somewhat unloved Tesco Platinum MasterCard from over 10 years ago.

  Does either card give points on financial transactions or how can I check if Lloyds will give me Avios without waiting for a statement?

  Is there another option I can apply for quickly to get me most of the way to something useful and ideally get a virtual card to use as I’m flying out on Sunday?

  I appreciate any ideas!

  • Genghis says:

    11 Sep11 September 04:46

    Also will you be charged a cash advance fee? I don’t know.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    11 Sep11 September 05:12

    What type of payments do work? SEPA? You didn’t mention the location or the currency. Revolut will give you an instant virtual card, but you won’t be able to do £15k in a single hit from a credit card. The exchange rates are about as good as you get though. No fees on card payments, 0.5% on transfers over the first £5k pm on the free account. You can transfer in a max of £75k, but card top ups are ‘limited to between £500-£3000 per day for newly added cards’ according to the FAQs. Don’t use it with the Tesco card though! I think Lloyds is still ok?

    • MarkJ says:

      11 Sep11 September 06:24

      Good points Genghis and Sandgrounder, I was trying to keep the post shortish 🙂

      Going outside the eu/eea so no SEPA and the target currency isn’t usd or euro so would need 2 currency conversations. Nationwide told me they couldn’t send to the account with SWIFT because it doesn’t have a name on it (I was warned about this sometimes being a problem during account opening – the account has a generic name on the card) and Nationwide also said SWIFT could take weeks anyway.
      It isn’t on the supported destination country list for transferwise, revolut or starling. Lloyds might work but I think they will need a name for the account.

      Before opening this account I was taking 500 GBP fee free (in local currency) a day from an ATM from my Nationwide account but that’s a lot of walking to the ATM and the mattress was getting uncomfortable to sleep on. Next option was a fist full of dollars (well Sterling) when I fly out next but I’m not that keen on filling in customs declorations for carrying lots of cash.

      The bank there suggested Western Union (who I don’t favour) or making a transfer to the Visa card from my UK account i.e. a push not pull (I’d never heard of this before) but it’s not something we do here.

      Pay Send is looking good so far as they are using something very close to the mid market or Visa rate and they are FCA registered. Just wondered if I can get points or something in the process. I guess I’ll try the Lloyds card to see if they consider it a cash advance. If so I’ll stick to a debt card to avoid the 3% loading.

  • Eugene says:

    11 Sep11 September 07:28

    No points but for speed and a good rate you should look at Transferwise too

  • Bagoly says:

    11 Sep11 September 07:44

    This is interesting:
    Paysend is a competitor to CurrencyFair/Midpoint/Transferwise having the distinction that it transfers from card to card, rather than between bank accounts.
    Spreads and fees appear lower than those three competitors, and they cover a much wider range of countries.

    But I don’t understand the economics – bank transfers to such money transfer companies cost them nothing to receive, but presumably for card payments they have to pay some level of merchant fee?
    For credit card, if treated as a cash advance, no merchant fee, but a cash advance fee charged to you as Genghis asks?

    Paysend mention a limit of EUR1k before supplying ID, but there is no mention of whether they apply AML limits to transaction size until you have built up a track record (like E.g. Revolut)

    Rates at all these companies are usually worse at weekend, incorporating a spread to cover them for rates gapping while the wholesale markets are closed.

    P.S. “just opened”, “flying out Sunday”, short notice transfer of quite large amount – are you sure you aren’t being set up for a scam? or even kidnap?
    Do look at sites like:
    https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/protect-yourself-scams
    https://www.scam-detector.com

    • MarkJ says:

      11 Sep11 September 11:12

      Hi Bagoly

      Yes it does look like there is very little money in this for PaySend between the margin in the spread and the 1 gbp transaction fee. If it really does work as advertised it’s a great way to move money.

      As I say they do look legitimate:
      https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=001b000000m4IWlAAM
      And it looks like they have $20M to burn through in funding while they work out how to make money or wait for a buyer
      https://www.tech.london/news/fintech-startup-paysend-gets-$20m-to-shake-up-global-remittances

      I’m still a bit sceptical though, but so far I’ve sent 20 from a revolut card which arrived with no problems. Later I’ll do the same from another card with a bigger sum and see if it’s treated as a cash advance. There doesn’t appear to be any AML limits. I’m not planning on exposing my “real” debt card to them and I won’t be sending 15k as a single transaction but a series of transfers I’m willing to risk. I don’t recommend you try it though…

      And thanks for the concern. The sending 15k and flying out at the weekend is down to a property purchase for our “vacation” home – not as short notice as it sounds as it’s been in the planning for 6 months – just didn’t realise moving money would be such a challenge or how quickly a sale progresses in countries that don’t use our slow (but admittedly more thorough conveyancing process). The Mrs likes the apartment and I don’t think she is scamming me on this but I accept it’s just the thin end of an expensive wedge 🙂

      Oh and my new bank is also legit with professional looking branches, a large European parent etc. The “local” banks are even more difficult to use.

      Also good point about watching for the rates at the weekend being worse.

      • Memesweeper says:

        11 Sep11 September 11:49

        You can send to a USD Amex! Rats rats rats would have been super useful if you could…

• Waribai says:

  11 Sep11 September 05:28

  Yes, great coffee in the lounge. Watch out for the insects though in the indoor garden. I got so badly bitten. I think they must have been fleas!

• Chopin says:

  11 Sep11 September 05:51

  slightly OT question, you can get up to 90k MR ref bonus a year right? I am wondering if you have both gold and plat card, is that possible to get 2*90k ref bonus? I assume not, but I am not 100% sure, anyone have both plat and gold could shed the light?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    11 Sep11 September 07:28

    To add onto this is it 90k per calendar year or card year?

    • Neil says:

      11 Sep11 September 08:34

      I have always wondered this as well. Would you believe I have called Brighton 4 times and no one has ever been able to tell me the answer so I assumed it was per calendar year

      • Genghis says:

        11 Sep11 September 11:26

        It’s specifically in the referral terms.

    • Rob says:

      11 Sep11 September 08:48

      Calendar

  • Ben says:

    11 Sep11 September 08:16

    I’ve currently got gold and plat, and 2 MR accounts, with 2 bonuses…

• Martin says:

  11 Sep11 September 06:03

  As well as the Tesco offer, I got an even better one for Boots – spend £10, get 500 MR points.

• Graham Walsh says:

  11 Sep11 September 06:55

  Totally OT. At LHR today and been assigned Gate 4. But that is hidden downstairs and then split into 4a and 4b. Plus a bus ride to the aircraft. Hardly any seating down there either.

  • Tim says:

    11 Sep11 September 07:19

    Go back to the lounge and just ensure you are at the gate 20 minutes before flight departs. You’ll be last onto the second bus and it is likely the first load of bus passengers will have already taken their seats. Also: the gate isn’t hidden. It is used every day: many, many, many times over!

  • BJ says:

    11 Sep11 September 09:13

    I like the bus gates at T5, I might just have got lucky but so far all my bus gates have been associated with efficient and orderly boarding, and on-time departures.

    • Graham Walsh says:

      11 Sep11 September 20:45

      Indeed boarding is much better I noticed. Maybe because group 1-3 passengers are clued up. Board plane, place bag where needed, sit down. It’s really not that difficult.

  • Oh Matron! says:

    11 Sep11 September 09:29

    Try getting the LAST flight of the day from MAN. You WILL be on the bus. Painful and embarrassing

• Alan says:

  11 Sep11 September 07:53

  Travelator setup was in place about a year ago (significant distance though, so worth factoring in!) – the big improvement from my POV is that PP actually have a proper lounge now and now the horrendous landside Travelex business lounge they had before where the facilities consisted of a biscuit, poor WiFi and one soft drink!

• ThyT says:

  11 Sep11 September 08:08

  O/T Self-referral from Amex Plat. How long do the 18k points take to be issued?

  Recently self-referred to a BAPP, but the decision wasn’t instant and they requested additional documents. Provided them, and a few days later I got the approval e-mail (paperless statements), but havent received the card or referral bonus points yet. Chance they figured out its a self-referral?

  I assume if they dont give me the points I cant complain/reach out right? What a bummer!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    11 Sep11 September 08:10

    Last week I got them as soon as I got the card so about 4 days.

    I wasn’t given an instant decision but I didn’t have to provide any extra info. In past experience it can take up to 7 days

  • Crafty says:

    11 Sep11 September 08:21

    Are you serious? You’ve deliberately aimed to exploit a loophole in their incentive scheme, and are now proposing a complaint that your exploit did not work on this occasion. Think about it.

  • Evan says:

    11 Sep11 September 08:42

    You lost me at “reach out”. You could try contacting them if you are in the UK but you’d be better off listening to @Crafty.

• Kevin says:

  11 Sep11 September 08:12

  We went to the Peninsula in Tokyo in August. We used Emyr – can highly recommend.

  We got room credit, free breakfast and, most importantly, a 9am check in. We weren’t upgraded because the hotel was full but our rooms were great anyway.

  It’s a very luxurious hotel in an excellent location. They only did buffet breakfast at weekends. Rest of the time it’s a set menu. They let our kids order a la carte to the same value but individual items are so ludicrously overpriced we went up going over. But that was the only annoying thing.

  We also stayed in the Andaz which I really liked. Not such a convenient location but there’s still things to do round there.

  Emyr had excellent communication throughout.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.