The new HFP chat thread – Saturday 25th April

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• HM says:

  25 Apr25 April 12:55

  A wee data point: Just rang Amex to enquire about cancelling PRG credit card – was offered 5,000 bonus MR on spend of £1,000+ over 3 months. Happily accepted – best CS as usual.

• Baji Nahid says:

  25 Apr25 April 13:12

  Transferred my points to IHG and now have 2755 points left, wondering what i can do with the rest of these points.

  • @mkcol says:

    25 Apr25 April 18:12

    Transferred from where?

    • Brian W says:

      25 Apr25 April 20:05

      Virgin

  • Connor says:

    25 Apr25 April 21:13

    You mean HH?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      25 Apr25 April 23:51

      You can transfer to both but Hilton is a better rate.

• Tim says:

  25 Apr25 April 13:12

  Got a BA Amex I’ve hit the £10k target on- about to cancel (once remaining Avios are transferred). Amex are telling me that the companion voucher will be cancelled. I’ve googled and found a HFP article saying Amex will say it but it’s not true. Can anyone who’s done a similar thing verify this with their own experience please?

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:16

    Complete bull, has NEVER happened.

  • Secret Squirrel says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:09

    Had the same recently, don’t listen to them as its not true.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    25 Apr25 April 18:13

    Atleast 4 that haven’t been taken away.

• Matthew says:

  25 Apr25 April 13:26

  Sorry, I know its been asked a 100 times but just want to make sure. If I cancel my BA Amex post companion voucher issue, will they claw the voucher back or will it be safe once in BA Exec Club account? Thanks

  • Peter K says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:31

    See previous post.

  • Matthew says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:31

    Haha unbelievable timing – just seen above!!

  • AJA says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:32

    See post immediately above yours. AMEX says they will cancel the companion voucher but they won’t, once issued it’s safe.

  • Geoff says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:58

    No you won’t lose the voucher – but they will tell you the card has to be used to pay the fees. And to be fair, that is what the T&Cs say: ‘All Taxes, Fees and Charges must be paid for using the British Airways American Express Card.’

    In practice they can be paid with any Amex. We had a 241 voucher all used and booked before cancelling the card. We subsequently cancelled and rebooked the flights, re-using the same voucher, and the taxes were paid on a new card without an issue. The refund went back to the old (closed) card and we had the credit transferred to the new account – all without any problems with either Amex or BA.

  • Cheats says:

    25 Apr25 April 16:13

    Just make sure it’s there before you cancel the flight you booked! ;O}

• r* says:

  25 Apr25 April 14:00

  If you get curve metal do you keep the same cc number or does it basically issue a new account?

  Also, am I right in thinking if it was only used for trips to brighton on VS it would still return ~50000 points pa?

  • Lumma says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:26

    You get a new card with a new number, but the old card will continue to work until it arrives and is activated. I believe you get all the benefits immediately, so you should be able to pay credit cards without fee.

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 16:39

    Either 37,500 or 75,000 depending on which VS card – assuming Virgin Money doesn’t start blocking Curve, like Barclaycard does.

• BA-Flyer says:

  25 Apr25 April 14:13

  My final Lloyds Avios voucher expires end of May. I phoned up to ask if they would extend the expiry and they said no. Only vouchers with an expiry of April are being extended; no decision has been made about May.

  • Anna says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:38

    You could always book a flight as far ahead as possible then change it once you know if vouchers are going to be extended.

    • BA-Flyer says:

      25 Apr25 April 15:31

      All Avios reward travel has to be completed by one year from the original date of booking. Fine if you want to travel earlier, but if you want to extend the outbound flight by another few months, you can’t.

      • Anna says:

        25 Apr25 April 17:00

        I still don’t see the problem, you have nearly 12 months to fly from the booking date, that’s well into next year. What would you have done with it in other circumstances?

• memesweeper says:

  25 Apr25 April 14:23

  Question:

  If I book a redemption on BA for a month or two from now, and if the flight is then cancelled, under EU regs I can insist on a rebooking on the same route on a future date of my choice?

  • AJA says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:37

    You can rebook on any flight (even without reward availability) in the period -3 to +14 days of the original flight. If you go for the same route at a future date there has to be reward seat availability. So that’s a downside of booking a First Class seat since they don’t guarantee any availability.

    • memesweeper says:

      25 Apr25 April 15:28

      From europa.eu:

      If your flight is cancelled you have the right to reimbursement, re-routing or return, as well as the right to assistance …

      I don’t see why award availability is required? On some routes there might be literally zero days with availability

      • memesweeper says:

        25 Apr25 April 15:32

        “re-routing at a later date at your convenience under comparable transport conditions, subject to the availability of seats.”

        I suppose that hangs on the interpretation of availability.

        • AJA says:

          25 Apr25 April 16:51

          Yes it’s that and the fact that BA insist on same booking class. As far as i am aware reward bookings are a different class to revenue tickets in the same way that you can get different classes between revenue bookings e.g. J and I both being business class but the J class being fully flexible.

        • Lady London says:

          25 Apr25 April 19:07

          For sure if you’re being rerouted to, say, the following day or week if the airline has cancelled your flight, the airline most definitely cannot insist on only booking you on a flight that has award seats available. They are simply not allowed to do this. If there is any seat on a flight, whether revenue or award/avios, the airline cannot refuse to put you into it if it’s the same class of travel (eco, bus, 1st) regardless of the fare class.

          I really can’t see why that should change just because someone’s immediate plans to travel have been ruined by an airline’s cancellation so they might choose to travel at a much later date that suits them instead.

          Completely different if the passenger had not been the victim of a cancellation though.

• Justin says:

  25 Apr25 April 14:27

  I have an Amex Gold charge card. I might as well switch to the gold credit card to get one year free. Can I hold both simultaneously (for a brief period) and when I cancel the charge card will the points be transferred to the new card? if someone refers me for the card will they get a referral bonus (I know I won’t get anything). Thanks.

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