The new HFP chat thread – Friday 15th May

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We have decided to run this new daily chat thread on Head for Points.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the defacto repository for random comments and questions. It is unlikely that the news flow will be so big over the next few weeks that we will need many ‘Bits’ articles, however.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind. At this tricky time, and given that many of you are stuck at home self-isolating, we want the HFP community to have a place to chat.

Please only comment under the main articles on the site if your comment is directly related to the topic of the article. This has long-term benefits as its keeps the commentary relevant for people who read those articles in the future.

By default, HFP shows the last page of comments under the article. If you want to see the first page of comments and read them all from beginning to end in order, click here: https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2020/05/15/the-new-hfp-chat-thread-friday-15th-may/comment-page-1. The page will refresh with this article but the comments will now show the first page and not the last page.

We will continue to monitor how this is working. Let’s see how it goes. Take care!

Category

General

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

pauldb says:

15 May15 May 11:29

Dart Group (Jet2) has good GBP300m of CCFF lending today – good work since they had no credit rating previously, so they’ve had to demonstrate investment grade status with their banks. Virgin presumably couldn’t do the same but if a reorganisation meets the hurdles they could then get the CCFF funding.
- Michael says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:16
  
  I’m a bit of a LCC snob but I found Jet2.com very good and extremely pleasant crew. Every pax was wished a Lovely Holiday at boarding, while I was on business in a suit.
  - Louise says:
    
    15 May15 May 13:04
    
    They are very good, I agree.
    
    I had no problems getting a cash refund for Rome flights from them either.
    - Lady London says:
      
      15 May15 May 17:27
      
      I have never heard a bad word said about it them.
- Craig says:
  
  15 May15 May 13:18
  
  Yes, I’m less worried about my future employment now!
  - Peter K says:
    
    15 May15 May 17:12
    
    Glad to hear it 😊
- the_real_a says:
  
  15 May15 May 15:31
  
  Dont Jet 2 have most of their aircraft completely paid off? They have very little in lease costs, which is why they basically stop flying over the lean winter months and then fly 24/7 over the profitable summer period? They must be one of the best bets to weather the storm.
NCL says:

15 May15 May 11:47

Hi, the return inbound leg of my trip planned for next year is soon to be available. Outbound has been been booked using Avios & 241. Am hoping to get seats in F if at all possible. I know my options are get up at 1am and book seats online paying all the tax, calling the UK CC on opening and adding to the booking upon which I will get the Avios credited back but the booking will remain on two separate refs and there will be no refund on the tax paid on return leg. Or I can call an overseas CC at 1am and to add on original booking which will save the outlay on tax.
What are others experiences of calling overseas, am I likely to be sitting on hold for a while risking losing the F seats?
I have also heard reports recently of some overseas CC no longer willing to do this. Is this true?
Can anyone recommend the best CC to call?
I am happy to take the hit on the tax to secure the seats online if necessary. Would hate to be sitting on hold in a CC queue for the seats to disappear!
Thanks
- Rhys says:
  
  15 May15 May 11:59
  
  BA doesn’t guarantee F seats for release on any flights, so you may find there aren’t any available. When F seats are released, I’m not sure they are released at T-355, so calling up may not be useful. You may be better off grabbing the J seats and then setting a SeatSpy or Reward Flight Finder alert for the F seats.
Amar says:

15 May15 May 11:53

I’ve recently taken out a Plat card and hit the 4k spend. If I downgrade to gold and immediately upgrade to Plat again using the 20k bonus link and spend another 4k, would I be eligible for the bonus?
- Rob says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:12
  
  No, because you have had a Membership Rewards card in the past 24 months. You may find that the ‘upgrade to platinum’ bonus works for you (google that phrase) but only if you downgrade to Gold or Green charge, not Gold credit.
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  15 May15 May 16:17
  
  Sounds like you are planning on taking the piss it probably will work but someone will probably notice if you do it too much and shut you down
Jon says:

15 May15 May 11:59

Hi all,

Just to update that DragonPass have confirmed that they will roll over my unused lounge pass accesses from the RED promotion. Given you can only buy them for $27 each now, my 6 are worth over $160, but I’d only get $60 back if I cancelled, so it it worth holding on to them.
- Claire says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:29
  
  What expiry are they giving you, mine run out in january and not sure i will be able to use any of them.
  - Jon says:
    
    15 May15 May 14:57
    
    They will be valid for all of my next 12 month membership
    - Lady London says:
      
      15 May15 May 17:33
      
      the point is what does that membership cost to renew and when does that underlying membership expire. the passes themselves dot have a validity date but your membership does.
- Jody says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:34
  
  How is that being communicated? I know an email was mentioned by Rob about a week ago, but I haven’t had one. Both mine and my husband’s passes are still showing an expiry date of 6th Jan 2021.
  - Jon says:
    
    15 May15 May 14:57
    
    I emailed them from the contact us option in the app. They responded within the hour. And responded to a follow-up question within 15 minutes.
- the_real_a says:
  
  15 May15 May 15:33
  
  Sorry – are we saying that we can extend Jan 2021 expiry to Jan 2022?
Rebecca C says:

15 May15 May 12:07

Hi. Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere. I have looked but didn’t find a clear answer. I would have easily qualified for silver this year (even without the reduced thresholds), but didn’t as a result of 3 cancelled trips. Does anyone know if BA are letting people qualify on a discretionary basis if they didn’t achieve status as a result of flights being cancelled? Thanks!
- Rob says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:10
  
  No, they’re not. There was a modest tier point reduction offered to anyone whose year ended on 8 April, May, June. It’s not clear what happens after this.
  - Rebecca C says:
    
    15 May15 May 13:00
    
    Thanks. That’s what I thought, but there was a comment further up on this thread that made me think otherwise. See:
    
    I understand the entire Exec Club team (apart from Niall himself) has been furloughed, so it’s entirely unsurprising there have been zero announcements on this. I’m clinging on to every hope there will be one later, as I will also be falling a tier, with no good soft landing (Silver > Bronze), and will be very miffed as a result. I don’t even requalify using the reduced rates, and as most of my journeys are booked late, I can’t even prove that I would have done. It’s perverse that higher spenders (late bookers) are being penalised but those who book early are winning discretionary awards when they submit lists of cancelled flights they bought at low cost.
Michael says:

15 May15 May 12:14

I switched my energy to Bulb (Thanks Rob) is there some way I can submit the readings to my old supplier to pay more to Bulb than my previous supplier, thereby maximising AmEx spend etc?
Maybe submit fairly reduced readings to old company. Bulb will want starter readings, so a bit more along for that, and then a while after that, submit correct to end up with a bigger share on the bill paid to Bulb?
It’s also cheaper.
I’ve got the DD at £15 a month…
- Gavin says:
  
  15 May15 May 13:55
  
  You could do it but it sounds like fraud to me.
- John says:
  
  15 May15 May 17:05
  
  Or just submit fraudulent readings all the time and pay less than you really used.
  
  Nobody has come to read my meter in 5 years.
  
  The bulb DD can be set to £5 (possibly even cancelled) after the first payment. You can then pay a few hundred by Amex if you like
Aston100 says:

15 May15 May 12:21

Someone please remind me, can companion vouchers be used for a multi city where the return leg is an airport not flown by BA?
e.g. LHR > BKK // HKT > LHR
I know I can get a cheap one way from HKT to BKK, but I would want to try and avoid separate tickets where possible, and not looking forward to the additional time spent collecting luggage and checking in again.

Thanks.
- Darren says:
  
  15 May15 May 12:26
  
  Yes, but you need to call
  - Darren says:
    
    15 May15 May 12:28
    
    On second thoughts, and actually reading your criteria! The voucher wont be available on HKT to BKK as it wont be BA metal.
    
    sorry
- David S says:
  
  15 May15 May 15:29
  
  BA companion voucher can only be used on BA metal. So you can only fly out of BKK unfortunately. As you have mentioned flights HKT to BKK are very cheap. Have done this before. Not a massive issue providing you leave enough time.
The Savage Squirrel says:

15 May15 May 12:53

Just a positive data point in the middle of so much frustration of bad support, long call times etc.

I had an issue with Capital On Tap card this morning. Logged on. Livechat answered in under 2 minutes and had the issue sorted within another 2 minutes. So much better than dealing with huge but unresponsive companies.