The new HFP chat thread – Friday 12th June

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

NOTE: There is no additional content today because the three articles we were going to run today went up during Thursday, as we know you wouldn’t want to wait to hear about the BA status extensions. We need to let the email readers catch up. Normal service resumes on Saturday!

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/2020/06/12/the-new-hfp-chat-thread-friday-12th-june/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.

Harry T says:

12 Jun12 June 11:52

Anyone know why Domes of Elounda seem to demand prepayment for every rate bookable through Bonvoy, even when it’s a flexible rate? Seems a bit cheeky to me, especially as I’ve not seen another hotel in the Bonvoy network for this for flexible rates.
- Anna says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 13:20
  
  I think individual hotels sometimes try it on. I made a rather expensive flexible cash rate booking at the Westin GCM a couple of years ago for a stay 10 months in the future, no payment was required at time of booking but a couple of weeks later the hotel charged half the amount to my credit card! I put in a complaint and it was refunded. I then cancelled the booking in case they tried to pull a similar stunt again and we stayed elsewhere! Using points next time lol.
  - Harry T says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 14:27
    
    Good for you, Anna – we shouldn’t reward these kind of tactics with our loyalty and money.
    
    Have you been to Domes? I’ve been to Elounda as a teenager but never visited Domes.
    - Matthew says:
      
      12 Jun12 June 15:36
      
      Done domes twice. Had a great time. You can upgrade basic room to a mini villa/suite for cash. Although we didn’t at the time and was fine with two little ones. We did however, ‘upgrade’ to half board which is good value.
      
      Considering going again next year but now points bookings are so prohibitive it will have to be a cash booking. We were showered with gifts all week such as wine, sweets, fruit, cocktails, spa treatments etc, generally due to repeat customers but our friends who came for first time got them too!
      - Harry T says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 15:54
        
        Thanks, Matthew. The increase in points required is frankly hilarious! Glad to hear it’s a lovely resort. I only seem to be able to see suites or villas for the dates I’m checking.
      - Rob says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 16:25
        
        Except …. in peak Summer season, it still represents a ‘better than average’ Bonvoy redemption if you work on a typical 0.5p per point of value.
- Sunguy says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 13:47
  
  A number of “resort” hotels also do this – its to weed out the “prospective” bookings….(e.g. Waldorf Astoria on Maui charge 2 nights stay at time of booking regardless of whether its a cancelable rate or not).
  
  Personally, I rather despise this policy, esp. when dealing with amounts in foreign currencies – there is usually a penalty in the reverse transaction rate – you pretty much always pay something to the card company.
  - Harry T says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 14:26
    
    Yes, my problem with this is that most booking for hotels abroad are speculative right now, due to the climate of uncertainty. I could have every intention to travel to Crete but simply be unable to due to border restrictions or flights cancellations etc. I don’t want a hotel holding my money during this time period (or ever, personally).
    
    I do wonder if Emyr is able to access flexible rates using Luminous/Virtuoso rates?
    - EJH says:
      
      12 Jun12 June 15:13
      
      I’d be a bit wary of Domes – booked a free cancellation rate (with 50% deposit) in 2019 via Marriott for a May 2020 stay. Attempted to cancel well before the free cancellation deadline and entire deposit was withheld by the property citing a change in Greek law which effectively “allows hotels to issue a voucher and hang onto the cash as an interest free loan for 18months” notwithstanding the original booking conditions.
      
      Marriott (am Gold) were needless to say unhelpful at best (obviously argued that the original booking conditions should be upheld) and just referred me to Domes management.
      
      It’s not a huge amount of money but it doesn’t seem right as much as I want to support the Greek tourism industry, and no doubt it won’t be straightforward to reclaim the cash in 18months…
      - Harry T says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 15:56
        
        Thanks, EJH – that’s what I was afraid of. You can’t rely on Marriott to back you up in these situations. have you tried a section 75 claim or chargeback? I’d personally get Amex on the case.
      - EJH says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 16:29
        
        @Harry – sorry if the “reply” doesn’t appear in the correct place as there wasn’t the relevant button under your message… yes chargeback (w/ Tandem) in motion, thanks. Although not overly optimistic for a swift resolution.
        
        The most disappointing part of the whole experience tbh was the utterly impenetrable, unreasonable and “computer says no” psyche of Marriott customer services after multiple calls/emails/escalation etc. I dread to think what would happen if one had an issue with a more flagrant hotel.
Craig says:

12 Jun12 June 11:55

Interesting point on the Amex Plat double MR points, spend is doubled but refunds seem to go through as only single?
- Andrew says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 11:59
  
  Yes, refunds on transactions which were pre-double points are just refunded as single points, but maybe a transaction made during double points and then refunded would get double points taken back – haven’t tested. Also to note, as always with the deals, the £100 of free spend gets you 200 points which aren’t reversed when the credit is applied, so it’s actually £101.80 you get (if you took the points as statement credit).
  - Craig says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 12:25
    
    No, this is for transactions made during the offer.
    - Andrew says:
      
      12 Jun12 June 12:35
      
      Oh that is good then. £10k fully flex First flight anyone?
      - Craig says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 12:37
        
        Considering I’m knocking on the door of 6 x £100 rebates I think I’ll skip testing that.
      - Alex W says:
        
        12 Jun12 June 19:19
        
        Good luck getting a refund from BA 😆
Vit says:

12 Jun12 June 12:11

IHG Additional Reward Point:

Applied for a free card on 28th March (a few day before cut-off date for the additional 10k points). Contacted Creation as still have not received the 10k additional points after spending £500 in less than 1 month.

Got email this morning that the card was approved on 1st April. Email stated that my request has been forwarded to relevant dept. to get sorted.

Not sure if anyone else had similar experiences?
- DJ says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 12:17
  
  For my black IHG, I had this response and I had to send my bank statements and IDs to them via email. (I wasn’t quite happy about that)
  
  Then when I applied for my second card, it was an instant approval.
  - Vit says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 12:54
    
    Hi DJ, did you mean instant approval of the additional 10k point for the free (white) card?
    
    I’ve just got that email this morning so still waiting to hear from them regarding the next steps.
    - DJ says:
      
      12 Jun12 June 15:04
      
      Yeah, the white card that applied after was instant approval.
- Eugene says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 13:43
  
  My experience was that it two months or more to get the extra 10k to post. They did get there in the end , have faith and patience 🙂
  - Vit says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 13:58
    
    Haha. Thanks Eugene. Will do. To be fair, they did say up to 90 days.
Reeferman says:

12 Jun12 June 12:22

Would be keen to know the outcome as I have a similar situation – an expired voucher and a flight booked to IAD for October 2020.
Also wondering if there is a different policy (re the Lloyds upgrade voucher) if the flight is (eventually) cancelled
Spk says:

12 Jun12 June 12:23

Was just reading about gift cards on Tesco website and it says “you’ll earn 150 Clubcard points for every £50 you spend in a single transaction on branded gift cards”

Is that a typo? Or has it always been the case?
- Rob says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 12:36
  
  It USED to be the case but they scrapped it a few years ago. It would be very interesting if it was back ….
- GRIMZ says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 12:37
  
  You don’t get any points for gift cards at Tesco now unless something has changed recently?
  - Polly says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 23:34
    
    And that would take us almost back to the good old days of 3v cards, printers and cabbages! Think it’s a fat fingered error, but you never know.
- Andrew says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 13:00
  
  It could be an error in the FAQS, but you are correct, it is there.
  
  https://www.tesco.com/help/in-store-faq/
  
  Do I get Clubcard points when I buy a branded gift card?
  
  If you’re a Clubcard customer, you’ll earn 150 Clubcard points for every £50 you spend in a single transaction on branded gift cards. Remember to use your Clubcard at the time of purchase.
  - DB2020 says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 15:28
    
    Last week I bought an Amazon gift card at Tesco. No Clubcard points were credited to my account.
Matthew says:

12 Jun12 June 12:28

You can change the dates subject to availability upto a year from the date of issue if your ticket for the same route (or band) even if your voucher is now expired. You will only get a voucher extension if your flight gets cancelled.
- Matthew says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 12:29
  
  You changing =£35pp fee but if they cancel then no fee and voucher extension issued.
  - Reeferman says:
    
    12 Jun12 June 14:27
    
    Thanks Matthew
    I used mine very close to its expiry, so a 12 month extension won’t work for me as it’s only a week or so after the previously (currently)-booked flight.
    Am hoping for a flight cancellation or will have to forego the voucher and just take back the AVIOS (and fees) – unless Lloyds extends its policy in the meantime.
    - Matthew says:
      
      12 Jun12 June 15:45
      
      Sorry not sure if I explained it very well! It works differently to the BA companion voucher. The lloyds voucher is book by not travel by. So for example, your voucher expires 30 Mar 2020 and you book on 29 Mar 2020 for 1 Jan 2021 flight. Once you have passed 30 Mar 2020, then your only option is to amend the date but stick to the same route or avios zone for any travel (subject to availability) upto 20 Mar 2021 (give or take a day). You can essentially choose a date that is within a year of the original booking date. If you cancel after the date of voucher expiry, you lose it. If you cancel before voucher expiry, it’s returned with the original expiry. If BA cancel your flight, you are given a full refund of avios & fees and issued with a new voucher which will be given an expiry of either 3 or 6 months (I have the latter but recent reports say they’ve changed it to 3) from the date you request the voucher. Hope that makes sense 🙂
Sukes says:

12 Jun12 June 12:28

Rhys back on 17 Apr 2020 you published an article on HfP (https://headforpoints.com/2020/04/17/use-section-75-to-get-a-flight-or-hotel-refund/#comments) with advice from ‘regular commenter Dean’. You included posts from Dean who disputed on 6 Apr with Amex a non-refunded flight with Qatar. He wrote that Amex had posted an expected resolution date of 29 May and in the meantime had provided a credit. Any updates possible to this article to see how Amex have dealt with this to date and if they have honoured their expected timeline? Thks
Philip says:

12 Jun12 June 12:30

Is anyone else getting plagued by multiple emails from BA? Every email they send comes through about 15 times over 2 or 3 days. ‘Something to make you smile’! Wears a bit thin after the umpteenth time.
- Michael C says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 12:47
  
  No, but had exactly the same thing from Booking .com last w/end with a “don’t forget to pay the rest of your deposit” – v annoying!
- Rhys says:
  
  12 Jun12 June 13:06
  
  Nope, just you!