The new HFP chat thread – Wednesday 24th June

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• Steve says:

  24 Jun24 June 07:49

  IHG has extended their book with confidence scheme. Any bookings pre April 6th can be cancelled for a full refund for stay up to 31 August (was 30 June).

  Find it odd that they have kept the “bookings pre April 6” criteria, as they continued to sell non refundable rates even after this date.

• ankomonkey says:

  24 Jun24 June 07:51

  So where do we think the UK will announce airbridges to?

  • Jon says:

    24 Jun24 June 07:59

    US? Brazil? Seems like the only options at the moment…

    • Oh! Matron! says:

      24 Jun24 June 08:40

      I’m pretty sure they’ll announce air bridges to the countries with the highest Covid-19 rates….

    • Pat the Postie says:

      24 Jun24 June 08:54

      Well the cases per million is less than Spain…

      We are only going to know the true statistics on death rates when it’s over and the proper data analysed not the limited information given through current sources.

      • J says:

        24 Jun24 June 09:04

        EU may ban American tourists – expect restrictions on UK tourists. Even if you’re a fan of this government, it’s considered incompetent by every country considered to be handling the crisis well. Plane loads of British tourists is obviously high risk right now.

        • Pat the Postie says:

          24 Jun24 June 11:18

          Health, diet, diabetes and obesity levels are what really made the difference to the death rate not the timing of the lockdown which was to protect the NHS which it did.

      • pauldb says:

        24 Jun24 June 10:08

        Do you mean Spain>US – here do you get that from?

  • Pat the Postie says:

    24 Jun24 June 08:54

    I’d expect the most popular destinations such as France, Spain, Greece etc

  • Sandgrounder says:

    24 Jun24 June 08:55

    I’m going for France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland as a minimum, because we can visit them now without quarantine. Its all about politics not safety, we should be able to return from Iceland on a direct flight and not quarantine as they have almost zero rates of infections now, but it won’t be permitted because they won’t reciprocate.

    • Vit says:

      24 Jun24 June 09:35

      Agreed and I am looking forward to the direct flight from EDI to Faroe Islands. 🙂

    • pauldb says:

      24 Jun24 June 10:07

      It seems a nonsense for the waiver to be anything less than the whole of Schengen. The FCO can still keep its all-but-essential advice if there are outliers.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        24 Jun24 June 10:52

        But would mean holiday companies would cancel any package holidays if they did. Most if not all insurance policies would be invalid for holidays too.

• Dave says:

  24 Jun24 June 07:53

  Is there an an Accelerate or bonus offer for IHG stays at the moment? Considering a few stays in Europe in August and wanted to know if it was worth focusing on IHG or not.

  • Andrew says:

    24 Jun24 June 08:22

    Doubtful, their target market for these promotions is business travellers so probably nothing until the autumn at the earliest. And with most people likely needing to cancel bookings they make due to the changing situation, it complicates things if promotions have been applied. Flexibility and extended status is probably about as much of a promotion as we can expect to see from the hotel programmes this year.

  • Rob says:

    24 Jun24 June 09:06

    Weirdly there IS a promo but only for US residents!

  • Lady London says:

    24 Jun24 June 23:46

    Accor’s offering 500 points per stay in a few Europe countries.

• Craig says:

  24 Jun24 June 08:08

  I have an Iberia flight to Bogotá in September. The dates I’m booked on are not for sale anymore, it looks like they have reduced frequency down to a couple of times per week. I have not received any notification from Iberia yet and my booking is still showing on the app. Could this be that they are still deciding on the timetable for September before contacting passengers?

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    24 Jun24 June 08:41

    Probably a month before. All my flights that have been cancelled so far this year with BA, Virgin, SAA, etc, have all been 1 month. Doesn’t give you much time to re-organise, however…

    • Isherwood says:

      24 Jun24 June 11:44

      Quite variable in our experience. Veuling flights to Spain for 15 July only officially cancelled by email yesterday. Meanwhile our KLM flights to AMS for end of August cancelled by email today.

  • Gtellez says:

    24 Jun24 June 09:56

    I had a flight from Milan to Bogota (Stop in Madrid) on Aug 22, that was the same for few weeks, last week I received the notification that the flight has been cancelled; so probably for September the email will arrive soon. I called Iberia and I can cancel it (I don’t want to, since I paid £450 in Business during a fare error I found on FlyerTalk) or change it until June 2021 with few exceptions (like Christmas and Easter). I even asked about the possibility of changing the origin and they told me that it could be possible but has to be approved by a Supervisor. Still not decided which I want to fly…

    • Craig says:

      24 Jun24 June 10:46

      Mine was also the error fare for £450 so that’s interesting what you say. Thanks

• JohnG says:

  24 Jun24 June 08:13

  Has anyone got recent experience of whether Amex are still offering points to retain platinum customers? We’re running behind the pack and wondered if it was still worth having a go?

  • Chris says:

    24 Jun24 June 09:35

    i called up a week or so ago and got it no problem. They tried to fob me off with the £100 cash back deal, i explained i considered this in line with what i’d normally expect of this card

    they passed me on to a supervisor and within a minute or two she’d approved the 20k points

    • JohnG says:

      24 Jun24 June 22:42

      Thanks Chris, I’ll give it a try.

• Spk says:

  24 Jun24 June 08:37

  Singapore Airlines extended their waiver policy to 31st august. Even if the flights are not cancelled, passengers can request for a full refund.

  • marcw says:

    24 Jun24 June 08:55

    who is booking long haul flights for August?

    • Spk says:

      24 Jun24 June 09:06

      This is for tickets booked before covid. Obviously any ticket booked after can be changed free of cost.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    24 Jun24 June 09:19

    Good luck getting SQ to engage, by far the worst I’ve dealt with in this crisis, out of BA/AA/QF/SQ/NF/LA/CX/JL & VA

    • Leigh says:

      24 Jun24 June 10:52

      I requested refund for a cancelled SQ flight two month ago, still waiting for the refund to be processed. I was told that they don’t have refund time frame at all!

• Caz says:

  24 Jun24 June 08:59

  Any info as to whether a MR to Marriott conversion bonus is expected soon? There was the targeted bonus before Christmas, but I’m not sure how often these things come around. Got a points advance booking for September, which will hopefully happen! Need to transfer 30k points so don’t want to do this just before a bonus, but don’t want my all of my nights to change to peak rate in the meantime either!

  • Rob says:

    24 Jun24 June 09:02

    The targetted one was the first one ever, and of course was targetted. Doesn’t help you much I know …

• Nikkei says:

  24 Jun24 June 09:25

  Morning all, any experiences with merging credit limits with AMEX? I’ve just been approved for second credit card but how long should I wait if I want to move (80% of credit limit of first card) to the second card?

  Just worried about any resistance/raising flags when not needed and can be avoided.

  • stevenhp1987 says:

    24 Jun24 June 10:51

    It’s no problem. Just ring them up and they’ll action it. I’ve done it before as soon as my new card arrived!

    The minimum limit is £700. That is still the case when closing a card down, so if you plan to close one of the cards you can transfer the limit – £700.

  • Rahaney says:

    24 Jun24 June 17:46

    Do it by the instant chat feature, extremely easy.

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