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The new HFP chat thread – Thursday 25th June

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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/2020/06/25/the-new-hfp-chat-thread-thursday-25th-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

Comments (171)

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

  • Baji Nahid says:
    25 Jun25 June 03:57

    Etihad twitter had a melt down over the amount of people trying to get the 50% voucher. I stayed on the phone for so long and gave up so messaged them on twitter to call me back. Its crazy how many folk have jumped on the voucher.

    • MD says:
      25 Jun25 June 07:32

      I gave up on the Etihad phone line after about an hour. Pretty poor service tbh. You would think they would want to take our money.

      Did anyone manage to get a voucher?

      • ChrisA says:
        25 Jun25 June 07:52

        I got one on the day that it was announced. There was no waiting time at all as regards getting through to someone!

        • Lady London says:
          25 Jun25 June 09:10

          Some blog must have publicised it after that, then 🙂

    • Ali M says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:47

      I paid 6000 gbp for a 9000 gbp voucher.
      Had zero wait times. Thanks to HFP – must have been an early adopter.
      Thanks Rob

  • Green Plastic says:
    25 Jun25 June 05:16

    Morning all, quick rookie question: free Curve card with IHG card underlying, does it work on Government Gateway to make deposits for tax free childcare?

    • Ammar says:
      25 Jun25 June 08:58

      Hi
      Happy to be told otherwise, but it didn’t work for me. I had the HSBC premier free card as underlying to the free curve. Just using the direct transfer from my bank account now to top up.

    • Jonathan says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:57

      No, the only card I have found to work is Revolut’s.

  • tony says:
    25 Jun25 June 07:51

    Looks like BA have pulled the weekend Cityflyer rotations to the med from non-LCY destinations.

    Was looking at STN-PMI for August a few days ago, has now vanished. A few other checks seem to tell the same story.

    • Anna says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:48

      Yes, our flights from MAN to AGP have been cancelled. They are shown as running next year though, so fingers crossed it’s not a permanent move.

    • Rob says:
      25 Jun25 June 11:38

      Had a social media comment re Manchester too.

  • Amit says:
    25 Jun25 June 08:00

    Need to fund my stocks and shares ISA, can I do this with curve or billhop? Thanks

  • TripRep says:
    25 Jun25 June 08:27

    The US made all time highs again for daily new cases, (including Florida and Texas) would not be surprised if they consider locking down some states if it continues at this exponential rate.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/world/coronavirus-updates.html

    • Marcw says:
      25 Jun25 June 08:32

      New York and New Jersey have introduced quarantine measures if you travel from states like Florida, Texas, Arizona or California (I think the list is longer). I also read somewhere, I think NYT, that ICU beds in Houston were at 97% capacity.

      • Jeff 99 says:
        25 Jun25 June 08:46

        Starbucks and Apple have closed a lot of stores in some of those states too. I’d imagine other companies have done similar too.

        Not good for their economy, which is already decimated and they don’t even have a furlough scheme like other rich nations. Very backward for the richest country in the world.

        • Lady London says:
          25 Jun25 June 09:21

          The government did do a sort of furlough in the US but by direct payments of cash to citizens. I had the impression it was more universal than our measures. But people have used up to live and pay bills, US not looking like they’re doing any more cash transfers. Rumours they’re moving to tax deduction or rebate approach such as usd4000 for domestic travel spend.

          I’d be quite interested to know how the cash handout worked. A few sites I look at regularly there have had very, very few people commenting on anything since April or so.

          • Rhys says:
            25 Jun25 June 09:25

            They gave $1000 as a one-off to (some) citizens….much less effective than furlough which is up to £2.5k/month….

          • marcw says:
            25 Jun25 June 09:43

            In any case, that tax credit would only benefit the rich.

          • B P says:
            25 Jun25 June 09:55

            I’m a dual citizen and even though I live and work in the UK, I received the $1200 one time stimulus payment under the CARES Act. This payment was made to all adult citizens, although the amount was gradually reduced depending on income, so not everyone qualified for the full $1200.

            The CARES Act also provides an additional $600/week to those claiming unemployment insurance through the end of July. So in many cases people are actually earning more on benefits than they did while working, since the $600/week is not means tested. I have a colleague in Oregon who is getting $410/week through regular unemployment, plus the $600/week from the CARES Act. On an annualised basis, that’s 15% more than her salary!

            I’m on furlough here in the UK, and under our scheme that represents a 50% cut in salary for me. So the systems are different, but both countries have a scheme in place to provide higher than normal benefits to those not working. Although here in the UK the programme is for those employees on furlough as opposed to those made redundant.

            We’re also lucky that healthcare isn’t something we have to worry about here. That’s not the case in the US. My colleagues are lucky in that our company is continuing the medical insurance coverage for our furloughed colleagues, which is not a requirement in the US, and a huge problem during the pandemic.

          • jamie says:
            25 Jun25 June 10:10

            It was 1200 USD, I know several people who got it. PLus unemployment.

          • Jeff 99 says:
            25 Jun25 June 18:47

            “ The US Treasury sent $1.4bn worth of stimulus cheques to more than 1m dead Americans, a congressional watchdog found”

            😂

      • Anna says:
        25 Jun25 June 09:50

        How are they going to know, though? You could presumably drive from Florida and won’t be monitored entering other states.

        • Jeff 99 says:
          25 Jun25 June 11:18

          Depends on if they’ve got roadblocks etc set up and they ask for ID and they could presumably check what your current address is.

          No idea if this is how things work but it shouldn’t be too difficult (of course people may not be living at their registered address and could slip through the net).

          It might also be a policy that’s only “for show” like the U.K. government’s shambolic quarantine policy.

        • Lyn says:
          25 Jun25 June 19:32

          Car license plates show the state where they are registered.

  • Doog1000 says:
    25 Jun25 June 09:01

    Virgin seem to have blocked revolut in terms of topping up directly – you can still do it via curve or apple pay but those routes now register as a cash advance
    Does anyone know if this is a permanent or temporary thing and if it’s permanent whether alternative decent points cards such as miles more mastercard can top up revolut without fees and earning miles?

    • The Urbanite says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:37

      You’ll get charged a cash advance fee if you use Miles & More.

      • Doog1000 says:
        25 Jun25 June 12:10

        thanks so much – does the miles and more mastercard also code as cash advance when used with curve on transactions such as NSI even with Curve fronted?

        • Pangolin says:
          25 Jun25 June 14:25

          M&M seems to charge a cash advance on everything, including via Curve.

          • Rob says:
            25 Jun25 June 14:59

            Because it’s not a credit card, it’s a prepaid debit card.

            No idea if NS&I take it, but HMRC love it (for personal tax, I have heard of people getting into trouble with Diners for paying business taxes on what is a personal card).

    • stevenhp1987 says:
      25 Jun25 June 10:02

      Revolut goes through as MCC 4829 (Money Transfer) when using a MasterCard to top up.

      If you topup using a Visa it is currently going through as MCC 6012 which doesn’t attract a cash advance at as many places.

  • David says:
    25 Jun25 June 09:15

    Does anyone know if you can return an item from Selfridges bought online, in store for a gift card? They sent me the wrong size of something and the size I wanted is now out of stock, and they don’t do exchanges online.

    I don’t want a cash refund as I used the Amex £50 off £250 offer, so would accept an exchange in store but would ideally want a gift card for flexibility.

    Customer services just say ‘it might be possible’…

    • Lady London says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:23

      Why not call the store and ask?

    • Anna says:
      25 Jun25 June 09:51

      If they are like M & S they will refund onto any card, just put it in the machine and don’t say anything.

      • Lady London says:
        25 Jun25 June 10:00

        I think the idea here is to retain the value ofva voucher for future use. Otherwise the poster would just take the normal online refund for wrong goods sent.

        • John says:
          25 Jun25 June 11:06

          They just want to keep the £50 from Amex, which they would keep if refunded onto a different card.

          The solution is to not bring the Amex and go to a store, then in the event that you get asked to show the original card, pretend to search for it and go oops!

          • Anna says:
            25 Jun25 June 13:15

            Exactly or just say you don’t have that card any more and can they please try another one. But I’ve never been challenged on it.

  • Jumble Tales says:
    25 Jun25 June 09:36

    Good morning all. I bought some points yesterday via the Marriott +60% promotion. Email receipt is correct but only the base points (not the bonus 60% ) have credited today. Will they follow? Thanks in advance.

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