The new HFP chat thread – Thursday 25th June

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

• Anna says:

  25 Jun25 June 15:38

  Possibly one for Lady London – I ordered a bottle of 2008 Faustino I Rioja as part of my OH’s birthday present. On the picture the Amazon seller has used to advertise it, it clearly says “Gran Reserva” on the bottle, which is what I expected to receive. It’s arrived today and is actually a Reserva, which I probably wouldn’t have bothered with as it’s not difficult to get hold of decent Reservas. Looking at the information on the selling page, there is no mention of whether the wine is Reserva or Gran Reserva, so I am wondering if I have made a stupid error and have no comeback. My feeling is that they should sell what they are showing a picture of but would consumer law back me up here?

  • Grant says:

    25 Jun25 June 15:51

    Not a full answer I know, but if it was bought through Amazon then surely you’ll be able to return it regardless. At the very least I would have thought DSR would help you out assuming you are within 14 days of receipt.

    I tired to look for the lisitng and the very first hit on Amazon had lots of negative reviews all with your complaint. In that case the listing was just said Faustino 1 75th Anniversary 2008, but the bottle pictured (stolen from winesearcher.com) was a Gran Reserva dated 2003.

  • Jonathan says:

    25 Jun25 June 15:59

    I’d definitely raise a complaint with Amazon. If there’s no mention of it being Riserva (is it Faustino V?) and pictyre is of Gran Riserva then it’s pretty cut & shut you’ve been mislead! Amazon are pretty generous when it comes to customer service gestures so will probably refund & allow you to keep the wine.

    This has just reminded me of a scam/loophole (depending on personal morals) from a couple of years ago where you could order booze from Amazon then contact them after delivery and say your party was cancelled etc & ask for a return. Amazon would refund & let you keep goods as they didn’t have the ability to process alcohol returns. I know of people that had orders of >£1k refunded! It got so out of hand at my then workplace that Amazon deliveries were no longer accepted for staff as the post room were fed up of dealing with Jeroboams of Bollinger arriving on a daily basis!

    • Anna says:

      25 Jun25 June 16:12

      The picture is of a Faustino I Gran Reserva, which is what I was after. I know I can probably get a refund but it’s the aggravation and the sheer cheek of a company which pull a stunt like that! I imagine if you know your Gran Reservas you’re going to notice if that’s not what arrives so it seems pretty pointless to try.
      I’ll read the reviews first next time!
      And just to top it off, I’ve had a very fast response from the company saying they can’t do anything about it as it was “Fulfilled by Amazon” 😡

      • Anna says:

        25 Jun25 June 16:46

        Fairly long call to Amazon to sort but they have said I can keep the wine and have a refund to their credit. I won’t try a Jeroboam of Bollinger though!

        • Chris Heyes says:

          25 Jun25 June 22:43

          Anna@ ok be round shortly pull the cork now lol

      • Tom says:

        25 Jun25 June 17:23

        As an Amazon seller myself this could be a completely innocent mistake by the company. At some point someone has uploaded the wrong image (whether that was dishonestly or not we don’t know). Amazon match products based on their barcode so if a seller went to list a reserva the barcode matched them to this listing then they never have known about the image. They may have even uploaded the correct image but Amazon decide what image to show – 5 sellers could all upload different images but they might only show 1.

        And their its Fulfilled by Amazon line is also true, if the item is fulfilled by Amazon then all customer service enquiries are handled by Amazon.

        • Anna says:

          25 Jun25 June 18:47

          I would have thought sellers would be a bit more careful about looking after their reputations in that case.

        • Tom says:

          25 Jun25 June 21:39

          Unfortunately if a seller has a large catalogue of products then it is next to impossible.

• Aston100 says:

  25 Jun25 June 17:18

  IHG:
  South Africa, Thailand and Egypt look to be on the dynamic points pricing as of this afternoon.
  South Africa changed literally a few minutes ago from standard points to dynamic as I was viewing.

  Oddly, the IC Cairo Semiramis has gone UP from 25k to 40k on the nights that I have been keeping an eye on for the past 2 or 3 months. Didn’t think that was possible! I mean 25k per night was always cheap to start with, but I had just assumed that was the standard pricing and perhaps it’s a bit of a rubbish hotel and maybe it would go down once dynamic pricing hit (or at least it would stay the same). Annoyed I didn’t book it for 25k prior to this afternoon…

  • BJ says:

    25 Jun25 June 18:41

    Thanks for this although I’ll probably miss out again on dates by a few weeks like I did in Japan.

    • Aston100 says:

      25 Jun25 June 18:47

      Seeing as there is such poor availability in Cape Town at Christmas and New Year, I’ve booked the Holiday Inn for just over 15k per night. The HIX is 10k per night.
      Pity there aren’t any better IHG brands in that city. I wonder why. Would have expected a Kimpton if not an Intercontinental.
      Still, I’ve ‘paid’ a bargain price for Christmas accommodation so I’m happy.

      • Aston100 says:

        25 Jun25 June 18:49

        Oh to be clear, the Holiday Inn is around £120 per night on the cheapest rate for those nights.

      • Rob says:

        25 Jun25 June 20:12

        Only if they go back on plans to ban tourists until Feb!

  • Aston100 says:

    25 Jun25 June 18:53

    I’m still baffled by the dynamic points pricing on the Cairo Semiramis Intercontinental.
    For the last two or three months or so, it has been 25k points or about £105 per night (plus 12% tax) for the cheapest room.
    This afternoon, the cash price was unchanged but the points price shot up to 40k. Other IHG brands in the city went down (the other Intercontinental near the airport was unchanged).

    This seems really odd. I didn’t think any hotel would go up in points price when switching to dynamic rates.

• N says:

  25 Jun25 June 17:32

  Shop small – do you get the credits if you pay through Google Pay with the Amex as the underlying card?

  • BS says:

    25 Jun25 June 18:40

    Yes

  • Nick_C says:

    26 Jun26 June 00:11

    Good luck finding a small retailer who has their terminal set up correctly for Amex contactless.

    Even Asda don’t accept Amex contactless, so Google Pay doesn’t work with Amex at Asda.

• Cheshire Pete says:

  25 Jun25 June 18:02

  BA sent me a stream of cancellations for August this afternoon. All my MAN domestics once again cancelled, looks like only morning flights once again till end of August.. That’s 4 flights gone. This has devastated my Late August Bank Holiday trip to Amsterdam which I got a cheap 3 night stay at Victoria hotel opposite Centraal in the sale via this site! Both my Manchester shuttles to LHR cancelled and my return from AMS cancelled on the BH Monday! Not sure yet how I’m going to salvage it all!

  • Anna says:

    25 Jun25 June 18:49

    Surely the LCCs will be flying direct to AMS if you really want to go? BA have to re-route you under EU261 if you choose that option. Not sure how it works when you’ve got a hotel booked as well, but presumably they could change your flights and keep your hotel booking.

    • Anna says:

      25 Jun25 June 18:52

      Easyjet has got MAN-AMS for £82 return over the August bank holiday weekend. I might go myself!

      • Cheshire Pete says:

        25 Jun25 June 19:05

        Yeah, the outward would still work at the moment by rebooking to other flights? I thought they only had to re route you within a certain time frame? It’s still over 2 months away. But not sure on that actually. As there is a direct flight back on the Monday with KLM for instance,

• BS says:

  25 Jun25 June 18:40

  Anyone else seen the new Boris plane?

  I actually quite like it, although the font for ‘United Kingdom’ doesn’t look quite right.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53183925

  • Chris K says:

    25 Jun25 June 19:32

    It’s very pretty. Hopefully available for Avios redemptions soon 😉

  • BJ says:

    25 Jun25 June 20:20

    Almost a million for that, not bad but not worth a million. And it’s going to look awesomely stupid when they need to remove the blue bits.

    • james says:

      25 Jun25 June 23:46

      +1 Boris deserves a Sopwith Camel and he can stand on the wing

• Ian says:

  25 Jun25 June 19:08

  Any way to pay off HSBC Premier World Elite card with a debit card (Curve/Revolut) ?

  • Genghis says:

    25 Jun25 June 19:43

    Can’t pay it off with any debit card.

    • Eli gold says:

      26 Jun26 June 14:03

      How about Barclaycard?
      Can it be paid off with curve? Didn’t work for me the other day

  • mark2 says:

    25 Jun25 June 20:29

    Can you pay it from Revolut through FastPay?

    • Genghis says:

      25 Jun25 June 20:53

      Revolut block it.

      • Ian says:

        25 Jun25 June 21:11

        Thanks all

• Margaret B says:

  25 Jun25 June 20:02

  BA pulling lots of flights still. I booked to fly EDI-PMI with BA on 25/7, which was pulled and now starts thr following week (no BA flight that day so I’m now with Easyjet). I’d booked my return PMI-STN on 1/8 as it had a nice time if 8.35pm, a Citiflyer service and all thr London airports are equidistant. When I looked at the current price yesterday afternoon the flight has vanished but I’ve not been notified and BA replied to my tweet but are still investigating? Any idea if this might reappear, or has it been pulled too? I’m guessing the later, though it’s still on Expertflyer and I can potentially reserve seats on the flight!

  • Rob says:

    25 Jun25 June 20:11

    All CityFlyer weekend services are pulled.

    • Margaret says:

      25 Jun25 June 22:45

      So l need to chase them before we end up with the worst flights. Thanks:/

• Liz says:

  25 Jun25 June 20:22

  If you buy Marriott points using the Marriott Amex do you get extra bonus points? Was that something that happened with the SPG card? Not sure if this still works.

  • Rob says:

    25 Jun25 June 21:20

    No. Goes through as points.com

  • TGLoyalty says:

    25 Jun25 June 21:48

    It is something that happened with the old card.

    I complained I didn’t get them and was awarded them as goodwill.

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