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The new HFP chat thread – Sunday 28th 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/2020/06/28/the-new-hfp-chat-thread-sunday-28th-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 (112)

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

  • @mkcol says:
    28 Jun28 June 06:13

    G-ZBLA is finally on the way!

    BA9151 from Charleston to London https://fr24.com/BAW9151/24cd1741

  • Harold R says:
    28 Jun28 June 08:04

    Does anyone know if this will trigger the buisness platinum offer :

    https://www.curryspcworldgiftcards.co.uk/CurrysPCWorld/ByEmail/CurrysPCWorld/ChooseProduct

    • Jonathan says:
      28 Jun28 June 08:48

      Highly doubt it as you’re buying from a dedicated gift card site.

  • Wally1976 says:
    28 Jun28 June 08:13

    Looking at yesterday’s chat thread last night I was glad to see some people have received missing Amex referral bonuses.

    Unfortunately my wife still hasn’t received hers. It was a referral from personal Gold credit to business Gold charge card on 4th June. I also haven’t received any points for adding 2 supplementary cards to the business gold, have no tracker for the 20k bonus points and, so far only have 1 offer available on the card (Boss (no Shop Small)).

    I’m not overly concerned by the last two (I know the trackers are hit – and – miss and the offers are rarely anything I actually use) but the lack of referral and supplementary bonuses is very disappointing 😞.

    • Crafty says:
      28 Jun28 June 08:32

      Under normal circumstances contact customer service. However it looks like this was an internal referral (wife to yourself?) so better to just suck it up.

      • Lee says:
        28 Jun28 June 08:40

        According to AMEX, referral should always be internal, family members and friends, can’t see the problem.

      • Wally1976 says:
        28 Jun28 June 08:51

        I have been on to customer services regarding referral points (nothing wrong with referral between spouses) and they said to wait 6-8 weeks.

        I haven’t been onto them about supplementary card points as it doesn’t seem to be an ‘official’ offer for the business cards. Mind you, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask!

        • Wally1976 says:
          28 Jun28 June 11:43

          Just asked on chat about the points for adding a supplementary card on business Gold and got fobbed off with “Whenever any such offers come on your account you simply need to check under Amex offer in your online account.”

          I tried to push for a better answer and got “these offers are specific to certain cards and accounts”.

          Waste of time!

          • Lady London says:
            28 Jun28 June 12:16

            Try on a weekday between core hours of 10.30 and 4pm. check if you are speaking to Brighton. Ask to be transferred, if not.

            Responses you got look like cut and pasted outsourced call centre responses – to be avoided.

    • Binks says:
      28 Jun28 June 08:56

      Hi, I posted a couple of weeks back I was waiting on referral points hitting my account. They finally posted yesterday to my pleasant surprise – 9k from gold referral. It took just over two weeks.

      I also had supp gold card points post about 4/5 days after the application.

      • Rob says:
        28 Jun28 June 10:02

        A big backlog was cleared yesterday.

        • Michel29 says:
          28 Jun28 June 10:38

          Rob – do you know if these things (clearing of backlog) tend to happen over a couple of days or whether you may just be unlucky and need to wait for the next batch. Both my referrals from my Platinum Business have not yet posted and I have confirmed with AmEx that the applications were done via my referral link.

          • Rob says:
            28 Jun28 June 10:43

            Platinum Business has very specific problems. These problems were already happening last Autumn, when they ran their special promo for referring friends, and have still not been fixed. The last 3 referrals I have done failed to track, although I admit a couple I did earlier in the year were OK.

            The problem is that Amex doesn’t seem to accept that Platinum Business referrals have a specific issue.

            For clarity, all other cards generally track OK. The issues over the last couple of weeks seem to have been fixed by the big catch-up yesterday.

        • Wally1976 says:
          28 Jun28 June 11:36

          Not for my wife unfortunately. Hopefully there’s still a backlog for the business cards that will be cleared soon!

          • Rob says:
            28 Jun28 June 11:46

            See my other comment above fundamental Business card issues.

          • Wally1976 says:
            28 Jun28 June 12:10

            Thanks Rob but I thought you were specifically talking about business platinum cards. This is business gold.

  • Wally1976 says:
    28 Jun28 June 08:23

    Does anyone know anywhere I can get a Sky Sports Now TV pass for less than the £25 a month they’re currently offering everyone? Thanks

  • Anna says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:03

    Data point – just on the phone to BA to get my avios and RFS fees back for cancelled flights from AGP in August. I used the 0800 number and didn’t press any options and was on hold for about 5 minutes. Still ridiculous that this can’t be done online – very annoying to have to sit listening to messages urging me to log onto my account to pick an alternative flight or get a voucher but not to get avios/cash refunded 😡

    • Alexandra Dabrowska says:
      28 Jun28 June 09:13

      Thanks for your insight. I am in the same boat. Tried phoning yesterday and just got recorded messages saying my call could not be taken. Very frustrating that BA don’t let you re-book flights booked with Avios or get a refund on line.

      • Anna says:
        28 Jun28 June 11:37

        I got the option of re-booking a cancelled avios flight via MMB (but I don’t want to take the trip anyway). However, when I tried to re-book using a furture travel voucher for different cancelled flights, I got a message saying I had to call BA to do it.

    • Anna says:
      28 Jun28 June 09:19

      Though it took me another 20 minutes to get through to the avios department and the CSA then tried to offer me a voucher!! I think this is my last cancellation for BA travel this year, thankfully.

      • Alexandra Dabrowska says:
        28 Jun28 June 09:47

        I got through fine to BA call centre but they could not amend my RFS flights. Had to transfer me to the Avios dept so that it might be done there but due to a technical problem nothing could be done ….am on the phone again. So frustrating!

        • Anna says:
          28 Jun28 June 11:33

          I got the avios back immediately, IME recently cash refunds arrive from about 3 days later.

          • Anna says:
            28 Jun28 June 11:34

            It’s been fun tracking all the refunds down on the various cards I used to book everything last year to trigger sign up bonuses and vouchers!

    • RussellH says:
      28 Jun28 June 14:29

      > very annoying to have to sit listening to messages urging me to log onto my account

      I could not agree more – people who come up with these messages should really give us credit for having already discovered that what one wants to do cannot be done on line.

  • Charlieface says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:24

    Armchair lawyers: do we think BA is actually exempt from EC261 compo for the recent cancellations? A large chunk of them seem to be just a lack of cargo, certainly not an exclusive Covid issue, and in any case was it so exceptional that they had to cancel within 14 days?

    • pauldb says:
      28 Jun28 June 11:13

      They seem to be broadly ok. Guidance here: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/legislation/c20201830.pdf

      You could argue it’s different with internal EU travel reopened. But are they not cancelling >14days out now (more like 4-6 weeks), so compensation is not payable anyway.

      • Charlieface says:
        28 Jun28 June 12:26

        I’m talking about within 14 days. Even if they have an argument in general about flying restrictions, that shouldn’t absolve them from regular cancellations and delays, it also shouldn’t allow them to cancel last minute when they knew before 14 days they would need to cancel.

    • Lady London says:
      28 Jun28 June 12:32

      Some of the recent ones for summer holiday routes from non-London definitely were a bit dodgy as looked like cancelled due lack of passenger loads or perhaps using currently limited equipment and crew elsewhere on routes with more takers.

      One or two of them even seemed to get notified at less than 14 days to posters here. when other posters are reporting they can see ahead that their route’s disappeared but BA won’t confirm and notifies much later.

      I thought the same as you at the time @charlieface but one thing I’m sure of is that airlines will be able to claim covid as exceptional circumstances for some time to come and that BA will use it as an excuse for as long as possible and will get.away with it.

  • Secret Squirrel says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:30

    Anyone offer advise on searching availability on Air France using VS miles? Tried VA flying club search but no go using flexi dates & cross referenced AF availability?

    • Charlieface says:
      28 Jun28 June 10:47

      Seems to show online only for direct flights. Otherwise call up. It should match AF lowest level availability, also Delta should be the same.

    • Lady London says:
      28 Jun28 June 12:34

      Didnt someone report Virgin has blocked non-Virgin redemptions? Or are you just sightseeing @Secret?

  • pauldb says:
    28 Jun28 June 11:20

    RFS pricing oddity: band 3 CE (ATH, etc).

    Peak costs a few thousand more avios than offpeak at the 50p level. But if you switch to the old-style £25 level, which is generally best value, the difference is now all but erased.

    Peak: 17,600 + £25
    Offpeak: 17,000 + £25.50

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

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