The new HFP chat thread – Thursday 16th July

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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.

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General

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

Sean says:

16 Jul16 July 16:34

Virgin Question

Phoned today to book with upgrade voucher that generated earlier in the month – lady on phone said that I have 5 vouchers (now 4). Only had the card 4 months – is this unusual?
- jimA says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 16:57
  
  I would have said very unusual but then their IT/comms between Virgin Money and Airline is pretty poor !
Roberto says:

16 Jul16 July 17:04

I booked a BA holiday to Greece a couple of weeks ago. The price was a little lumpy but I took it on the chin bearing in mind the conditions we are all in. Anyways today I had an email about the flash sale and had to peek at what the price is today in the sale.

Well its £890 less than I paid so I phoned CS to ask for advice. They reccomended I rebooked at the lower rate and cancelled the first booking for a future travel voucher which I can use to part pay down the second booking once it turns up next week. Thanks BA, excellent advice and great use of the “Book With Confidence Policy”. I wish Beardy Airlines were as accommodating…

Apparantly the change in price was partly down to the sale and partly due to lower fare buckets being made available.

They also managed to move us out of our prefered seats on the older booking to snag them again on the newer booking..

A right touch as someone once said……
Russell says:

16 Jul16 July 19:11

Expired American Airline miles

My AA miles expired on 3rd July with American Airlines … 186k … I had thought i had till 30th July to redeem which was my fault. Is there anyway for me to get them back without paying the $1250 they are asking for?
- BS says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 19:19
  
  Ouch. Never heard anyone getting them back without paying. Might get lucky with Covid though.
  Should have bought 1000 to keep them going.
- AJA says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 21:32
  
  Oh no. That’s awful but I think you’re out of luck. AA temporarily suspended expiry of miles at the beginning of April but only to 1 July 2020 after which they started expiring again. How much would it cost just to buy that number bearing in mind AA have a promotion of a bonus 45% miles running.
- Amit says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 21:41
  
  Sorry to hear that, just checked my account and they were due to expire today! Bought some to extend the expiry. It maybe worth giving them a call to see if they can help
  - JohnnyT says:
    
    16 Jul16 July 22:34
    
    same happened to me, but I ‘donated’1k rather than purchasing some just to keep the account alive
    
    didn’t realise that was an option but hey ho
Aston100 says:

16 Jul16 July 20:07

Is there a site that allows you to pick your destination and then do ‘everywhere’ for the origin.
In order to find the cheapest starting airport in Europe for that destination?

Thanks
- Optimus Prime says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 20:11
  
  No, but what people usually do is enter the usual suspects (ARN, OSL, AMS, etc) as departure points in Google Flights (It does allow for multiple departure airports but just a few, I think five). You can also tell it to look for specific stopovers – for example US West Coast via NYC to get 560 TP’s, etc.
- Rob says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 20:48
  
  For cash? ITA Matrix used to be able to do this but I think now restricts you to 5 starting points per search. That said, it’s not so hard to do 5-6 searches quickly to cover the top 25-30 options.
marcw says:

16 Jul16 July 22:12

The BA 747 won’t fly any commercial flights with immediate effect. Bye bye jumbo… was nice to fly with you!
- marcw says:
  
  16 Jul16 July 22:24
  
  Dear colleague
  With much regret, we are proposing, subject to consultation, the immediate retirement of our Queen of the Skies, the 747-400. We know there is speculation on social media and aviation websites, so we wanted to make our position clear.
  The whole airline community is reconciling itself to a bleak outlook for passenger demand. Long haul travel will take years to recover, with the major industry bodies agreeing that we will not see a return to 2019 levels until 2023 at the soonest. The bulk of our fleet is large, wide-bodied, long haul aircraft with many premium seats, intended to carry high volumes of customers. The unofficial flagship of our fleet, the 747-400 has a very special place in the hearts of aviation enthusiasts and of many of us. We know how many memories of this extra-special aircraft are shared across the BA family and our proposal to retire the fleet early has only been taken in response to the crisis we find ourselves in.
  When many people think of BA today, they think of our Jumbos connecting Britain with the world, and the world with Britain. They are true icons. We love the Queen of the Skies and have operated them since 1971. We took our first 747-400 (technically the 747-436) registration G-BNLC in July 1989, and our newest was delivered to us in April 1999. There’s a great archive video about the aircraft here.
  Most of our 747s are already due for retirement progressively by early 2024, and we recently refreshed the interiors of a number of them with the intention of a good few remaining years in service. They are an airliner of another era, however, and they burn far more fuel than the latest generation of planes and, logically, require more frequent and detailed attention from our engineering team. They rely on high passenger load factors and high premium demand to make them commercially viable. In short, we do not believe that these beautiful aircraft are sustainable in a very different airline industry. Subject to proper consultation, their early retirement would be accelerated over the coming months, and we would not expect any more commercial flights to be flown.
  The proposal to retire the entire fleet of these iconic aircraft is nothing short of heart breaking for those of us that grew up watching them fly all over the world.
  
  Your Management Committee
  - Polly says:
    
    16 Jul16 July 22:50
    
    Will really miss them. Hope they donate pne to the Brookland’s museum near us.
DaveL says:

17 Jul17 July 20:29

£5k refund onto BAPP card (cancelled holiday) and now my counter for the year is £15k (!) Would seem fair except put through almost 20k last year.

Bigger problem though is -8k avios. Can anyone confirm if this gets wiped if I cancel and reapply later? Or might Amex be offering any retention bonuses on the BAPP if I phone to leave?

Thanks