The new HFP chat thread – Thursday 6th August

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

• Antony D'Emanuele says:

  6 Aug6 August 10:13

  Is the BA Lounge open at Manchester Terminal 3, can not seem to find any information?

  • Rhys says:

    6 Aug6 August 10:22

    Not at the moment

  • Anna says:

    6 Aug6 August 12:25

    No rock hard toast and antediluvian-looking muesli for you then.

• TGLoyalty says:

  6 Aug6 August 10:22

  Anyone tried Calm ?

  Inside flyer just ran a story about Amex offering a free year

  “You can now relax and unwind with a complimentary year of Premium Membership, plus receive 50% off the following year upon automatic renewal.

  This offer is open to you and your Supplementary Cardmembers.

  Simply sign up by 31 October 2020”

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:00

    Amex emailed me about it this week. I decided it wasn’t really massively relevant.

  • Gary says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:34

    I got that email too, I keep meaning to set it up but haven’t got round to it, anything free is worth a look. Have you tried it yet?

  • AJA says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:35

    I got an email from Amex about this trying to get me to sign up but it didn’t grab me enough to bother.

  • Andreas says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:41

    I’ve signed up for it. Meditation is one of those things that’ll do you some good if you practice it for a good month or two. A year free is probably long enough to get used to it and understand what the point is – after that you can probably cancel and carry on practicing unguided

  • Alex says:

    6 Aug6 August 12:39

    I’ve tried it and enjoy it, I try to use it everyday but often forget.

    Girlfriend also has an account, from supplementary card, and likes the bedtime stories to help her fall asleep.

    Worth a try for free

• Stanley says:

  6 Aug6 August 10:36

  Hats off to Airbnb. Cancelled booking on Tuesday night. Received full refund on Amex this morning.

• Jody says:

  6 Aug6 August 10:54

  A little update to my long ongoing saga, and possibly some Barclaycard info too.

  Condensed story – bought a 25 night package holiday including flights, hotel before and after cruise and 15 night cruise. Had arrived in starting country and spent one night in hotel when cruise operations worldwide were stopped. We were due to get on a cruise the following day. Repatriated home (with much drama that I won’t go into). This was back in mid-march, travel company have essentially ignored us ever since other than to say they would apply for a refund for the cruise, but for everything else it was tough luck. No cruise refund received to date, I suspect they messed up the application to NCL as there was only limited time to do it and we weren’t allowed (TA had to do it as they were the ones that booked it, NCL wouldn’t even discuss it with me). The future cruise credit (applied automatically to everyone and removed when people were refunded) is still sat in my account, hence why I think the TA messed it up.

  Anyway, filled out dispute paperwork with Barclaycard on 1st April and posted it off. Radio silence from them, usual “we’re very busy” messages when using their secure message system. Calling them was a nightmare, shortest amount of time I spent on hold was 1 hour and 10 minutes, longest was 3 hours and 45 minutes.

  Twice in June I had a temporary credit applied to my account, only for it to be reversed the next day. Finally at the end of June I had a letter saying a permanent credit would be applied, which was done on 6th July. Told me travel company had 30 days to dispute it. That was up yesterday, so today I have requested the credit be refunded back to my bank account.

  4 months for Barclaycard to sort it out, but they got there in the end. I am very grateful to have the protection from paying by credit card.

  We did approach travel insurance early on, but they basically said that package holidays weren’t covered (thereby making the insurance a little bit useless!) as legislation stated that it was down to the travel agent to refund.

  I gave up contacting the travel agent in mid June, as they weren’t responding to anything I sent them, and each time I called I was just told the same incorrect information and promised a callback by the person dealing with our refund (we never did get to speak to her as no callback).

  Anyway, I know a few people have put disputes in with Barclaycard, so hope this gives a bit of a timeframe.

  Question for anyone in banking/finance who might know – can one company put in a dispute or Section 75 claim against another? I’m just wondering what the deal is with the cruise refund that the travel agent appears to have not done. I think all refunds have been issued now by NCL for that period (certainly lots of posts on the forum I was on for that cruise from people saying they had been refunded). If the TA hasn’t been refunded for whatever reason are they screwed, or can they do a chargeback themselves? Obviously it isn’t them who haven’t received the goods, they’re like a middleman, so I just wondered how it worked .

  I have posted about this situation a lot, although not for a while, but thank you to anyone who has given me advice. It’s been very stressful wondering if we were going to get our money back, but hopefully that’s the end of it now, and we can erase the long weekend we had in Santiago from our memories!!

  • Paul74 says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:17

    Thanks for this Jody and you must be relieved to have got to this point.
    Who are the travel agent and insurance company involved in this case?

  • AJA says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:29

    S75 consumer credit protection applies to personal credit cards so a company cannot use it against another and it does not apply to purchases on company / business credit cards although I believe they have a parallel system that closely mimics s75. It does not apply to debit cards or charge cards either.

    Also don’t understand your comment that travel insurance doesn’t cover package holidays. That’s wrong. It definitely does cover package holidays. I think you were just fobbed off by the insurance company. Maybe they said you have to exhaust all other avenues ie airlines or hotels or cruise company before they will step in. Still very unhelpful.

    • Nick_C says:

      6 Aug6 August 11:57

      Insurance is normally a last resort. If a tour operator / airline / cruise line / hotel is liable, your insurer would expect you to claim against them.

    • Lady London says:

      6 Aug6 August 12:25

      I agree about your insurer lying. There might have been a clause saying you had to have recourse to ATOL and any other recovery route first. But basically insurance is purchased to ensure this sort of thing is finally covered.

      Is anyone else thinking it’s really unfair of insurance companies to walk away from claims on things your insurance does cover you for and tell you to get the money off your credit card under Section 75 first? I just dont think that’s fair. Noting that a credit card is still liable under s75 even if the place you bought from has gone bust.

      I wouldnt like Section 75 to be removed because of abuse by insurance companies. Its useful for many other situations than travel. I think the credit card s75 should be last resort if unsurance fails to pay up or if there is no insurance coverage – not the other way round. Has anyone seen this peoblem brought up anywhere else? what do people think?

      • Jody says:

        6 Aug6 August 15:34

        This is the response we got from insurance company:

        Thank you for contacting us about your recent travel insurance claim.

        Please note, we will not be able to consider any claims of a package holiday as the Travel Agent / Tour Operator legally holds sole liability for reimbursing you these costs.

        Please see the link below for obtaining a refund:

        https://www.abta.com/tips-and-advice/is-my-holiday-protected/new-package-travel-regulations

        However, we will be able to consider any prepaid costs that were booked individually and not as part of the package holiday.

        This section is under ‘Travel Disruption Cover – What is not covered’ on page 36.

    • Jody says:

      6 Aug6 August 15:31

      It does say it in the small print unfortunately. Had no idea when we bought the policy, and even paid a bit extra for trip disruption to ensure that we were covered for any Covid related issues. However, it turns out that with this insurance company (Cedar Tree) that it is specifically put in that for trip disruption, package holidays are excluded. If we’d bought everything separately we would have been fine.

      I was NOT happy, but luckily was covered by buying on a credit card.

      The travel agent was Cruise Nation.

• BS says:

  6 Aug6 August 11:01

  Just to check hive mind:

  Am I right in thinking if BA downgrades me from F -> J on a flight in to the EU, they should refund me 75% of the value of that sector? I am planning a flight from JNB – LHR, and F is only a little more than J. However if I get 75% back from them not flying an A380, it might be a good investment!

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:08

    Good luck getting that paid out.

    • BS says:

      6 Aug6 August 11:22

      MCOL or a S75 claim off the credit card. There are no ‘extrodinary circumstances’ exemptions on that part of EC261.
      My question is is my understanding of the law behind it valid?

      • Dave says:

        6 Aug6 August 11:40

        For a downgrade it is 75% of the sector cost (excluding taxes and airline charges) as I understand it.

        • Lady London says:

          6 Aug6 August 12:34

          for longhaul. @TGLoyalty gave an excellent summary of the %s claimable on this equivalent thread yesterday.

          But as Rob says, while you should ask nicely and we’ve also had confirmef you have to actually fly in the lower class than booked in order for your claim to be payable, Rob is right and it’s likely you could haveto push this as far as a moneyclaim dot gov dot uk.

          However with BA’s reputation here for not paying out on EU261 and apparently doing everything possible to deny and delay passengers receiving their EC261 rights routinely even in cases where they are clearly liable, having to push it to moneyclaim is sadly also quite routine. Whereupon in a surprising number of cases BA has anecdotally paid up immediately. Flyertalk has loads.

      • BS says:

        6 Aug6 August 11:42

        Many thanks Dave.
        I have looked on FT and seen something called the Mennens formula, which is basically what you just said. 75% back off the sector cost less the govt taxes/fees (but not the airline surcharge). So this equates to about 60% back.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      6 Aug6 August 12:56

      Cant see why not as long as the flight is actually flying

  • Chris Heyes says:

    6 Aug6 August 18:42

    BS@ Myself and partner got down graded (well thrown out actually) from a Cabin a few years ago
    not long after we’d booked it by a party of golds
    Reported it on here, but Rob said it couldn’t happen (but it did)
    There was at the time 4 people booked into the cabin according to seat plan
    Apparently a large group wanted the cabin to themselves and was prepared to pay for it
    Maybe the other two passengers are on here ?
    Although we was bumped off the cabin (we complained that’s how we knew they was gold)
    We received very good compensation “All” our Avios back and a free flight to Europe club for two to be used within 12 months
    now i have no idea who the party was, BA wouldn’t say my guess is politicians or celebs
    But the cabin wasn’t full (i peaked)

• AJA says:

  6 Aug6 August 11:07

  Shai Weiss put out a post on LinkedIn yesterday attempting to correct, as he put it,: “much speculation and confusion over what the U.S. Chapter 15 process means for Virgin Atlantic and our customers ” Unfortunately I can’t post a link to the post.

  There were two similar posts from other people at VS as well. I think Virgin is a bit rattled by what they perceive as negative publicity.

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:08

    Yes, they messed this up. They failed to see this coming – a press release IN ADVANCE of the hearing would have killed off all the stories before they written.

    • Rhys says:

      6 Aug6 August 11:37

      The PR team weren’t told that the court filing was happening this week – they were expecting it later in the month!

• Dan L says:

  6 Aug6 August 11:07

  Hi folks,
  I’m trying to book flights to South Africa next July using Avios. When I search though, outbound flights are only showing up to 15th July, yet the return flights are showing right through to 26 July. Seems like a system glitch but can’t get through to BA to discuss. Anyone seen this before / have any ideas on what’s going on?
  Thanks,
  Dan

  • Anna says:

    6 Aug6 August 12:32

    Which platform are you searching on? (e.g, BA, RFF). The outbound legs might be getting snapped up at T-355, are you checking at 1am?
    But think there are glitches in various systems at the moment, I can’t see RFS for July from MAN on any site!

    • Dan L says:

      6 Aug6 August 13:25

      Hi Anna,

      I’ve used a few platforms and looked for cash fares as well as Avios availability too. Nothing cash based after 15 July LHR to JNB/CPT/DUR but JNB/CPT/DUR to LHR is available up to 26th!

• Blue Mountains says:

  6 Aug6 August 11:12

  Just noticed this on my Amex PRG today:
  Points towards Purchases 50% offer, 1000 Points = £6.75
  Not a great deal but available if anyone is interested.

  • BS says:

    6 Aug6 August 11:28

    Now that is interesting. I am a seller at this rate, as with all the worsening fees etc. that is what I value an avios at. And cash is far more usable than avios!

    • Lady London says:

      6 Aug6 August 12:36

      That is exactly my valuation of avios so I agree.

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