The new HFP chat thread – Thursday 6th August

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

• Mr. AC says:

  6 Aug6 August 13:34

  Just paid something with Curve, and MCC passthrough seems to have been reactivated. No e-mails nor Tweets nor updates in the Community forums. Kinda ticked off about the lack of warning / communication. Especially after Curve users made it clear they care about it in the forums…

  • James says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:29

    Good spot Mr. AC. Just check today and I am the same. no more 8999

    • James says:

      6 Aug6 August 14:31

      Looks like the refund process has changed again. Refund received today in the app.Not in Curve Cash as assume its going back to the card.

      • Optimus Prime says:

        6 Aug6 August 17:57

        https://community.curve.app/t/why-we-re-doing-a-180-on-refunds-spoiler-you-told-us-to/24283

        Someone wasn’t happy with a MS loophole 🙂

  • Connor says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:31

    Glad this was mentioned otherwise I’d have just been burned by a bunch of cash advance fees!

    Shame it came to an end. Hope everyone got a good run out of it.

  • Don says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:37

    That should mean no issues for Ernie though, it will be back to whatever it was.

    • James says:

      6 Aug6 August 14:42

      So ERNIE still works even with MCC pass through?

      • stevenhp1987 says:

        6 Aug6 August 16:17

        Yes, goes through as MCC 9399 (Government Services Not Elsewhere Classified).

      • TGLoyalty says:

        6 Aug6 August 17:13

        depends on your card but did for creation

  • BJ says:

    6 Aug6 August 19:09

    What were you guys paying? I did a transaction just before 6pm trouble free.

• JanH says:

  6 Aug6 August 13:46

  Advice please……
  I want to book 4 x CW Avios flights using 2 x 2-4-1 for next September to Canada/USA (flexible on destination and return). 3 Questions;
  1. If I book as soon as the flights show can I then ring up and add the return 3 weeks later?
  2. If 1 applies will I have to use 4 x 2-4-1 vouchers?
  3. Will the taxes be more than if I wait and book all flights in one go?
  Hope this makes sense!

  • DanL says:

    6 Aug6 August 15:02

    Jan book as soon as they come available and you can add the return later, but you’ll need to call the contact centre to do that (which is challenging at the mo)! You only need 2 companion vouchers, companions are only valued ex UK. Should be little/no difference in taxes.

  • ChrisC says:

    6 Aug6 August 16:33

    Remember that BA only guarantees to release 2 CW reward seats when it first releases tickets.

    Of course they may release more but the guarantee is 2

    • ChrisC says:

      6 Aug6 August 16:36

      Taxes should be the same.

      BAs surcharges are a different matter all together

      You can get a good idea by doing some dummy bookings – a return, a separate outbound and a separate inbound and that will give you an idea of the entirety of the taxes, fees and surcharges

  • Anna says:

    6 Aug6 August 16:56

    Rob did an article about booking the return legs on US flights, I think you need to call and make sure you ask the agent to ADD the return flights using the 2 4 1s. Don’t book them separately then call to apply the companion vouchers as BA won’t refund the excess taxes and you’ll be paying a fortune unnecessarily.

    • TheThunderer says:

      6 Aug6 August 18:12

      I just made this “schoolboy error” today… largely because it’s so hard to get through to BA right now. Anybody guesstimate how much I’ve overpaid? Cw lhr to Atl, Charleston to lhr, charged me £1,005. Any suggestions to sort?

      • AndyGWP says:

        6 Aug6 August 19:42

        Could you not phone up BA and get them to cancel your inbound tickets, and hope they land back in ‘the pot’ so they can scoop them up straight away and they can then apply them to your 2 for 1 booking (properly)?

• Stanley says:

  6 Aug6 August 14:01

  BANKED ??! Gives 1 avios per £1 spent to consumer, 0.1% retailer transaction fee. What could possibly go wrong……..

  • Peter K says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:12

    Interesting. I wonder who uses them….

  • Rhys says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:44

    Watch this space…

  • Connor says:

    6 Aug6 August 15:43

    Time to setup an online store I think…

  • TGLoyalty says:

    6 Aug6 August 17:18

    Surely there’s a cost to the retailer for giving the reward (but then why would you stop at 1/£) or they’re just burning through investor money

    • Joe N says:

      6 Aug6 August 17:51

      They hint at an added cost for offering Avios in their developer documentation:

      “How much does it cost to give my customers Avios points?
      Please contact us or talk to your Customer Success Manager to discuss rewards pricing.”

      • Rob says:

        6 Aug6 August 19:19

        It’s an interesting one. The point of using these guys, as a company, is to cut costs but it is more of a faff for the customer.

        In a perfect world, these guys would replace the existing Visa / MC payment processor, but they can’t (not sure why). This means that check-out is going to show MCard / Visa / Paypal / Banked. Going via Banked is, for the customer, additional effort (or perhaps not, if it is one-click like Paypal so you don’t need to dig out card info). The Avios are a bribe to get you to go to the trouble of signing up for Banked when you first use it and not just selecting Visa / MC.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          7 Aug7 August 00:13

          Benefit to the retailer is you just gave up your chargeback / s75 rights as you’ve paid and intermediary?

        • Rob says:

          7 Aug7 August 10:42

          But have you? It’s not clear if your payment goes through Banked or if you are simply using their processing technology.

          We will go and see them and get to the bottom of this.

• YH says:

  6 Aug6 August 14:01

  Just received cancellations for BA flights I booked to Dubai in November in First. I was hoping they would be running a single A350 which would force a downgrade to the Club Suites and ideally 75% Avios refund.

  It looks like they are flying a 789 on that route as that’s what I’ve been rebooked on. So no partial refund but at least I get the smaller First cabin!

• Marc Werter says:

  6 Aug6 August 14:18

  Hi

  Looking for advice please. I had booked via mile and a companion voucher 2 x return flights to Barbados per March 20. The outbound has been cancelled but the inbound is still running. I am being offered a voucher. Q- Do i get my miles and companion voucher back if i accept the voucher

  • Rhys says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:35

    You’re probably better off asking for a refund of your miles and companion voucher, which you’re legally entitled to. You’ll have to call BA up for it though…more info here: https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2020/07/28/british-airways-future-travel-voucher/

  • Rob says:

    6 Aug6 August 14:36

    No! It’s a voucher!

    The only good news is that, if you take the voucher, your 241 is extended to 30/4/22 ie the expiry date of the voucher.

• tical says:

  6 Aug6 August 14:42

  any rumours regarding a possible bonus on transferring points out of HSBC? thanks

• Dominic says:

  6 Aug6 August 14:53

  Had an interesting offer of 250 reward points for £5 spend on Deliveroo or Morrisons or Pret on my Amex Gold.

  Seems like a very random but welcome offering!

  • NvT1115 says:

    6 Aug6 August 15:05

    Only works once unfortunately

• Darren says:

  6 Aug6 August 16:54

  Pension advice,

  I’m looking at a Vanguard SIPP for my other half, to make monthly payments and lump sums but they are not working at present. They have a DC pension also, will this affect things?

  I’m up to my annual allowance in a DB scheme and would like to add to our pots and thought SIPP would be a good move.

  Thanks

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    6 Aug6 August 20:41

    Yes a simple low-cost SIPP and some very low-cost tracker ETFs will outperform 98%+ of high-fee “fancy stuff” over the long time frames involved in pension investing.

    • Genghis says:

      7 Aug7 August 06:40

      More like c.80-85%, yes, but the point remains.

  • Lady London says:

    6 Aug6 August 23:45

    Up to 40K contribution per annum possible across all a person;s pensions – unless they’ve breached this MPAA; amount by having drawn down more than the taxfree 25% from any pot over 10k (which would mean they’re likely to be over 55 -and I don’t think that’s you Darren 🙂 ) in which case the annual contribution allowance reduces to a truly horrible and mean £4k which the Chancelor refuses to budge on.

    Assuming you’ve got the time for it to grow before needing it I am sure @Genghis would save pretty much the same as @Savage Squirrel – leave it for the time, don’t pay active management unless there’s a reason, and take the lowest cost trustworthy platform as fees have a high impact on funds right now due low market growth and low inflation.

    Or… have I missed the point of your question.

    • Lady London says:

      6 Aug6 August 23:55

      PS pretty sure your partner can still go back and use previous years’ MPAA allowance to invest in DC pension(s) (40k pre-tax from income for that previous tax year) for each year, if the full 40k was not put into pension(s) in those previous years. I’m hazy how many years they can go back bringing contributions up to 40K for but think it’s 2 full tax years – hopefully someone here actually knows this stuff and can advise! .So, if they did not contribute full 40K total across DC pensions plans (assuming they have no DB) in previous year(s) obviously you’d use the MPAA up for previous years before this one.

      • Lady London says:

        6 Aug6 August 23:58

        And if you’re lucky enough to have used up all your available years’ full 40K MPAA for DC contributions, there’s always a further £20K or from an ISA each tax year each that can shelter gains. The Chancellor may get a bit mean about the current reasonably generous capital gains tax allowances soon… so any shelter is a good one 🙂

      • Lady London says:

        7 Aug7 August 00:03

        PS for others, if you do breach the MPAA thus pushing your maximum taxfree investment each year across DC pension(s) down from £40K to £4k, the £4k p.a. limit is then *permanent* i.e. that then becomes your maximum contribution each year *for life*.

        So anyone that might have had to draw form a pot over £10k for temporary needs in this Covid mess, if you had taken a cumulative total of more than 25% (the taxfree amount) from any pot, at that point your MPAA for future contributions to any DC’s annually goes down to max £4K contribuable taxfree each year and you are stuck with that for life (never returns to the 40k). Jus’ sayin’

        Sorry for the OT

        • Genghis says:

          7 Aug7 August 06:48

          Note that the MPAA (£4k contributions pa). has nothing to do with taking more than the 25% lump sum. It also makes sense so as individuals cannot recycle the cash back through the pension scheme.

          The AA is £40k. And you can use up in the current year the AA not used up in the previous 3 tax years.

        • Lady London says:

          7 Aug7 August 13:30

          Sorry @Genghis if you do take more than a total of the allowable 25% that is currently taxfree from any DC pot, if that DC pot value (pre the taxfree withdrawal) is over 10k then the moment you take the first penny that takes the total withdrawal from that pot above the 25% that can be taken from it taxfree, the amount over the 25% is a taxable withdrawal from a pension pot so your MPAA is reduced to £4k total into any pots p.a.forever for you.

          The exception on your MPAA being reduced from 40k to 4k is if the pot being withdrawn from is less than 10k. But if course if you exceed the cumulative 25% from any pot the amount over the 25% is always taxable.

          Just trying to warn people a taxable DC withdrawal which some people might contemplate in these times of Covid has that impact of decimating how much they will be able to put into DC pots each year, forever.

        • Genghis says:

          7 Aug7 August 13:45

          You’re right. I was confused by your use of MPAA to refer to MPAA and AA. Your AA only becomes an MPAA once triggered.

    • Darren says:

      7 Aug7 August 02:35

      Thanks for the detailed reply LL, not over 55 but not that far off! My plans have been ok but the OH needs a boost and we can use up the previous years shortfall.

      That’s a useful warning re MPAA, I’m using up shortfalls myself.

      • Lady London says:

        7 Aug7 August 19:29

        PS No one will probably see this as it”s a day later, but if you do get busted down to only bei g sllowed £4k DC contributions p.a., your employer’s contributions count towards using up your £4k allowance p.a. This is realky nasty as your employer’s contributions would normally be 3% of your salary and yours would be at least 5% perhaps a lot more. So if you were earning £50k upwards you would have to walk away from your and your employer’s contributions ifbthe two together would total more than £4k for the tax year.

        So you can take the taxfree 25% of any DC pot without incurring this very nasty risk. But 1 taxable penny taken from any DC pot over £10k and you are st*ffed for life.

        I used to work with people who were paying their entire earnings into a pension and withdrawing taxfree because they were just over 55. The closing of that pension recycling loophole has unfortunately brought this danger.

        Darren is also right fo keep an eye on the lifetime allowance which has some traps if you have a DB as well. IMV even the initial size of the lifetime allowance, IIRC was £1.8m, was always totally inadequate if we could get the historical lwvels of inflation in the UK economy kicking off again and that was obvious righf from the time it came in.

  • Genghis says:

    7 Aug7 August 06:57

    So as long as you remain with the annual allowance and the lifetime allowance, the DC pension has no further impact on a SIPP. The Vanguard SIPP is good. V simple and whilst it’s not the cheapest on larger pots, I like the transparency and the customer service (by message only) is excellent. My wife has one.

    So if your wife doesn’t have an income currently, she’ll be able to pay in £2,880 into the SIPP, which HMRC will add another £720 in 6-8 weeks. Given you’ll be able to access it soon, it’s a reasonable approach. Just choose your funds wisely depending on when you actually plan to withdraw. Ie a globally diversified equities pot watered down with a global bond fund, but how strong / weak the blend all depends on that time horizon.

    • Darren says:

      7 Aug7 August 12:24

      Thanks, the people on MSE pension forum appear to be using HL and effectively recycling the cash after a year to avoid fees. That’s not my aiim but I can see the attraction.

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