The new HFP chat thread – Tuesday 11th August

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• Leafwarbler says:

  11 Aug11 August 11:19

  My LHR ARN flight in November has just been cancelled. Have BA pulled out of ARN, does anyone know? Seems very early to cancel it otherwise…..

  • Sarah Adamson says:

    11 Aug11 August 12:57

    I have a flight booked to ARN for next Monday with BA. They have gone from 3/4 flights a day to one or less. So it maybe your specific flight and you can rebook on a different one.

    • Leafwarbler says:

      11 Aug11 August 15:46

      Thanks, Sarah, you’re right. The 2 flights before noon have gone and the earliest one is too tight for my Qatar connection. Mind you – not sure Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia will be open by then so getting to Stockholm might be the least of my problems.

  • Sukes says:

    11 Aug11 August 21:22

    BA is thinning schedules to get yields up. Today I had a mid Nov Heathrow to Belfast cancelled but I was able to rebook for the next flight scheduled for 90min later. They usually do around 8 flights daily on the route but at the moment about half of the daily flights operate with the rest cancelled – no surprise to see BA extending that thinned frequency into the winter season.

• Ali M says:

  11 Aug11 August 11:22

  Re : Qatar ‘promotion’
  I have come across this twice where the Qatar promotional fares are very bogus. You check the price without the offer and with the offer and the price increases if you use code.
  for comparison – was looking for an outbound 24th Nov, inbound 31st Aug and without promotional code ‘QRAPP’ for mobile bookings(no pun intended) was getting 1600 something and 40 kg baggage allowance. Low and behold – used the code : still same price and the allowance has decreased to 30kgs.
  Would have been on if the baggage allowance decrease also resulted in 10% price decrease too.
  Any one else shares the experience?

  • Baji Nahid says:

    11 Aug11 August 13:59

    I seen this too Ali, I was booking flights to Pakistan with Qatar and noticed this issue. Also I noticed that Qatar have recently upped their baggage allowance for some destinations to 40KG.

    In my case, Its Pakistan, there is no PIA to compete so charge what you like.

• Paul says:

  11 Aug11 August 11:26

  Just been offered 160k flying club points by VA if I dont get refund and instead rebook by end sept 2022. Family of 5 was due to fly to miami return in aug.

  • Mark says:

    11 Aug11 August 11:40

    If Virgin do survive I see a massive miles devaluation coming in around 2022.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      11 Aug11 August 11:56

      If they are struggling to get bums on seats then a massive devaluation would be counter intuitive

      • mark says:

        11 Aug11 August 12:21

        So you are saying people wouldnt book redemptions if air miles got devalued by 25%?

        My point is I think all airlines will devalue thier currencies in the next year or 2 they know customers have points stashed away and they wont be able to help themselves.
        If you can’t see that fine but i think its coming.

        • Doug M says:

          11 Aug11 August 13:07

          The whole scheme becomes less attractive though, at the very time they need to fill planes. Given VS are so entwined with USA and fees on those routes they don’t need to devalue.

        • Rob says:

          11 Aug11 August 13:41

          You’re missing the point. Redemptions only have a ‘cost’ to BA if they displace revenue seats. As that is very unlikely for a couple of years, the net cost of filling redemptions will be far lower to the airline anyway.

    • memesweeper says:

      11 Aug11 August 15:36

      Taking miles now, from an airline that is teetering on bankruptcy, and with whom you can’t redeem on at the moment as practically all their destinations are closed to visitors, is clearly a gamble. But a devaluation is more likely when times are good, not tough, for the airline.

• Anna says:

  11 Aug11 August 11:36

  Has anyone ever upgraded from basic IHG MC to the premium one? A friend applied for the basic one then realised how much better the benefits are on the £99 version – which has now been withdrawn for new applicants!

  • Doug M says:

    11 Aug11 August 13:09

    I think they’re entirely separate, I did have both for a while. I don’t think there’s anyway to move from one to the other without new application and cancelling the old. As you say the premium is not at present available.

    • Lady London says:

      11 Aug11 August 15:38

      really curious as to why only the premium IHG got cancelled, but not the other one. Wondering if IHG wanted to pull out of giving the free night but the branding contract for the card had to survive till a contract end?

• Fred (Your comment is awaiting moderation) says:

  11 Aug11 August 11:37

  Does anyone know how a Lloyds Upgrade Voucher booking is treated if the flight is cancelled by BA? Should we get offered the standard BA FTV (valid until April 2022 etc) and so associated Lloyds Voucher rules effectively disappear?

  Separately, did Rhys mention yesterday in comments that an article was due today on BA refunds/cancellations etc?

  • Doug M says:

    11 Aug11 August 16:22

    I think Avios booking, as in Lloyd’s voucher, is treated as travel agent booking, so no FTV. You’ll get everything back, the voucher extended to 31st October, that being a book by date.

• xcalx says:

  11 Aug11 August 12:36

  I am buying a new desktop computer ( I ran the old desktop with a dongle to make it wireless) I don’t need anything singing and dancing but would like to use it without the need for a dongle. Which of these do I need.
  Wireless/Wi-Fi enabled.
  or
  Wifi built in
  I have googled but can’t get my head around the descriptions.

  Thanks

  • BLT says:

    11 Aug11 August 12:48

    I’d suggest either would be fine. It’s hard to find a consumer desktop these days without a WiFi card installed.

    • xcalx says:

      11 Aug11 August 12:54

      Thanks.

  • mark2 says:

    11 Aug11 August 13:02

    I am using a reconditioned Dell Optiflex which I bought on Amazon for about £120 several years ago. Why do you use WiFi on a desk top?

    • xcalx says:

      11 Aug11 August 13:04

      I have the desk top in the conservatory and the router is 30ft away

• Anna says:

  11 Aug11 August 13:08

  Just been notified by BA that our F seats have been moved on 777 to JFK next year. We were window, now in the middle. Can higher status pax (we are only Bronze) bump you out of a window seat? The system is only showing row 1 and 2 if we want to change again, but I’m assuming this is because all the other seats are now taken? It doesn’t look like a downgrade or equipment change.

  • Anna says:

    11 Aug11 August 13:16

    Though maybe it is an equipment change -is the 777 the one with only 8 seats in F? Is that good?!

    • AJA says:

      11 Aug11 August 13:53

      I meant to say that would happen if it was an equipment change ie swapping a plane with 14F to a plane with 8F seats.

  • AJA says:

    11 Aug11 August 13:51

    It depends on how many people with higher status are on your flight. BA will prioritise Gold over Silver over Bronze when allocating passengers to seats. Sounds like BA has moved more passengers than window seats available so you’ve been allocated the middle seats. Also assuming that it is just the two of you travelling in which case they will allocate the middle seats to you.

    • Anna says:

      11 Aug11 August 14:27

      It’s 3 of us, but I’ve done a bit of digging and it looks like we are now in an 8 seat F cabin. I’ve moved one of us back to a window seat but as long as we don’t get downgraded i don’t care, I need to know I can call You First if it all goes wrong again next year!

      • AJA says:

        11 Aug11 August 14:51

        Fingers crossed the flight happens for you. I am still annoyed my trip in F to Tel Aviv got cancelled. Have been looking for reward seats for July next year and not having any luck, Seat Spy and Reward Flight Finder both incredibly unreliable at the moment!. I am looking at flying J out and F back as the outbound I can do Club Suites on the A350 at a decent time of day and then F back on 777 but a decent flight time compared to the A350 which departs Tel Aviv just after 7am which means getting to the airport at stupid o’clock to check in due to the extra security in Tel Aviv

        • Anna says:

          11 Aug11 August 17:00

          It was mentioned earlier that BA haven’t finalised their summer schedule for next year so you may well find seats released in the next few weeks.
          I’m not counting on anything, but if BA aren’t flying normally to JFK by next Easter, we are all in BIG trouble..

      • Peter North says:

        11 Aug11 August 17:53

        If you are bronze ( which lets face it is worth pish) you will be bumped off if GGL want the first seats

        • Anna says:

          11 Aug11 August 17:55

          There are loads of JFK services so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we had to take a later flight. The reason I’ve picked the route is the good award availability and the number of daily flights, I’ve calculated it’s the most likely way to get us across the pond in F!

        • Anna says:

          11 Aug11 August 17:56

          Also a downgrade on the day to Club Suites would be ok as by that time I wouldn’t need to call You First to sort us out!

• Rob says:

  11 Aug11 August 13:39

  Can’t see that working. Private tests are £150-£250 – who is paying that x4 for a family? Outside London they are also hard to get. No-one will accept the NHS emails as proof (too easy to fake) and in any event you shouldn’t be using the NHS sites purely to get a pass to go away.

  Might work for long-haul but, again, paying £1k for a family to get a private test is likely to be the end of leisure bookings.

  • Optimus Prime says:

    11 Aug11 August 14:50

    Yeah, agreed. And we could be looking at twice your numbers since they’d likely require another negative test prior to your flight back to London?

  • Spaghetti Town says:

    11 Aug11 August 16:17

    Dubai are doing mass testing on arrival – either they’re doing it a lot cheaper, or the UAE government is paying for it.

    Track and trace and testing is the only way out of this.

    • Blenz101 says:

      11 Aug11 August 20:25

      Dubai are no longer doing this. To travel to or from Dubai from Europe/U.K. a negative Covid test is required with the results in the last 96 hours. Test is required at both ends.

      For Dubai the only option is private testing (£60ish) for the U.K. they are accepting any recognised medical facility including NHS tests.

      This applies to all airlines. Arrivals from some destinations (not the U.K.) are then tested again on arrival.

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