The new HFP chat thread – Monday 17th August

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• memesweeper says:

  17 Aug17 August 09:46

  Lounge news: First class Euston open, limited service but pleasant enough.

  Lounge news: Malaga (AGP) open, including for BA status/business, surprisingly good food and drink selection.

  • tony says:

    17 Aug17 August 09:54

    I can add to this with news of the Valldemossa lounge at PMI being open.

    Slightly chaotic entry process as they want to escort groups to tables – but some folk were clearly too important to bother with that.

    Decent selection of food, all behind glass. You pick what you want then it gets bussed to the table. Same for drinks.

• JP says:

  17 Aug17 August 10:31

  Hi all – does anyone have a data point for refunds from BA for a cancellation made on the phone? If relevant, this was following a cancellation made by Ba to a reward ticket rather than a voluntary one. The avios came through immediately but I’ve been waiting 10 days for the money and did not receive an email cancellation confirmation.

  Jamie

  • tony says:

    17 Aug17 August 11:06

    About a month ago, I had a bunch of partner rewards cancelled. Called up, pushed back on a voucher, miles hit the account within minutes, money took 48 hrs.

  • Martin says:

    17 Aug17 August 11:45

    I have exactly the same situation. Got the Avois back immediately after calling (last Tuesday) and still waiting for my 2-4-1 to be added back to my account and still no sign of my refund.

  • Paul says:

    17 Aug17 August 17:07

    Not wishing to worry you, but I cancelled a BA Avios booking for a LATAM flight on 22nd March. Avios returned almost immediately, but I’m still awaiting the cash. Chased twice, including just last week. They continue to acknowledge they owe me money, and claim to be escalating with the refunds team…

• meta says:

  17 Aug17 August 11:16

  Data point. BA flight cancelled on On Business redemption booking. Made a booking last year in September. Points would be expiring at the end of 2019. The On Business agent processed the refund for me. He said any expiring points will be valid until end of this year. Overall, very good as otherwise I would have to deal with FTA and given my ordeals with previous use, I am not taking it.

  • Lady London says:

    17 Aug17 August 11:39

    Make sure you use them it’s easy to forget.

    After you’ve booked, even if your OB points would have expired before you fly, you can still change the date of travel again free of charge more than once provided you keep the same route or direction.

    • meta says:

      17 Aug17 August 11:48

      Yes have alerts set up. If I went down the changes route, it would only be allowed to fly until Dec 2020 due to ticketing rules. This gives me more time.

      Btw. No luck with BA on Porto on any sensible
      solution. Amex said that it will take a while for S75 claim, but suggested might want to buy a new ticket to minimise costs. So purchased new TAP ticket will not touch the BA ticket or call them about it again. Will decide after how to proceed. I might actually claim from BA.

      • Lady London says:

        17 Aug17 August 12:53

        That is what I would do @meta. You are lucky the TAP replacement flight is currently still a very reasonable price.

        Airlines trotting out they cant reroute you on an adjacent flight on another airline because they dont know how/dont have systems/it’s an LCC so not on their system/agent isnt allowed to is just tiresome.

        Even business travel agents have someone who can go onto the internet and buy an outside-of-GDS ticket for someone when needed these days. It’s just airlines not wanting to give you your rights and putting barriers to you to recrive them.

        Luckily the barrier is low in your case and checking other flight availability it’s really clear the TAP flight is by far the cheapest and nearest scheduled alternative as well.

        Please post when you’ve got your costs from BA and dont hang around going as far as it takes.

• WoodyOpa says:

  17 Aug17 August 11:31

  Interesting conversation with EasyJet last night.
  Originally booked (in January) EZY6162 15:45 from AMS to BRS on 23 August
  In June flight not showing on a search but still showing seat options/ baggage etc in ” manage bookings”
  In July received an email saying there had been a change to my flight to 19:20 departure but no admittance of cancellation or reference to a flight number change – now EZY6168. Options to rebook, voucher or phone for other but no notification of refund option.
  After advice from the good people at HFP, I sent a form asking for refund, confirmation email received advising refund within 30 days. Flight was still in “my bookings” and receiving emails about my plans to fly, but then received an email yesterday saying there would be no refund as the flight hasnt been cancelled.
  Called at 22:00 last night and agent advised refund not possible as flight not cancelled – “it has been moved”. Eventually got agreement that EZY6162 had been cancelled but agent would not offer a refund due to EasyJet policy. I asked for email confiormation of this as it seems to contradict EC261 but agent hung up.
  Spoke to second agent, got the same message but I want down the ” can I speak to a supervisor?” route. This elicited a response about 23:30 that “just for me” and as a “one off” EasyJet would refund the fares paid. Flight has now disappeared from “my bookings” but need to wait 7-10 days for the money to be put back on the card…

  • Lady London says:

    17 Aug17 August 12:09

    Easyjet has been pulling this illegal trick for 1 month now.

    They are no longer admitting flights they cancel are cancelled flights. They are
    (1) sending out deceptive emails claiming your flight’s only moved, when it’s been cancelled and they have put you on a different flight with a different number hours later – IME up to 15 hours later. They are not advising of full rerouting rights / duty of care as they are supposed to under EC261. Their email doesnt mention any flight number which is highly unusual for any communication concerning a flight. It’s clear there is an attempt to deny their passengers rights here.

    (2) Worse, they have overwritten your booked flight completely in Manage Booking. The flight you chose and booked, has just gone. Not marked as cancelled in yellow as they did till a month or so ago, and made visible that they cancelled your entire flight. No it’s just gone without any evidence.

    They’ve just cut and pasted a completely different flight number and unacceptably different flight timing into your booking, not marked in any way. This strikes me as cheating.

    Even worse when you call them their agents claim they have no way to mark the cancelled flight on your booking as a cancellation.

    They will refund but will take weeks. I am sure they are happy if you have to refund as that loses them all liability for rerouting and duty of care.

    Beware if you take a voucher you lose your rerouting rights. Currently much pricing on Easyjet is hugely expensive and you will have to pay any fare difference (which they can and do manipulate ) when you use a voucher. Better to keep your rerouting rights.

    Keep good records.
    This is not going to end well.

    • Doug M says:

      17 Aug17 August 13:00

      EC261 will never be fully effective whilst for airlines it’s cheaper to deceive than pay. If blatant misinformation like this resulted in escalating fines, it would stop. But as has been clear this sort of tactic is fairly minor compared to blatant refusal to pay of LH group and AF/KLM.

      • Lady London says:

        17 Aug17 August 13:13

        Hey @Doug M we are singing from the same hymn book.

        But with the volume of Easyjet’s flights this is *huge*.

        Checking a few routes they have completely stopped flying a number of routes people would have made bookings on. Others are like 20 flights a week now down to 4. So *huge*

    • Lady London says:

      17 Aug17 August 13:35

      PS for those who receive twee emails from Easyjet saying they’re moving things around’ those are the new format emails they’ve started.sending when they’ve *cancelled* (not moved) your booked flight.

      I just had an email for a real time change on a flight, the time change is very small and the email is in the old format for this genuine time change.

      The new format emails with big ‘time changes’ are the ones thar are really when they’ve cancelled your flight and put yoy on a completely different flight but lying and saying they only moved it.

      If Easyjet fixes this and becomes more honest I wont post any more than this. However I do have a situation coming up in a few weeks that will be expensive due to them having cancelled a flight if they do not honour EC261 rights – which it would be cheap for them to honour but expensive for me to replace. If at that time Easyjet are still communicating dishonestly and acting illegally then I will share more which will affect a lot of people. I really really wish they would have continued to communicate honestly and operate according to what the law says.

      • Jerrry Butler says:

        17 Aug17 August 17:48

        you are obviously bored.

        • :Lady London says:

          17 Aug17 August 19:13

          Nah, I actually feel for them and I think I fully understand why they are trying to do this

          What is getting me is the sneakiness of the way Easyjet appears to be going about this.

          It’s going to cost a lot more to fly in the future and there will be a lot less choice of flights for quite a while. So travelling will get very expensive after a shortish period. In that context I would like to keep rerouting rights that are provided by legislation.

          Lucky you if you’re not affected.

      • @mkcol says:

        17 Aug17 August 23:30

        It’ll be interesting to see what action the CAA take against them.

  • Doug M says:

    17 Aug17 August 17:40

    Saw an item earlier that Easyjet closing bases at Southend, Stansted and Newcastle. So maybe feeling the pinch even more and looking to save on 261 obligations.

• Spk says:

  17 Aug17 August 11:54

  Priority pass from Amex Plat – can it be loaded onto the PP app?

  • Cam says:

    17 Aug17 August 12:05

    Yes

    • Spk says:

      17 Aug17 August 12:46

      Thanks!

  • Harry T says:

    17 Aug17 August 17:48

    Yep, I only carry my physical card to be extra safe. The app has never failed me.

• Pete C says:

  17 Aug17 August 12:06

  Does anyone have any recent experience with Eurostar cancellations? I have a booking to Paris over the August bank holiday and my outbound train is no longer on sale, but there’s nothing in MMB to suggest it’s not operating

  • Lady London says:

    17 Aug17 August 12:15

    Answered a few times here most recently 2 days ago. Basically click on Help type i ‘train cancelled’ or similar. Scroll to the bottom of the page that comes up and you should find a refund button ‘as hidden as they can legally make it’ according to @Pieter who posted this.

    • Lady London says:

      17 Aug17 August 12:16

      PS its just possible train is full but in these times it will be a cancellatiion.

    • Pete C says:

      17 Aug17 August 14:13

      Thank you!

• Anna says:

  17 Aug17 August 12:51

  Data point. RFF have refunded my last 4 months’ subscriptions because their data has been so unreliable recently!

  • Andrew M says:

    17 Aug17 August 16:52

    That’s good news. Did you have to ask or did they do it automatically?

• BJ says:

  17 Aug17 August 12:53

  @Vit, I misunderstood your query about platinum card hotel status last night so I added a further reply to clarify. I am not sure if you have seen it but don’t cancel your platinum card before doing so. You need to take up that status coming via the card, even if you are gold already.

  • Vit says:

    17 Aug17 August 12:55

    Yes, got it worked last night. Somehow needed to use Firefox to get the link to work. Applied for a few hotel scheme and the status is pending now. Hopefully it is sorted soon. 🙂 Thanks again!

    • BJ says:

      17 Aug17 August 13:15

      Good stuff.

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