The HfP chat thread – Monday 24th August

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• aDifferentSimon says:

  24 Aug24 August 16:45

  Lloyds voucher.

  I have one that expires next week. These haven’t been automatically extended like BA amex ones have they? Has anyone had any success in extending theirs?

  • Doug M says:

    24 Aug24 August 17:11

    I thought they had extended them. When I got one back from a flight I cancelled, my choice, they told me voucher good until 31st Oct.

  • David says:

    24 Aug24 August 19:19

    Yes they are (or at least have been) extending them if you are in the last two months of validity, but you do need to call up and make the request – it’s not automatic – call the same number as if you wish to redeem. Mine was extended by 3 months. Depending on the situation at the start of November I may call again to see if a further extension may be possible.

    • aDifferentSimon says:

      25 Aug25 August 11:00

      Thanks, I’ll call

• Nick says:

  24 Aug24 August 17:05

  Interesting small piece in NewScientist, “How likely are you to be infected by the coronavirus on a flight?

  It doesn’t tell us a great deal, but some good background stuff..

  Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2252152-how-likely-are-you-to-be-infected-by-the-coronavirus-on-a-flight/#ixzz6W3JJInSC

• George K says:

  24 Aug24 August 17:42

  Few news…

  Iberia is doing 50% avios redemptions to anywhere till March. Looks like a fantastic deal.

  Also, BA seems to have put the A350 to HND on BA7. Anyone else spotted any 350k winter routes?

  • e14 says:

    24 Aug24 August 19:18

    Seems to be Spanish residents only, maybe changing the address to the somewhere in Spain might work

  • Ikaz says:

    24 Aug24 August 19:52

    My flight to HND was switched to A350 just over a week ago. A350 was supposed to start on this route at the start of April and I am booked for ~20th March, good news for me as I am upgraded from club world to club suite.

• DZOO says:

  24 Aug24 August 17:43

  Just activated Curve Metal card and unable to make payments to the Seagulls – anyone else had the same issue? All seems to be working fine in App with the notifications etc but payment just doesn’t seem to go through.

  • Connor says:

    24 Aug24 August 19:02

    What underlying card are you using?

  • BP says:

    24 Aug24 August 20:29

    Seagulls? Can I have a hint?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      24 Aug24 August 20:57

      The American kind.

• Sambe says:

  24 Aug24 August 19:10

  This might be old news to people here but it seems at least BA and probably others are intentional scheduling and selling tickets for flights they don’t intend to fly. I had a flight cancelled more than a month out within an hour of booking. Checking the flight status page for a few destinations shows huge numbers of cancellations. Customer services all but confirmed to me that this was being done intentionally. They also said several customers have had to repeatedly rebook as each rebooking was also cancelled.

  In what way is this legal? By my thinking this is a bait-and-switch, and would count as fraudulent (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/pdfs/ukpga_20060035_en.pdf).

  They are presumably selling people the illusion of choice when they know they can’t fill all the flights (generating more interest than there would otherwise be), unwilling to run the flights at those occupancy levels, then cancelling and allocating the remaining passengers to the most popular flights (or perhaps the most convenient for their own logistics). Whilst you can take the next flight, or go through the shambolic refund process, this has a high chance of locking people in who have mentally committed to a trip, or have booked a hotel/car/meeting/event tickets etc. Thankfully on this occasion I’m solo travelling for a single night, but BA just lost the £2K I was going to spend with them on holidays. No way I’m going through a 7h delay with family, car/hotel booking etc. I heard a couple of reports of Ryanair doing the same.

  Just to preempt people who think it’s necessary to survive and these are strange & difficult times: the answer is to list the flights you can reasonably fill, and stop being dishonest. You may lose a small number of bookings but most people will still do the trip at a different time. It’s the unpredictability that’s the problem.

  • Anna says:

    24 Aug24 August 20:29

    But you ARE guaranteed to get your money back (eventually) in the event of a cancellation, so BA, while being infuriating, are very unlikely to be acting fraudulently because they aren’t keeping the proceeds unless customers agree to accept vouchers, which they don’t have to. If anything, they are “cash recycling”, as it’s known in HFP world!

    • Spk says:

      24 Aug24 August 21:50

      I think the point being made was that people might commit to other non BA spend that might not be refundable.

      • Lady London says:

        25 Aug25 August 00:56

        @SPK that is a very good point. Luckily many non-HfP’ers are too scared to book anything non-refundable at the moment. The problem is most people wont dare book anything at all currently – HfP’ers include quite a few who are against this trend and actually making bookings. So good you mentioned.

• Stephen says:

  24 Aug24 August 19:45

  UPDATE – Revolut top-up via Curve (Virgin CC) now back to MCC 4829 (Money Transfer) which will generate a fee

  • Mikee says:

    24 Aug24 August 19:50

    Just spotted that too on my account – 4829 showing today 🙁

    Can anyone confirm whether MBNA Horizon is still fee-free? Today my small test top-up of £10 is showing in pending transactions as **Revolut 1552** when a couple of months ago it was showing **Revolut 1944** (which eventually showed as “Financial Institutions – Merchandises and Services” with no fee).
    I need to top-up a larger amount later so if anyone can confirm what **1552* converts to, that would be great.

  • Aston100 says:

    24 Aug24 August 21:42

    Hi where do you find these codes?

    • Mikee says:

      24 Aug24 August 22:15

      Should show on your online statement. Sometimes desktop version has more info vs bank app.

• Munch says:

  24 Aug24 August 19:58

  Curve – just had my 1st refund into Curve Cash. Can I withdraw the balance at an ATM if I set the payment method to Curve Cash on the app? I don’t want to buy Premium Bonds as I’m trying to increase my limit with a “normal” spending pattern.

  • Liz says:

    24 Aug24 August 20:51

    You can use it to pay off credit cards including Amex.

    • Munch says:

      24 Aug24 August 21:00

      Liz – would this be classed as “normal” spending?

      • Peter K says:

        24 Aug24 August 21:14

        No it is not “normal spending”, but neither is taking money out of a cash machine.
        See if there is a bill you need to pay (eg. council tax) that you can arrange an alternative way to pay.

• Aston100 says:

  24 Aug24 August 21:28

  Could someone kindly advise if it is possible to search for keywords in the comments from previous daily chat threads, and if so how to go about it?
  Thanks.

  • Peter K says:

    24 Aug24 August 21:57

    If on a laptop/desktop running on Windows then press control+F then type in the word you are searching for and it will search the page.
    On Chrome on Android it’s the 3 dots at the top, choose the “find in page” option and type in the word.

    That is only on a page by page basis however, which can be long winded.

    • Aston100 says:

      24 Aug24 August 22:21

      Thanks, but I feel someone described a method some time ago, possibly involving typing ‘headforpoints’ followed by a colon and something else into a browser. I’m clearly missing something, or else going mad perhaps.

  • Connor says:

    24 Aug24 August 22:35

    Google the keyword followed by site:headforpoints.com and it’ll show every time it’s been mentioned.

    • Aston100 says:

      24 Aug24 August 23:25

      That worked. Thank you.

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