The HfP chat thread – Friday 4th September

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• Niall says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:27

  Addison Lee statement credit on Amex Platinum: My wife mistakenly use her supplementary card last month instead of mine to get the £10 credit; do you think I can call Amex and ask them to manually apply it?

  • Andrew says:

    4 Sep4 September 09:58

    Nothing stopping you calling to ask. The answer will probably be no, but worth asking.

  • KS says:

    4 Sep4 September 11:35

    I tried that in June, they said no. Hope you have a better outcome.

• Diydegsy says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:39

  Anyone been in Manchester airport lounges recently just wondering what’s on offer?

• J says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:49

  Wildly off topic, but this seems like it could be a Rob vs Rhys competition! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54012055

  • Rhys says:

    4 Sep4 September 09:57

    I don’t drink coffee! Rob is going to love it however!

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      4 Sep4 September 19:10

      I thought Rob only went in to flash his curve metal card at the baristas?

      No point going if not paying!

  • Anna says:

    4 Sep4 September 10:08

    Lol! Let’s see if Rob (or an HFP reader) can get 155 cups of coffee in October. Costa may regret this …

    • Andrew says:

      4 Sep4 September 10:25

      Except the subscription is at Pret…

  • ChrisC says:

    4 Sep4 September 14:53

    FAQs from the baristas mouth!

    https://www.pret.co.uk/en-GB/yourpretfaq

    How much does the subscription cost?

    It costs £20 per month with the first month subscription being free.

    I’m guessing that they are hoping people will up their spending on cakes and sanwdiches as they get their ‘free’ coffee

    • Lady London says:

      4 Sep4 September 20:04

      I can see students going for this.

      When I worked in the City I had a very nasty coffee habit 2-3 large ones per day this would have been perfect. I would have upped my food orders to go alongside as well if I’d been using this.

      I guess airport branches will be excluded?

      • Anuj says:

        5 Sep5 September 20:10

        As a student I don’t see that many students going for this perhaps in London however.

• Travel Strong says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:49

  Virgin+ Card Credit Limit: Request for increase was denied. Then got letter through saying to call back after 1st Sep as it needed to be ‘6 full calendar months’ not 6 months.
  Called back and they increased limit… by only £1k… comically tiny, but i’ll take it! It’s 1500 more miles per month at the end of the day, and all my transactions are financial or savings institutions!

• Alan S says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:51

  It looks like I’ve got a £2k spend to put through with Marriott later today but typically I don’t have an LBG card to avail of the 15% off – did ask a close friend to check his Lloyds & Santander accounts, but neither had it either. Not sure how rare it is?

  Don’t think there is a Marriott offer appearing across any of my many Amex cards and I know it’s bound to appear once I’ve booked these rooms…!

  • Matt says:

    4 Sep4 September 12:50

    If you’ve got an old Curve card, with the original rewards scheme Marriott is on there, for 3% back

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    4 Sep4 September 15:54

    IHG card will probably trigger the double points

• Mark says:

  4 Sep4 September 09:56

  Was caught out the other day by DCC at a Merchant in Greece whose terminals asked pay in EUR or GBP after I had entered my PIN. By that time I had handed it back to the Merchant who selected GBP without asking.

  Eventually got them to void it and recharge in EUR, but it got me thinking again that there must be a way for a card provider to offer a DCC defeat option, if by no other means than enabling you to automatically decline all transactions in the card base currency while travelling.

  Thinking about see if Curve might be interested in offering something along those lines. Out of interest would many here be interested in such a capability?

  • YH says:

    4 Sep4 September 10:11

    I have a vague memory reading a while back that MasterCard was going to block DCC on all their cards. I don’t think this happened since I was offered DCC multiple times when in Croatia a couple weeks back.

    • Mark says:

      4 Sep4 September 10:40

      Didn’t Visa try that at one point, and it was ruled anti-competitive in Australia?

      • Lady London says:

        4 Sep4 September 20:09

        Australia seems to have really poor consimer protrction. Was reading airlines dont have to refund flights if the reason the airline cancelled the flight was out of the airline’s control.

        • Mark says:

          4 Sep4 September 20:24

          Yes, a friend of mine wrote off a rental car that I’d rented and on which he was a supplementary driver in Australia some years ago. It turned out that burried in the small print was an exemption on the insurance for single vehicle accidents and they tried to come after us for the full value of the vehicle.

        • RussellH says:

          4 Sep4 September 21:00

          Poor consumer knowledge all round in Oz.

          I never had to tell UK or USA customers not to send credit card details by e-mail, but Aussies did it all the time. Really annoying as there was a clause in my acquirer’s nTs+Cs saying that they reserved the right to cancel my contract if that happened.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      4 Sep4 September 12:31

      I believe some pre paid card were blocked.

  • Matty says:

    4 Sep4 September 11:15

    This happened to me at Thessaloniki on Monday. Wasn’t given an option. Can only recall seeing the amount in Euros and not GBP, and having to enter my pin. Checked my receipt later to see that they had done the conversion. It was only around 60 pence on a £20 transaction. Not the end of the world but annoying.

    • Lady London says:

      4 Sep4 September 20:13

      Think what all those 60p”s add up to on the volume of card transactions though.

      People who skimmed even parts of cents on transsctions as ‘private enterprise’ made huge amounts of money snd were sent to prison if caught.

      • Matty says:

        4 Sep4 September 23:39

        Agree. I’m a regular through that airport. It won’t happen again.

  • Spk says:

    4 Sep4 September 11:32

    Its not in the interest of card companies or banks to block DCC. Many merchants say they have no idea about it. I had an embarrassing argument with a restaurant manager in front of my friends.

    • Mark says:

      4 Sep4 September 13:33

      Not in the interests of the Merchant banks but I don’t see what Curve, or most of the card issuers for that matter, have to gain from it. Indeed those taking a fee are losing out.

      Worth a try I figure…

      In the meantime I’m one of those who will make a fuss on principle and, if necessary, will raise a Chargeback. Not for the amount lost on an individual, but because a small number of merchants and merchant banks are creaming a hidden charge off every customer if they can get away with it in clear contravention of the MasterCard/Visa rules. In the absence of enforcement from the card networks, the only way it will change is if enough people take a stand against it.

      • Lady London says:

        4 Sep4 September 20:14

        +1 you should not accept it

  • memesweeper says:

    4 Sep4 September 13:47

    American Express do not allow DCC

    • Mark says:

      4 Sep4 September 16:15

      Which is one reason the demise of the Lloyds Avios Amex was a particular shame…

      So far as I’m aware there are no longer any foreign exchange loading free Amex cards.

  • Pablo says:

    4 Sep4 September 19:22

    Use contactless and it will not offer the DCC option. Works for any amount but will ask for PIN for higher values.

    • Spk says:

      5 Sep5 September 08:50

      The problem is with merchants who refuse to upgrade the payment terminal and insist on using the old one.

• Crafty says:

  4 Sep4 September 10:03

  Anyone with a Hilton Barclaycard had it replaced (proactively by Barclaycard) recently due to impending expiry?

  Mine expires in February and I’ve had nothing. I know that’s a few months away, but I’ve never got within 9-12 months of an expiry date before with any other provider. Wondering if withdrawal is finally on the horizon.

  • Anna says:

    4 Sep4 September 10:11

    Mine too, not heard anything either. I’ll never get 10 nights at the Conrad Rangali if they pull it now!

  • Andrew Mc says:

    4 Sep4 September 10:24

    Funny how experiences differ. I’ve never had a card to date that would have been replaced this far from expiry!

    • Jane says:

      4 Sep4 September 10:31

      mine was replaced earlier this year but only about 4 weeks before expiry. I don’t think you have anything to worry about but accept that I might be being overly optimistic.

      • Anna says:

        4 Sep4 September 11:01

        Fingers crossed then Hilton must have been listening as I’ve just had an email offering 100% bonus on buying points lol.

      • Genghis says:

        4 Sep4 September 11:50

        +1. Mine replaced at start of May for expiry end of May.

        • H says:

          4 Sep4 September 12:55

          Mine replaced in June for July this year

  • John says:

    4 Sep4 September 12:04

    Really? Your cards get replaced 9 months before the expiry date?? I’ve never had a card replaced more than 2 months before the expiry date. My Hilton card is currently valid until July 2023. When barclaycard lost the IHG contract, my card had just been replaced so I only got to use it for 2 months.

    • Charlieface says:

      4 Sep4 September 13:55

      Tesco just replaced all debit cards for some reason or other, mine was about 8 months left

      • RussellH says:

        4 Sep4 September 21:07

        Sometimes there is a reason.

        My Hilton Card was replaced 15 months ago because the one I had would not work in a PIN-Sentry for 2FA, whenever they finally get around to doing that.

  • The Urbanite says:

    5 Sep5 September 00:54

    Got a shiny new one a couple of weeks ago starting from this month…!

• Jane says:

  4 Sep4 September 10:36

  I have my CW 2-4-1 flights booked to the states for next August and need to book returns next week – availability is still looking great (I got 4 seats out to Orlando and return from Miami looks very open at the moment but still too early for me dates) I can’t help but thinking that the chances of going are still quite slim so am working on a plan B.
  I seem to remember reading somewhere that BA doesn’t like you having two bookings at the same time when you can’t possibly be in two places at once – something about nested flights ?? Is this an issue or am I imagining it ?

  • Anna says:

    4 Sep4 September 11:04

    I’ve done this – in March I had briefly had bookings to MIA and GCM for last Easter when it wasn’t clear what was happening with travel. Both were cancelled 😢 but they definitely existed for a few days.
    I’m pretty sure Rob said he has about 3 different places booked for October half term as well!

    • Jane says:

      4 Sep4 September 11:07

      Thanks, yes I thought Rob has said he had different bookings too so hopefully they’ll stick if I make another – now I just have to work out what plan B actually is – Bahama’s seems to have availability but if USA is out then that probably is too or should I stick with short haul which might be more likely…. decisions decisions !

      • Anna says:

        4 Sep4 September 12:00

        The Bahamas has reintroduced quarantine for anyone travelling from the US but I think Europeans are ok. If it stays that way, you may have a lovely quiet holiday there! I use that route most years as the flight continues to GCM, availability is usually much better than other Caribbean destinations – presumably the LHR departure has something to do with that? People in the south seem to prefer LGW for holidays from what I can tell.

  • Matt says:

    4 Sep4 September 12:56

    I don’t think that’s an issue – at least I hope not because I’ve got two BA holidays booked at the same time in October.
    2 bookings on the same flight might well be a problem though

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