The HfP chat thread – Friday 25th September

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

• Matty says:

  25 Sep25 September 10:47

  What time of day does the BA First lounge stop serving their breakfast offering and move on to their rest of day menu?

• Joe says:

  25 Sep25 September 10:58

  Curve question: over the past couple of weeks Brighton seem to have started blocking all payments coming from my Curve card (previously IHG via Curve was working fine). Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I’m wondering if it has anything to do with switching their issuer away from Wirecard…

  • Anna says:

    25 Sep25 September 11:11

    People keep posting about this issue but not clarifying whether they are using metal or switching on fronted so it’s difficult to answer. There have been a few posts saying readers have not had any problems when using Curve linked to certain cards. I’ve given up on Curve for the time being as the revoluntionary method works better for me …

    • Joe says:

      25 Sep25 September 11:33

      I’m using metal – paid the annual sub shortly after they announced the fees for fronted payments without it as the numbers made sense for me. Frustrating if the functionality had disappeared…

  • Joe says:

    25 Sep25 September 11:42

    Update: have managed to resolve this. Turns out I was being an idiot and my saved debit card details in the app were for my old (blue) curve card, not my new metal card. Over the past 4 months the old details continued to work, but stopped in the last few days. Now I’ve updated the details to the new metal card it’s all working fine again.

  • Vit says:

    25 Sep25 September 12:02

    Yes, newbie on curve. Tries £1 this morning using IHG via blue curve. Not gone through. Got charged 2 pence. 🙄

    • TGLoyalty says:

      25 Sep25 September 14:06

      small £1 transactions with new merchants are red flags.

• Axil23 says:

  25 Sep25 September 11:45

  In regards to Amex offers. Bought a bunch of things from a retailer and got the £50 cash back on my account. However one of the things hasn’t fit and when I return it I will go £20 below the qualifying amount that triggers it.

  Does Amex take the money back if you refund a part of the order?

  • Anna says:

    25 Sep25 September 11:55

    Did you buy online or in store? If in store, maybe don’t use the card you paid with for the refund?

    • Axil23 says:

      25 Sep25 September 12:08

      Online. No store close by where I can refund too.

  • BS says:

    25 Sep25 September 11:55

    Almost universally yes. I have never got away with keeping the money with refunds pushing me below the required spend.
    The exception so far seems to be the £50 Amex Travel credit. My flight has been cancelled and I got a refund, but this has been over 6 months since the original purchase, so I might get away with it!

  • BS says:

    25 Sep25 September 11:56

    One other exception which Anna suggests: GAP refund in store – I just put a different card in the machine so the credit went to a different card.

  • CTR says:

    25 Sep25 September 12:15

    I’ve never experienced any credit being reversed once I’ve redeemed an offer and then returned something via online, having said that I’ve never returned a full order that the credit was received for, normally only part of an order, so if you’re returning the whole order/item I suspect the credit will be reversed.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      25 Sep25 September 15:16

      I’ve had it both ways I think it’s how the merchant processes the refund rather than bad amex it.

      Find returning instore or to another store makes it more likely to “stick”

  • Andrew says:

    25 Sep25 September 15:16

    The straightforward answer is if a subsequent refund takes you below the threshold for the offer, the offer should be reversed.

    In real life, the data-matching isn’t always successful, or goes outside a range.

    In January this year I had a Visa Offer from one of my banks that offered a 10% funds return on payments to a major hotel chain. In January I pre-paid the full £10,000 for a large family event in August, securing a good discount with the hotel, and within 7 days had received a £1,000 credit.

    Due to Covid rules, the hotel asked us to cancel the event and gave me a full refund in late August. So the £10,000 was refunded to my account, just after Visa Offers closed the scheme for that bank. The £1,000 hasn’t been reversed yet. I haven’t raised a complaint.

    The refund for a holiday in May that had triggered around £190 each of fund-return for myself and a mate has also not resulted in a reversal by Visa or Amex.

• Alex Sm says:

  25 Sep25 September 11:56

  This might set an interesting precedent if decided in favour of refunds, at least on the EU level

  “Italy’s antitrust regulator said on Friday it was opening an enquiry into airlines Easyjet EZJ.L, Ryanair RYA.I, Blue Panorama and Vueling for offering vouchers and not refunds to passengers whose flights were cancelled due to Covid-19.“

  • ChrisBCN says:

    25 Sep25 September 13:27

    I think that would only apply to the Italian level, not all EU. I seem to remember that was the case with the German court order where airlines can’t now cancel the return if you didn’t fly the outbound. I can’t remember why, I’m sure somebody else can add!

    • ChrisBCN says:

      25 Sep25 September 13:34

      I got the German bit slightly wrong, Lufthansa were trying to charge customers who didn’t fly the return portion.

      But, the point about something that becomes law/rules in Italy doesn’t necessarily apply to the entire EU stands.

    • ChrisC says:

      25 Sep25 September 17:35

      That’s correct.

      A national court ruling does not affect any other country. The only court that can over ride / clarify EU law to affect all EU nations is the ECJ

      With the Lufty case it was because the T&Cs weren’t specific enough for the court. But it was a case of the airline not being able to cancel the rest of the ticket if you missed the first leg but they could reprice it.

      I don’t think Lufty appealed it but did change the ticket T&Cs

• Nick_C says:

  25 Sep25 September 12:07

  More than a quarter of a million people have volunteered to take part in trials to test various Covid-19 vaccinations.

  Different studies very often need different groups of people to take part, and they expect to need to include good representation of those people most likely to benefit first from a vaccine – for example the elderly, people with underlying health conditions, and people from different ethnic backgrounds. This is how the researchers can be sure that potential vaccines will work for as many people as possible, and especially for those who are most vulnerable. Volunteers may be asked to complete a pre-screening questionnaire either in person at a study centre or online. Everything they need to do will be clearly explained when they are contacted and they will have the opportunity to ask as many questions as they would like to, both at the start of a study and throughout its duration. They will be very well looked after by the healthcare teams involved. Taking part in a study is a voluntary decision which can be withdrawn at any time.

  You can sign up at https://www.nhs.uk/sign-up-to-be-contacted-for-research

  • Anna says:

    25 Sep25 September 13:53

    I’ve signed up and just had this email as well. I’ve concluded it’s the only way we’ll be able to resume our annual visits to GCM which remains resolutely shut to anyone who can’t undertake a 14 day quarantine in an approved facility at their own expense (reportedly around $9k!)

• Stoneman says:

  25 Sep25 September 12:50

  So, let’s say London go into a special measures type of lockdown, will this shut the airports (thinking Heathrow)? I cannot recall whether it was ever shut during the first lockdown?

  • WaynedP says:

    25 Sep25 September 13:06

    Shouldn’t think so.

    UK hasn’t adopted the SA or AUS approach of closing borders to all international travel, and I don’t think it’s likely to either.

    Just mothballing of certain terminals as number of flights diminishes.

• New Card says:

  25 Sep25 September 12:53

  Quick Q: If you’ve already flown the outbound leg of an Avios return flight booking, I understand you can’t cancel the return leg for a refund (per the article a few days ago). But could you get an FTV for the return leg instead?

• Lev441 says:

  25 Sep25 September 12:55

  Has anyone else received an email from Lloyd’s saying they’ve got another upgrade voucher? Pretty sure I wasn’t eligible for one more voucher…!

  • Oli says:

    25 Sep25 September 13:29

    Yes I just did despite not using the card for 6 months.
    I thought perhaps it was a notification of the voucher I earned back in March, having reached the spend threshold, but that Avios were not aware of when I called them at the time. I did not bother chasing at the time due to the inability to travel anyway.

  • Rob says:

    25 Sep25 September 14:21

    A reader emailed me to say he’d got one and wasn’t sure why.

    • Lev441 says:

      25 Sep25 September 14:52

      Interesting. Not complaining though!

  • Andrew M says:

    25 Sep25 September 20:26

    I haven’t got the email but I want one now!

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