The HfP chat thread – Thursday 15th October

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Paul says:

15 Oct15 October 15:14

Anyone else awaiting eagerly awaiting exemption update today? I booked flights to greece going out monday. Booked few days ago. Family of 5 for 38 quid total. Ryanair. Cant wait.
- Rob says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 15:16
  
  I have just taken the last 4 Business seats to Crete for Sat 24th, as the Guardian apparently has a leak of what is coming and Crete will be removed from the list ….
  
  £140 down the drain if wrong, unless the 24 hour cooling off period applies to redemptions.
  - Paul says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 15:18
    
    Awesome
  - Paul says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 15:24
    
    If i wasnt all invested now in costa navarino i would have gobe back to domes elounda again.. great place.
    - DK says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 15:45
      
      @Paul. Is it Marriott one? Any feedback in case you’ve been there before?
      - Paul says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 15:52
        
        Yes the Westin one. Never been.. looks great though. Will feedback..
    - DK says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 15:54
      
      Booked there for half-term week
      - Paul says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 16:09
        
        What day do you arrive? May see you there. We there until sunday 25th.
      - Scallder says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 16:53
        
        Hi Paul & DK – I went there September last year so can report the following (did a Trip Advisor report at the time, so have copied and pasted). If you have any specific questions I’ll keep an eye on this thread to get back to you on:
        
        We stayed here for a week with our 2 year old daughter in the last week of September and had an amazing stay. Having booked a standard room due to my gold status we were upgraded to a huge 1 bedroom suite with an infinity pool which understandably got the week off to a great start!
        
        The aqua park is fantastic and our daughter absolutely loved it! There is The Diner restaurant next to the aqua park which was great for drinks and milkshakes by the pool. I must say the staff in The Diner was amazing – they were all so engaging with our daughter which was lovely to see and really enhanced our time there.
        
        The spa was great and definitely go ahead of your treatment time to make use of the pools/saunas etc.
        
        We ate at a number of the different restaurants – the food in Onuki was incredible (as was the view form the outside terrace), and the Italian food at Da Luigi was great. We also had amazing service from Dora (who we also encountered at breakfast a number of mornings at Morias) who was beyond amazing with our daughter – she was really engaging with her and continually made our daughter laugh and giggle which was frankly service that went considerably above and beyond!
        
        Talking of breakfast – I have not seen a breakfast that has so much variety (and quantity). If you can’t find something for you, you really haven’t looked hard enough! There’s an array of cooked items as well as cold options, a good mixture of healthy items and some delicious but perhaps not so healthy options too 🙂
        
        We ate at the Souvlakerie on our final afternoon and had fantastic gyros as well.
        
        We had a great stay although towards the end of our week did start to get a bit of cabin fever a bit (the resort is huge, simply more on our nature) so we went out to the local village of Giolova for a couple of dinners which was very nice and had some lovely restaurants right on the waterfront.
        
        Overall we had an amazing week and would definitely recommend this for somewhere to go and have a relaxing break – whether as a family or couple.
      - Scallder says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 17:00
        
        Should also add there is a paid for creche, so if you want to put children in you can do that (we did for a few mornings for our 2 year old so could use the spa one day and have a little bit of time to ourselves the other)
      - DK says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 17:53
        
        @Scallder Thanks. Great to hear you enjoyed it.
        But no info on any children clubs on hotel website so it looks like these are all closed
  - Anna says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 15:58
    
    Surely you want it to be ON the exemption list? I’m juts waiting to see if we get a 2 week half term!
  - Andrew says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 16:00
    
    Why is it £140 down the drain when you can take a FTV voucher for the cash and Avios element?
    - Rob says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 16:56
      
      Can’t face taking a voucher!
  - BJ says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 16:07
    
    24h cooling off period applies to just about everything, even changes, but few people know that including most BA CSA. To be clear, I am not saying changing a flight then allows you to cancel the flight for free, it doesn’t but the change itself can be undone for free within 24h..
  - meta says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 16:21
    
    BA must have released more Avios seats as I can see unlimited number of economy and business outbound and unlimited business on inbound.
    - meta says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 16:24
      
      That is 24th Oct and 1 Nov back.
  - ChrisC says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 17:04
    
    If only there was a website that had lots of information on booking trips with points and when you can cancel bookings using those points …
  - TGLoyalty says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 17:09
    
    Thought 24hr cooling off period applies
  - Nick says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 17:18
    
    It does apply to redemptions, except where booked for travel within 24 hours. Surprised you don’t know that 😂
- Harry T says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 15:21
  
  Can find bugger all flights direct from the regions.
  - Anna says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 15:59
    
    I think you’re right, Harry, my half term Ryanair flight from MAN was cancelled, they were still selling it right up till last week – things must be dire.
    - Harry T says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 16:17
      
      Ryanair is laying off a third of its staff!
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 15:58
  
  Italy about to be removed?
  - BJ says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 16:16
    
    Head to Basilicata then, it’s gorgeous, weather will still be nice this time of year, a few Smith options should they be or become available on points, and quiet so probably little Covid.
BJ says:

15 Oct15 October 16:19

Thought for the day: Dive in, bet the house, sink or swim…
- EwanG says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 16:36
  
  You’re getting even more cryptic BJ!
  - BJ says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 16:41
    
    Less so if you follow the whole series, that was the end game today.
    - EwanG says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 16:46
      
      Oh, so this cryptic because it is linked to the TG, Harry and Peter stuff from before…?
      - BJ says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 17:06
        
        Yes, exactly.
        
        OT: you know we have paid every drop of petrol this year with Morrisons vouchers, still got about £360 left I think 🙂
      - EwanG says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 17:16
        
        That’s done you well then! I used the last of mine fairly recently. I also found that I can get more vouchers from @Andrew’s favourite place (sadly only with a 3% discount, not 10% as with Amex) and the kiosk will accept that e-code. Ive also run down the £200+ worth of More points which I’d accumulated (food spend as well as GC purchases).
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 17:09
      
      So what did the end game net you?
      - Harry T says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 17:16
        
        x2!
      - BJ says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 19:09
        
        Better than anything I’ve seen reported here for plat.
- Harry T says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 19:28
  
  @BJ how many multiples of my retention offer are we talking?
  - BJ says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 20:24
    
    It wasn’t like that exactly, not just about the number points and avios. Even if it was, it wouldn’t be very relevant because people’s value to amex will be different. My annual spend these days is low at 5 figures but what I had in my favour was genuine referrals.
    - Harry T says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 21:12
      
      I do wonder if they offered to waive certain rules around referrals or sign up bonuses…
      - BJ says:
        
        15 Oct15 October 22:22
        
        Almost there, but they didn’t waive rules,justgot creative.
- Peter K says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 22:11
  
  Very interesting. And why not bet the house if it is not worth much to you any more. Mine is still valuable to me currently but it may be more so if I offer to sell…decisions, decisions.
  - BJ says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 22:39
    
    An astute observation. It was an easy choice for me. We have a decent HHA and potentially 315k avios coming back plus vouchers. Therefore, I was really quite prepared to let everything go if I had to and start the 24 month strategy despite my previous reservations with it. My partner and dad both had amex cards I could use with the vouchers so shoving everything through Barclays Hilton would have been good for me at this time. So I called to cancel.
WS says:

15 Oct15 October 16:21

Just received an email from Barclays giving notice that premier rewards is ending on 15 Dec – sad news but hopefully means the avios tie up is coming soon?
DK says:

15 Oct15 October 16:22

Barclays Premier Rewards are closing on Dec 15th
Freeing up space for Avios tie-up?
- Nadeshka says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 16:35
  
  Oops I failed to refresh the latest comments before posting the same below!
- BuildTheWall says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 16:50
  
  Well played BA. Force Tesco to buy millions of avios one last time. And then force Barclays to pay millions for more avios.
Nadeshka says:

15 Oct15 October 16:31

Just got an email about Barclays Premier rewards ending soon. Is this ahead of the previously mooted avios deal? I hope so!
Andrew says:

15 Oct15 October 17:41

Confirmed: Italy off the exemption list, Crete on the exemption list from Sunday.
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 17:50
  
  It’s all utter nonsense. A summer of nothing but harm to the travel industry and the rate in past 7 days here is now the 5th highest in Europe.
  - Harry T says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 18:38
    
    @TG
    We need to get to number one so we can show how world beating we are!
    - BJ says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 19:28
      
      Just like football 😀
      
      I’ll stop the watch when somebody mentions 1066.. .
Sina says:

15 Oct15 October 18:19

I’m not an active BA flyer, so no BA status, but I fail to see any value in spending any money at BA other than very cheap economy!

I flew CE twice in the past two weeks and:

– The BA lounge is horrible and the food is crap and they don’t even have proper orange juice! Ended up using Premium Plaza again!
– no priority security, boarding, etc.
– the food given on the plane was vegetables worth max £4
– asked for whisky, given a number of brands, when asked for one, they came back with something different saying they’re out of what I asked.

– CE seat is cramped in and crap! Like their economy!
– No ground staff in Istanbul to check my baggage in, 50+ people waiting in line and no one show up for half hour until we got to the Istanbul airport information desk and they called them in!

I can’t see why I paid an extra £300 for two tickets?! Can someone please enlighten me?

I can honestly say the only time I would use BA is for redemption flights only!
- Harry T says:
  
  15 Oct15 October 18:35
  
  Club Europe is pretty much worthless unless you need tier points. It’s rubbish compared to proper short haul business class like Qantas. I’d rather have the exit row in Y.
  - Sina says:
    
    15 Oct15 October 19:36
    
    But that’s the thing, I can’t see why I should go for status? I have Lufthansa status which covers most of Europe and is way better than BA. As I said I would only redeem in reward flights!
    - meta says:
      
      15 Oct15 October 20:30
      
      But does Lufty has direct flights to anywhere in Europe? Why fly to Greece and add extra few hours?
      - Sina says:
        
        16 Oct16 October 00:30
        
        Could’ve easily flew Turkish (Star Alliance) in Economy and everything would’ve literally been way better for half price! My mistake to give my money to BA!
Liam says:

15 Oct15 October 18:28

American Airlines yesterday announced status changes for 2021. There probably aren’t many AA status holders here but it might be instructive for changes in other loyalty programs (although given BA’s year end is rolling—not everyone has a January–December earning year—there’s probably not much to read into it from that perspective).

I think the most interesting changes are:

—Miles/dollars earned in October–December 2020 will count towards 2020 *and* 2021 (so you essentially get 15 months in 2021 to earn status).
—Reduced qualification thresholds next year (although not as low as 2020’s ended up being)

On a different note, OneWorld Sapphire (BA Silver) members no longer get to choose Main Cabin Extra seats for free when flying AA. MCE is an economy seat that includes extra leg room, slightly earlier boarding, and (although not right now) complimentary alcohol.

I’m flying LAX to JFK tomorrow on AA in J. It is proper J on this route too (F is also available), with a lie-flat bad, not the usual two-cabin domestic configuration. The fact that I’m AA Platinum and my upgrade to J cleared 48 hours before departure suggests that business travel is still very, very low.