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The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 20th October

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We have decided to run this daily chat thread on Head for Points during the coronavirus outbreak.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the de facto repository for random comments and questions.  With the news flow being lighter, we are running fewer ‘Bits’ articles.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind.  At this tricky time, and given that many of you are at home, we want the HfP community to have a place to chat.

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Comments (207)

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

  • BS says:

    Anyone else get a survey from BA about what we think about the airline? They probably have sent it at the wrong time, having refused to re-route my return flight following cancelling of a route leaving me stranded, and me having to claim the replacement flight off them via CEDR.
    Needless to say my responses were far from complementary…

    • AJA says:

      I did and filled it in quite candidly. I even allowed them to link to my profile. If BA only wants opinions that speak highly then they shouldn’t invite people to complete a survey. And sorry to be pedantic but your responses were, I suspect, far from complimentary. Your responses were complementary to your poor experience of being stranded. 🙂

  • Anna says:

    Just a reminder it’s the last day to get 15%/20% off £25/£40 spend at Holland & Barrett – should stack with the current £5 back Amex offer online. They’ve also got the “Buy one, get one half price” offer on lots of products so there are good savings to be had.

    • Carol says:

      Am on the website currently but they are having technical problems so I can’t complete the purchase. Will try again in a while. I had just scrolled back through yesterday’s posts for the codes – thanks 🙂

      • Anna says:

        The discount codes are on the website, which I didn’t realise either! FLASHSALE works for both, I think. You’ve got till midnight to place an order.

        • Optimus Prime says:

          You can also get 4 avios per £1 through BA portal

          • PJJ says:

            There also seems a lot of double up points on the portal today.

            Usually the bonus offers are about 110 and today there was 563

  • ChrisM says:

    Has the number of daily emails been cut back? I only received two this morning (Gold sign up and the Doyle speech one)

    • mkcol says:

      Likewise.
      And clicking the link to the comments on the website for the Doyle speech took me to the Flybe article.

      • Rob says:

        Sorry. I screwed up with the Accor article which is why it didn’t email. It will go out tomorrow tucked under another story.

        Also …. when we send 2 articles in the same email (which we only do when news flow means we publish 4 instead of 3 in a particular day) the ‘comments’ link is in relation to the top article of the two.

  • James says:

    Update for anyone who frequents ABZ. Just spoke to the staff in the amazing Northern Lights Lounge and they are under the impression that BA will look to reopen their lounge around March 2021.

    • aDifferentSimon says:

      if a bonus one comes out late yesterday then that counts towards the total…

    • Anna says:

      We could do with an amazing “North West Lights” lounge at MAN!

    • TripRep says:

      Appreciate the update, might be in there in the New Year, definitely prefer it to the BA lounge

  • Denis says:

    Hope someone will explain:

    I received an Apology Voucher (Service Recovery) from BA a year ago or so which is valid until the end of this year and we are obviously not going to be able to use it. The voucher is for £150 per ticket and for up to 6 people per booking. Contacting BA was useless as instead they gave me the new evoucher for £150 total expiring next Sept (which I appreciate of course, but it took me dozen of emails going back and forth) which means I cannot get £150 off for each person in my future booking (family of 4).
    If I make a booking now using my old Apology Voucher and then cancel, will they give me a FTV for the total amount or for the amount I paid (e.g. total flights cost £1000, I paid £400 as my old voucher covered £600, £150×4) ? Will this new FTV be extended or will it have the same expiry date which is 31 Dec 2020?
    Not sure how it works exactly as it’s not a CV or FTV.
    Thanks a lot.

    • Nick says:

      The FTV is a held booking that contains the total value you originally paid. So the voucher will be ‘wrapped up’ in the total. Only caveat is you might have to keep the same passengers when you come to rebook. Travel by April 2022.

      • Denis says:

        Thank you Nick. I am worried my new FTV will contain the £400 I paid, but the £600 Service Recovery voucher will be expiring on Dec 31 nonetheless. I will give it a try though.

  • Louie says:

    Transferwise. As an update on my post yesterday, I have to say my fears were unfounded (this time anyway!).

    The funds have already been received, less than 20 hours after TW were paid. They didn’t require anything other than the money from me, so all plain sailing, even though this was a first transfer and a reasonably large sum. It may have helped that it was between two accounts in my name, I guess.

    Thanks to all who responded to my post.

    I’ll post this on yesterday post if I am still able for anyone searching for similar info in future.

  • Nick says:

    Some of you may realise I had a ‘dimwit’ moment the other week and paid a Hilton with the ‘wrong’ card (the one on file didn’t have the Amex offer). Well I called them over the weekend, they immediately offered to refund the wrong one and charge the new one – which went through the day after. Top service, I’ll definitely remember this when choosing hotels in future.

    • Harry T says:

      Glad to hear it! That’s good service.

    • Aston100 says:

      That is a good result.
      I’m finding Amex customer service to be very inconsistent in recent months. Sometimes great, and other times pushing back illogically.
      e.g. Someone I referred used my link and got their card. I actually stood next to them watching while they open my link and applied! I didn’t get the referral points. Escalated and their final written response is that the referral link wasn’t used. End of matter, go talk to the ombudsman (or words to that effect).

      • The real John says:

        They may have had an ad blocker or cookies set by another credit broker (such as a “credit score” website)

    • Brian says:

      Good for you. I tried this at the Hilton in Dresden last year – I’d booked it before the Amex offer appeared. I tried to change the card at check-in and they said it simply wasn’t possible. The only thing they said I could do was to use a different card for incidentals.

  • Maciek says:

    I’m getting “Declined as you’ve reached your spending limit” message in Curve when paying seagulls. I’m not anywhere near the limit. Any ideas what’s going on?

    • mark2 says:

      My Curve limit has gone haywire too.
      Purchases from Oct 19 are not being added to my limit as they fall out of the 365 day window. So I am stuck at £3.
      I know that this different but in the same area.
      I have raised a ticket so I may get a reply one day.

    • Crafty says:

      Can’t help, ok for me this morning, from Creation.

      • Maciek says:

        interesting – the IHG card has never worked for me with curve and the seagulls

    • aDifferentSimon says:

      with curve metal?

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