The HfP chat thread – Friday 23rd October

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• Anna says:

  23 Oct23 October 18:43

  My IHG free night certificate has hit, seemingly at the same instant my statement arrived! Very efficient. We could have about a fortnight somewhere fancy on free nights and points if we could go anywhere!

  • Tw33ty says:

    23 Oct23 October 18:47

    Mine hit last month at the same time as statement.
    Maybe it’s a change rather than the exact day of your yearly anniversary.

  • Craig says:

    23 Oct23 October 19:02

    Still waiting for mine from July!

    • Jimbob says:

      23 Oct23 October 23:15

      And me, from March. Formal complaint hasn’t had a reply after 14 weeks

  • Lee says:

    23 Oct23 October 19:22

    Just hit 55000 for spire with today’s statement, 25000 elite choice was made available immediately very impressive.

• Joe says:

  23 Oct23 October 18:55

  Hi

  I’ve had a Virgin Atlantic flight cancelled. Cash price £580.

  They’ve offered me :
  – Cash refund OR
  – Open ticket / voucher + companion voucher or upgrade voucher OR
  – 88,000 flying club miles.

  I’m tempted by the 88,000 miles – I’m getting them at 0.65p per mile.

  What does everyone think?!

  • insider says:

    23 Oct23 October 18:58

    Cash refund. 88k miles is not that useful if they go bankrupt, however small the chance

    • Joe says:

      23 Oct23 October 19:04

      Well – I guess that’s the point. Is the value enough to make the risk acceptable?

      Clearly I know that if they go bust there’s a danger that the miles might not be redeemable (even though they’re not owned by Virgin).

      But there has to be a cut off point at which the risk becomes acceptable when considering the value.

      • Genghis says:

        23 Oct23 October 19:14

        It’s one of those things where only you can decide. Put it this way, I’m happy “selling” avios for 0.66p at the moment by buying Amazon gift cards from HSBC premier. I don’t need the points.

      • insider says:

        23 Oct23 October 19:26

        given that the CAA have threatened court action on Virgin Holidays, I imagine they are on the margins of cash – plus looking ahead to a very long winter…I personally would take the money

    • Lady London says:

      23 Oct23 October 20:11

      +1.
      tell them you want cash, try to get a payable date out of them.

  • Mo says:

    23 Oct23 October 19:32

    If you’re planning to rebook the flight anyway then the open ticket + upgrade voucher might be even better than the miles

    If you take the miles you’ll need to pay the full taxes for whatever cabin you fly, however, the amount you’ve paid in taxes on your current ticket will be deducted from the taxes needed for the upgraded cabin if you use the open ticket + upgrade voucher

  • Colin MacKinnon says:

    23 Oct23 October 21:25

    Under if you take the open ticket if that is still the original one, or converted via a voucher?

    I would be worried that somehow you might lose s75 protection if you don’t take the cash option. You would lose it if you took the points.

  • dezbez says:

    23 Oct23 October 22:43

    I’d maybe try and have a cheeky haggle with them – see if they are prepared to offer more than 88k?

  • The Urbanite says:

    23 Oct23 October 22:51

    Personally I’d take the cash. 0.65p is too expensive to buy miles unless you already had the express intention of doing just that.

    However it’s different for everyone as people have different ways of spending and methods of accruing points.

• Alan says:

  23 Oct23 October 22:08

  That should have read CGT bill.

  • Rob says:

    24 Oct24 October 09:44

    Amex – you need to use Billhop (do a search) and pay their 2.95% fee

    Other MC / Visa – you can get Curve Metal, which has a fee, and make payments on Curve to HMRC which are recharged to your underlying Visa / MC

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