The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 27th October

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Clive says:

27 Oct27 October 12:43

Some excellent news just released by Hilton:

Points extension
Status extension
50% qualification discount
- Rhys says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 12:45
  
  I’ve just written the article for tomorrow!
  - David D says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 14:32
    
    Will be very interesting if the nights which are supposed to be being rolled over from this year will still count for next.
    - Rhys says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 14:51
      
      They will
- Craig says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 13:13
  
  Excellent.
- Andrew says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 14:00
  
  https://covid.hilton.com/#honors
  
  In a nutshell : status extended to 31 March 2022; half the number of nights needed to achieve elite during 2021 (and 2020 earning rolled over); and points expiry extended to 31 December 2021.
- Lee says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 14:28
  
  Basically, everyone will be either gold or diamond next few years
  - TGLoyalty says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 17:09
    
    So it’s even less appealing for a few years.
  - Harry T says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 19:31
    
    The thing is, Hilton status is a bit rubbish, innit? No guaranteed late checkout, most luxury properties are uninspiring, everyone from the US has it from credit cards, no SNAs etc
    - meta says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 21:14
      
      I’ve always been given late checkout at Hilton and only one time I haven’t been upgraded. I mean there are aspirational properties – Waldorf Rome, Conrads in Asia, Waldorf or Conrad Maldives, Conrad in New York, etc. There aren’t many as Marriott, but certainly more than
      IHG.
      - TGLoyalty says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 21:30
        
        I’ve been given 2pm but sometimes it’s been a battle. 4pm no chance.
        
        Marriott in UK/Europe there’s never any argument.
      - Harry T says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 23:51
        
        But the 4pm checkout for Platinum and above with Marriott is guaranteed. That means more to me than the possibility of being granted it. And the Marriott hotels do honour the guaranteed elite benefits without fuss.
AJA says:

27 Oct27 October 13:04

Is it just me or is there a glitch with the website? When I click on anyone in the latest comments it doesn’t actually take me to their comment. It takes me somewhere close but I then have to search for their post. This is on desktop using Chrome.

Also does the mobile site have the latest comments links? I have tried emptying cache on Samsung Android but they don’t appear.
- Rhys says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 13:21
  
  That’s because of the sticky header. You just have to scroll up a fraction. Will look to see if we can fix this.
- Rob says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 20:54
  
  The mobile site has no sidebar, that’s why 🙂
  
  Re the first bit: I just tested this and it works fine (Chrome, desktop) – the comment you click is right at the very top, perhaps half in view and half out of view because of the way the menu bar sticks to the top.
Graeme2 says:

27 Oct27 October 13:45

Has anyone here experienced Hertz trying to increase the price of a rental after it is booked and paid for? I have a rental coming up next week, pre-paid over a month ago. Awardwallet informed me that the price had gone up by ~10%, which I confirmed by logging into my Hertz account. I contacted Hertz customer relations (who are accepting email contact only due to covid) and got a very quick response saying “Kindly note that our rates differ from time to another. The earliest time you make a reservation, the best rate you will have.” So clearly they haven’t understood my issue. No response when I followed that up. All seems quite bizarre to me.
- Hugh says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 14:06
  
  Perhaps you were switched to kundendienst@hertz.com?
  I would try executivecustomerservice@hertz.com
  They take about a week (which may be too late), but the answers end up making sense!
  - Graeme2 says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 16:23
    
    Thank-you Hugh, it’s 10 days away so I will try the address you suggest. I was using customer-relations-uk@hertz.com
    - Lady London says:
      
      29 Oct29 October 00:52
      
      I contacted Hertz today. the promised chat service has not been up all day in its hours and the “send us an email form”, after completion on the website, has everything except a save button even if all fields are fully completed :-(.
      
      However I would advise you to call them not email them as this is about a future booking. I am certain an agent will be able to help you. If necessary by amending your booking back to correct then and there, or replacing it with a correct booking and refunding the original. It’s new business/forward booking, not a past one, so the agents are targeted on that and not on fixing things on bookings that have already taken place.
      
      They said the delay on emails now is around 10 days and that’s another reason why in this case you would be best to call the normal reservations number and select “Amend” or even “New” reservation and ask them to help.
- Lady London says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 14:12
  
  No on prepaid they cant do that. Incidentally that also protects you from currency fluctuations.
  
  Contact Hertz again and refuse this
  - Graeme2 says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 16:24
    
    Thank-you Lady London, I will keep pushing them! Completely unreasonable behaviour on their part.
    - Rash says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 16:44
      
      Prepaid they cannot do that and it will be sorted at branch, pay at location they usually also honour at branch with original email.
      - Lady London says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 19:53
        
        I would not wait till then. Get it sorted by Hertz Corporate now.
- The real John says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 18:35
  
  I don’t understand how they “increased the price” if you have already paid?
  
  What is awardwallet actually telling you… is it just how much you would pay if you made the same booking now? Maybe the customer service didn’t understand because the scenario doesn’t really make sense?
  
  If it shows as prepaid, in my experience the branch will usually have the car waiting and will only ask to see your DL.
  - Graeme2 says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 18:56
    
    @The real John – I have an email in my inbox and a transaction on my credit card from when I booked for £x. If I log into my Hertz account and look at the reservation details it now says the price is £y. Hence awardwallet picked it up because the reservation details changed, and send me a notification. Anyway, hopefully customer services can resolve it or failing that, as per yours and Rash’s comments, the branch will disregard this rather than ask for extra cash.
    - AndyGWP says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 22:37
      
      Sorry for late response. Not sure if you’ll see this but I’ve had this for two bookings.
      
      One prepaid, one is pay on collection
      
      I tweeted the Hertz team and asked them to confirm the total cost I had paid (pre-paid) or would pay for the bookingS and they replied with the amounts I had booked them for so I have assumed it is a website error and haven’t taken it further
      
      Be really interested to hear their response to you tho!
      - Graeme2 says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 23:26
        
        @AndyGWP – not too late! I will let you know
Anna says:

27 Oct27 October 14:18

Each time I’ve made a booking (including award nights) on IHG recently I get an upgrade offer, some pretty good (e.g. standard award room to suite for £56 at the IC O2). Bookings on OH’s account don’t get any of these offers. Just seems odd.
- Joe N says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 14:29
  
  What status is your OH? I have a feeling they don’t show these offers to top tier members since (in theory) they should be upgraded to better rooms anyway (although I could be wrong about this).
  - ChrisM says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 15:45
    
    @Joe you aren’t wrong. I had quite a lengthy conversation with someone at corporate a couple of years back after complaining about this. Until COVID I was a regular at the HI Scotch Corner and their NOR1 offers included the usual room upgrade as well as a cheap DBB add-on which was excellent value whilst the restaurant is also of a very good standard for an HI. The guy from corporate advised that they removed them from top tier members as they expected the properties to provide these guests with “Excellent value as standard”. He couldn’t quite grasp that by removing them he was costing me circa £20 more in F&B.
    
    For the next few trips I booked the room without my IHG number then added it after I had selected the NOR1 option I wanted. After that I spoke with the GM at the hotel and they were astonished that not everyone was getting the offers. I was agreed that I could add a note to the bookings in future and they would add the NOR1 pricing to the reservation.
    
    The situation may have changed now with COVID but there was a time when Spires didn’t see the offers.
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 21:51
      
      Well learn something new all the time
      
      While I expect an upgrade sometimes I decide actually I want to lock in a certain room and these Nor1 offers are a great way of doing that.
  - Anna says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 16:01
    
    That might explain it but he’s only ever had 1 cat upgrades, standard award room to suite (which sleeps 4) for £56 would be a much better deal. I know it’s not guaranteed but hotels aren’t exactly bursting at the seams just now!
    - Anna says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 16:13
      
      I was going to join Ambassador for the extra free night certficate (OH has got his already) but I think that automatically makes you Platinum & OH did not get any offers while he was Platinum either (he’s Spire now). So I might just stick with gold and take advantage of these offers!
      - James. says:
        
        28 Oct28 October 16:58
        
        I was going to join Ambassador but putting off until I can get me a good weekend in NYC. Also on the other note, when I stayed at the IC O2 I was not offered an upgrade instead they offered me a late check out which I was a little disappointed about given they knew it was our Wedding Anniversary and it was the first weekend they were open so no full. I have put this down to undertrained staff given I was also not charged for parking so £25 better off. Maybe I shouldn’t complain 🙂
Cat says:

27 Oct27 October 14:24

Not sure if this has already been posted (I did have a quick look), but likely to be of interest.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/10/26/ireland-flight-covid/?fbclid=IwAR3QBl51FFJMzBWt6ziJVu4sEXDhuURUwNPU32VRvXxt3fhjrCCzVIBN__4
- ChrisC says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 15:43
  
  Please don’t post a bald link wituout any indication of what it is about
  
  A couple of sentences of summary is all that is required
  - ken says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 15:51
    
    its about flying to Ireland and Covid
  - Cat says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 16:02
    
    A 7 hour flight to Ireland that spawned 59 cases, 13 of whom were on the flight. Passengers were spaced out, and the plane was 17% full.
    - Rhys says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 16:07
      
      Study text is here: https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.42.2001624#abstract_content
    - AJA says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 18:37
      
      Cat, thanks for posting the article. I wonder if the aircraft had hepa filters, I assume it did?
      
      What is interesting is that masks were utilized by nine of those 13 infected passengers and “Four of the flight cases were not seated next to any other positive case, had no contact in the transit lounge, wore face masks in-flight and would not be deemed close contacts under current guidance from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC),”
      - Cat says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 18:54
        
        I thought that all modern aircraft have hepa filters…
        
        The seating diagram is alarming. It’s possible that the outbreak on this aircraft wasn’t due to poorly filtered air. It could just be one infected person with poor hygiene, combined with FA’s not cleaning high touch areas frequently enough.
      - TGLoyalty says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 21:53
        
        Most Masks stop 20-40% of particles it won’t stop you getting or transmitting covid they will just reduce the chance slightly.
      - pacman says:
        
        28 Oct28 October 05:44
        
        There’s no mention of type and age of aircraft and whether there was regular maintenance of hepa filters.
      - Cat says:
        
        28 Oct28 October 09:47
        
        True pacman, but given the 7.5 hour flight time from “a large international airport”, I’m assuming that the flight was New York or Boston. Those routes tend to have more modern aircraft, don’t they?
- Polly says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 16:18
  
  Useful, Interesting, thanks Cat.
  - Cat says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 20:09
    
    Hey Polly, how have you been? Are you missing your travelling adventures as much as me? X
    - Polly says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 22:39
      
      Cat
      Good point there too re the cleaning, hygiene etc…could have picked it up once they had landed there…my family all in lockdown atm over there, but making the best of it. Cooking and leaving food on doorsteps etc. They are now onto making the Xmas puddings, and loads of apple pies. We have already missed 5 family occasions since March already, bit fed up about that.
      - Cat says:
        
        27 Oct27 October 23:08
        
        Me too, I haven’t seen my parents since January. Doing a Zoom pub quiz for my dad’s 75th was a particular lowlight.
        
        It’s unlikely that they picked it up when they arrived – from the flight time (NY or Boston, probably), and the fact that the positives passengers were arriving from 3 different continents, I’d imagine they’d have been in different passport queues.
        
        I need to think about my Xmas pudding, come to think of it…
- Lady London says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 19:57
  
  blocked by a paywall
  - Cat says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 20:13
    
    They seem to allow a certain number of free views per month, but you may have used yours up already!
    This might work, as a way around the paywall if so https://outline.com/ or you could try reading the paper that Rhys linked above. Thanks so much for your help with that Garuda fiasco by the way Lady London! X
    - Lady London says:
      
      28 Oct28 October 02:53
      
      Ta @Cat
      
      It’s 3am and I have been doing my annual accounts so I will give it another go tomorrow
  - ChrisC says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 20:17
    
    Which is a reason why people really should provide a couple of sentences on what the article is about instead of having to parsing the url!
  - Polly says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 22:35
    
    LL
    You can get to the euro report if you scroll to the end of the w post article…makes me wonder if it was an older plane…v low loading, lots of reasons but nothing concrete. Lots of could haves…
    
    Cat, yes, really really missing the travel like you. Lots of family stuff going on, so don’t get to the site much, nor do you l see. Great you got your Garuda cash back, bloomin cheek, such lies you were told!
    
    Meant to go to KUL next weekend from BEL, but not happening of course. So staying home, plenty of Asian takeaways, pretending we Are away! Hope we get a good working vaccine soon.
    - Cat says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 23:12
      
      Yes, it’s a bit of a rarity to find the time to comment at the moment. School has been crazy, I don’t get as much free time as I’d like at the moment.
      
      I was astonished by the web of lies they tried to weave, too!
      
      I’m meant to be in Croatia and B&H this week. Ah well.
      
      Fingers crossed Polly, X
  - Polly says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 22:54
    
    Tried to send it to you via cat…x
    - Lady London says:
      
      28 Oct28 October 12:57
      
      Tx Polly
KS says:

27 Oct27 October 15:03

Has anyone here experienced a room upgrade during online hotel check-in?
- Peter K says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 16:32
  
  For Hilton, yes.
- The real John says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 18:36
  
  “During online check-in” no, but many times I have been upgraded at some point after booking but before online check-in
- Lady London says:
  
  28 Oct28 October 12:56
  
  Yes and don’t check in online till you do.
  Otherwise some have advised not to check in online at all.
Eligold says:

27 Oct27 October 15:18

Is anyone receiving Avios for in-store purchases on credit cards registered on the BA e store?
It seems to be up and running but haven’t seen any points coming my way
- Nick_G says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 16:11
  
  Same for me. I have never received a single Avios out of in–store purchases. I don’t think it works!
- Harry T says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 19:55
  
  Used to work for Odeon.
  - Polly says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 22:55
    
    Never struck lucky there…and we went every week! Really miss the cinema.
    - Harry T says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 23:57
      
      Me too! It actually triggered for me when I paid online, when it’s only meant to work in store.
sloth says:

27 Oct27 October 15:26

ZipCar – Tomorrow only they are doing free e-car Flex journey’s
- Rhys says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 16:10
  
  Where is this? Can’t seem to find it!
  - sloth says:
    
    27 Oct27 October 16:23
    
    was an email from Zipcar – sponsored by Alpro apparently…
    
    only e-Golfs and only flex trips as mentioned above
    - Rhys says:
      
      27 Oct27 October 17:08
      
      Found it – thanks!
- John says:
  
  27 Oct27 October 17:34
  
  Think either 200 or 250 bonus avios on first instore shop (no minimum spend) at Oliver Bonas offer, is still running via Aerclub portal.
  
  Bought a birthday card for a couple of pounds about six months ago, with pre-registered Mastercard, and Avios credited within a couple of days.