The HfP chat thread – Friday 30th October

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• Mouse says:

  30 Oct30 October 05:08

  Hi everyone, I received my Virgin Atlantic Reward+ card yesterday and I’m trying to work out the best way to use the offer to spend £500 on Virgin flights/holidays and get an upgrade voucher, before the offer expires tomorrow. I guess the options I can see are a) spend £500 on flights I don’t want and convert that to a voucher or b) book a flight I do want in Premium, that has reward availability in Upper and hope the upgrade voucher comes through before the Upper availability disappears. Obviously this is all complicated by the uncertainty of when destinations will reopen, whether Virgin will still be around to serve them (currently have 240k Virgin Rewards, points so double worry there for me). It would be interesting to have people’s thoughts on the best options.

  • dezbez says:

    30 Oct30 October 12:37

    Hello Mouse. I’d definitely go for plan b, if you have something firm planned. I think it’s really unlikely that all the Upper availability will disappear, if there’s some showing now. I’m currently in same position for Seattle next summer, UC availability seems to be very fluid and generally available so I’m pretty confident of being able to upgrade once I’ve earned the points I need to do so.
    Also, the upgrade vouchers don’t take long to arrive once you qualify (less than 2 weeks for me IIRC), so you should be able to do it quite quickly. But no real need to panic if not.

    • Mouse says:

      30 Oct30 October 13:16

      Thanks dezbez, that’s very helpful, especially the data on the time taken for the voucher to arrive! I guess if UC availability had disappeared by the time the voucher arrived I could also pay the change fee to move the booking to another flight that did have upgrade availability, I hadn’t thought of that one.

      • dezbez says:

        30 Oct30 October 16:40

        Yes for sure. And in my most recent experiences with it, Virgin has been ultra accommodating so they may even switch you for free

• Boi says:

  30 Oct30 October 06:22

  Anyone had Amex reject global transfer? received letter with no specific reason , stating could be credit history or relationship with amex or other random 5 reasons. I have held the card I wanted transfer for over a year in UK, never been rejected for card. Managed to get hsbc premier world elite in Canada.
  What can I do? Came as a surprise……

  • BuildTheWall says:

    30 Oct30 October 07:22

    Over a year is not a large enough timeline to build a good credit history with Amex. Have you churned Amex cards in the past? I used global transfer 2 years ago and it was pretty smooth. But hearing a lot of rejections recently.

  • Guesswho2000 says:

    30 Oct30 October 07:32

    I used Global Transfer UK-AU a few years ago, no issues. Amex AU told me they had to wait for the yes/no decision from Amex UK at the time, so it sounds like Amex in your original country make the decision on the global transferred card.

  • Rui N. says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:53

    When I moved to the UK (from the US) a few years ago I tried Amex global transfer for myself (with over 10 years’ history in the US) and got rejected. I then tried with my wife’s account (less than 3 years’ history) and she was approved…

  • nomad says:

    30 Oct30 October 11:08

    I used global transfer recently (UK to Canada with 2.5 years AMEX history). Like you, I got a rejection letter by post. Called AMEX and I was told to ignore it. That the letter is automatically generated by their website and my global transfer was still being processed. Multiple calls later over 3 weeks and me demanding to speak to a supervisor on my last call, I finally got approved. In my opinion, AMEX Canada is a mess. Call them, chances are your global transfer is still being processed.

    • Boi says:

      30 Oct30 October 18:58

      Thanks for replies. Nomad, that gives me hope. Do you think anything helped? I will call them and hope for the best.

• roberto says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:00

  I have still not had my Hilton points from this months Barclaycard. Its a week late, anyone else in the same boat??

  • Anna says:

    30 Oct30 October 08:08

    Yes. Sounds like it’s a universal issue this month.

  • The Urbanite says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:18

    Anything less than 100k points hasn’t come through yet, multiples of 100k were transferred earlier than usual.

    • Harry T says:

      30 Oct30 October 09:19

      Lol at multiples of 100k. Wish I had a Hilton barclaycard! Got into the game too late for that…

      • Anna says:

        30 Oct30 October 10:36

        Lol, I’ve never had more than 20k and that’s on a very good month! I got in relatively late but did manage to snag the HH visa, it is great for earning points and retaining gold. I’ll be (pleasantly) surprised if it isn’t pulled at some point.

        • Lee says:

          30 Oct30 October 10:53

          Plus a free night that you can use anywhere, too good to be true

        • aDifferentSimon says:

          30 Oct30 October 22:00

          I’m on a 6 month break from the hilton card. grrrrr.

      • The Urbanite says:

        30 Oct30 October 16:39

        I can’t believe I cancelled mine just to try and get another free night certificate a few years back. Worst card decision I made after cancelling my Amex Plat earlier this year!

        Still, possible to get the same HH earning rate on an Amex card and better on the paid Virgin card!

  • Tilly says:

    30 Oct30 October 15:13

    Yes, same here. Wonder what the issue is.

• Steve S says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:23

  Any suggestions for a points redemption Hotel in Madeira? I’m looking for a month plus to escape the British winter.

  • Darren S says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:00

    Not very mainstream, but we stayed at the Melia Maderia Mare in 2018. Part points, part cash. Amex were doing a Offer at the time. Great place.

    • Steve S says:

      30 Oct30 October 15:06

      Thanks i’ll have a look. Points redemption opportunities seem scarce.

• Aslan says:

  30 Oct30 October 08:32

  Hi all. Saw some comments about Berners Tavern processing as London Edition but can’t find them again…
  Can someone confirm that this is the case and that the credits for Amex offers posted??

  Thanks 🙂

  • Rob says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:11

    Someone said it worked but I have not seen an Amex statement (not that I doubt the poster but …)

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:

      30 Oct30 October 19:01

      That was me. Yep absolutely works, and I heartily recommend it! Very happy to provide the screenshot, Rob, if that helps. 😀

  • Ben says:

    30 Oct30 October 16:25

    Hi Aslan,

    Worked for us last year without us even clocking. Very welcome credit after an eye watering bill!

    Cheers

    • Aslan says:

      30 Oct30 October 17:39

      Thanks Ben (and Rob)

• Fm says:

  30 Oct30 October 09:03

  Does anyone know whether the amex hotel offers work on cumulative spend- specifically the Hilton one? Looking to make two separate bookings and wondering whether it will trigger…

  • Travel Strong says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:49

    Yes hilton works

    • FM says:

      30 Oct30 October 11:35

      Perfect, thanks

  • Chef says:

    30 Oct30 October 21:55

    It worked for me

• David H says:

  30 Oct30 October 09:11

  Hi Folks. I am chasing the Amex Gold Preferred Rewards £15k spend target for the bonus 10,000 points. With c6 weeks to go it will be a close thing. My issue is that I no longer see a banner on the card home page showing me my cumulative spend and required remaining spend. Has it disappeared for anyone else? If still there could someone remind me exactly where on the page it is shown ! By the way I have tried alternative browsers but makes no difference. I had a long chat with Amex last week who passed it to their IT team but no sign of any follow up or fix so far. Thanks !

  • Harry T says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:13

    Can you see it in the “membership” tab in your amex app? Amex can also manually tally it up for you, if you need them to.

    • David H says:

      30 Oct30 October 10:06

      Thanks Harry. Didn’t have the mobile App previously but just downloaded and it does show me the running total / spend to go in the Membership tab as you indicated. I’m sorted – hope useful for others too !

  • Yorkieflyer says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:21

    Yes disappeared here too

  • Rui N. says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:54

    Disappared here too 🙂 asked in the chat and they calculated it. Still 3.5k to go 🙁

  • TGLoyalty says:

    30 Oct30 October 09:55

    Yeah all mine have disappeared on app. I haven’t bothered to login through laptop as I trust it’ll be fine.

  • Anna says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:04

    Spend counter often disappears and re-appears on a lot of Amex cards. I’ve never known it be gone for long!

  • Jody says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:42

    I noticed the exact same thing yesterday. Had someone from the complaints department call me about a complaint I put in a while ago. As part of the conversation I was asking when my anniversary date was, and noticed the banner had gone. Most annoying. Had to log into the app whilst trying not to lose the call on my mobile and saw it on there.

    On the positive side, I was given 10,000 MR points as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ regarding my complaint, so that was a bonus!

• zark says:

  30 Oct30 October 09:11

  Can anyone who has actually flown out to The Seychelles let us know :
  1. Where did you get a PCR test within 48 hours of outbound flight time? This seems a very tight timescale and I am having difficulty find a laboratory in London who will provide approved results (which then need to be emailed to Seychelles health authority for them to issue a Health Travel Authorization -eating in to the 48 hours…)

  2. On arrival how was the 5 day ‘isolation’ in an approved hotel? Could you move around the hotel etc.
  Thank you

  • Anna says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:05

    There have been posts to the effect that you can move freely around your resort as long as you adhere to social distancing, mask wearing etc.

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