The HfP chat thread – Thursday 5th November

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• Nick Newbury says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:48

  Anyone who has access to Perkz can also get a 10% discount on vouchers for Laithwaites making it even cheaper when tied in with the £0 off

• Nick Newbury says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:02

  should read £20 off!

  • Nick_C says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:08

    Laithwaites are incredibly generous with introductory Wine Club offers. Even though I have signed up and cancelled three times in three years, they keep inviting me to rejoin and get the introductory offer.

    The wine tumblers that come with the offer are very nice. Add a couple of bottles onto a £65 case to hit the £75 Amex threshold. £4 a bottle, free tumblers, 250 Avios (or 1000 if you are a genuine new customer) and go via the portal of your choice. Less than £4 a bottle.

    • Anna says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:10

      Also a further 20% off with a Blue Light card discount code.

• Mr. AC says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:08

  I recall someone reported here getting a good deal on a long-term hotel stay. I have a coworker whose lease is running out, and he’s considering it. Is there a website which lists these offers? Where does one start looking for this? Or just directly negotiate with hotels you’re interested in?

  • Pete says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:11

    Has he thought about Airbnb? Some amazing offers out there to be had, as landlords are pretty desperate (at least in London).

    • Mr. AC says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:17

      Good idea, I do see some interesting deals, especially when you take the 6 Avios BA intro offer into account.

• Nick Newbury says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:10

  A question. I am a company director by the fact that I joint share a property, I rent out the top floor flat, owner lives in bottom one, being directors of a limited company is the best way of dealing with costs of insurance, maintenance etc. Would I be able/allowed to obtain an Amex or similar in our company name and benefit from sign up points etc

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    5 Nov5 November 12:10

    Should be able too. Weather youd get to treat it as a tax deductible expense is a question for your accountant!

    • Nick Newbury says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:12

      Thanks for the response, we generate a zero return every year, but have to submit to the taxman. it would be handy to put insurances etc on, even better if I could link my mortgage payments to it!

      • Sundar says:

        5 Nov5 November 17:45

        Insurance is straight-forward as usually takes Amex.
        Mortgage payments might be tricky as many may not take Amex and you may need to use Billhop for eg. as intermediary.

• Anna says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:12

  Has anyone paid the seagulls with the revolutionaries this week? For 3 days now I’ve been getting the message that either my account is blocked or my card frozen, however all other revolving payments are going through fine. But of a bummer if this route has been shut down like bendy.

  • Nick_C says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:19

    Is your R Card a MC or a Visa?

    My physical card is a MC, and is blocked by a lot of websites. I got a virtual Visa card that works fine on those same websites. Worth a try.

    • Nick_C says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:21

      PS

      Haven’t used it to try to feed the seagulls directly though. There really is no need when there are so many other ways to get bread.

      • Anna says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:07

        It’s visa. Really? I know of bendy (if you pay), plus serving the bread to a current (or currant if it’s a fruit loaf, I guess) account which I think they don’t like you doing very much!

        • Nick_C says:

          5 Nov5 November 12:21

          Enough clues Anna! LOL. Drop me a line on ancwws-hfp@yahoo.com if you need further help.

  • Craig says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:22

    Gotta love the codewords, it’s like something spies would use during the Cold War.

    “The Moles snuck into the Garden last night.”

    • AJA says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:58

      When I read these coded messages it makes me think of ‘Allo ‘Allo with Officer Crabtree saying things like “I was pissing by the door, and I thought I would drip in” instead of “I was passing by the door, and I thought I would drop in.” and his saying “good moaning” whatever time of day it was. Come to think of it that latter phrase applies to many of the comments here about missing out on offers or not being targeted…….

      • Anna says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:14

        I will say zis only once!

        • Aston100 says:

          5 Nov5 November 12:21

          It is I, LeClerc!

      • ankomonkey says:

        5 Nov5 November 14:15

        …saying “good moaning” whatever time of day it was…

        I’ll admit that I liked that gag.

  • Harrier25 says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:30

    I have a Visa Revolut debit card and a payment I made to Brighton this morning went through perfectly fine.

    • 747_Brat says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:57

      Did you use bendy to front the payment to Brighton, or did you pay directly?

      • Grant says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:04

        Using bendy and R would be like wearing two condoms

        • 747_Brat says:

          5 Nov5 November 12:06

          haha…..prevention is better than cure!

        • Nick_C says:

          5 Nov5 November 12:25

          Actually “double bagging” is far worse than using Bendy and R, as the bags are far more likely to break. They are designed to be used singly (and single use!)

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          5 Nov5 November 13:44

          There’s always a winning comment on any given day. Grant, you sir win today :).

        • Lady London says:

          5 Nov5 November 21:02

          It’s amazing what you learn on HfP.

      • Harrier25 says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:53

        Paid directly.

        • 747_Brat says:

          5 Nov5 November 17:22

          Thanks

    • Anna says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:08

      Hmm, not working for me on desktop or app…

      • Jane says:

        5 Nov5 November 15:16

        I just tried with a new R card only recently received, I have used it once with PIN so activated and working but not for the seagulls. 🙁

• Reney says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:21

  I see Morrison is back on airtime, anyone has experience buying gift cards from Wiko or Morrison’s and still getting credit?

  • Nick_C says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:57

    Does Airtime work with Amex? I thought it was only MC and Visa?

    • Reney says:

      5 Nov5 November 14:03

      No to amex but I am new to this.

  • Zana says:

    5 Nov5 November 12:20

    Yes, got credit from Morrisons back in March (which was then successfully paid out) but I deliberately bought some other grocery items to go with the gift cards, so it doesn’t look like I’m just buying gift cards!

• A says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:26

  I have read a few times that the Westbury will be closed in December (for those of us wondering if it will be possible to use the much-discussed Marriot offer in the period, if any, between the end of lockdown and the end of the offer). Does anyone have confirmation that they will be shut? I ask because they are still selling rooms for e.g. 12 December at the moment.

  Relatedly – any idea what they will do with bookings – will they be transferred?

  • Harry T says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:41

    They should email you to ask if you want to move your bookings, cancel them, or potentially stay at another hotel in the same group. This has happened for me with other London hotels that have had to close.

    • Harry T says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:42

      Of interest, W London offered to move me to JW Marriott Grosvenor for my November stays.

      • A says:

        5 Nov5 November 11:49

        Thanks, Harry – very specific point of detail – if you do move to another property, do you stay on the same rate? So if I’m on a rate at the Westbury that involves a £50 property credit, will that move across to the new booking?

        • Harry T says:

          5 Nov5 November 13:19

          I have had bookings moved by Marriott hotels in Edinburgh and London, who agreed to honour my booking rate. I did explicitly ask for this to be honoured, so I could get it in writing. It’s worth asking politely, as I think most good hotels will be more than happy to oblige, if only because they want your business in the future, during this terrible crisis for the hospitality industry.

        • Harry T says:

          5 Nov5 November 13:20

          Sorry, just reread this. I think if they move you to another property, the same rate would be honoured. That’s what the W offered me.

• Jonny says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:32

  I’ve seen the odd post on this site saying that HMRC are no longer accepting payments by Curve Debit Mastercards.

  I tried a test payment today, and the site told me that “Card number does not match card type” (which wasn’t correct) so the payment couldn’t go through.

  The card isn’t much use to me if I can’t use it to pay my tax and VAT bills (I got the £150 Metal version specifically to get miles via tax and VAT bills without the 1.5% fee).

  Anyone else have the same issue? Or can confirm this is now the case? (I’ve emailed Curve but haven’t heard back from them yet).

  • john says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:43

    I have swapped my curve business to personal.
    Made the last of 11 payments of £4500 to HMRC last night – all went through first time.

    • Jonny says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:50

      Thanks, good to know.

      And HMRC didn’t charge you any fees at all?

      (I’ve now managed to make a test payment, selecting Mastercard/Maestro Corporate Debit/ Prepaid card… and it charged me a fee of 0.114%)

      • John says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:37

        No fee charged

      • Peter K says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:43

        Just tried £100 on curve metal as debit card and no fee applied by HMRC

  • Rob says:

    5 Nov5 November 13:02

    Your card presumably says commercial or business on the back. Get Curve to swap it for the personal one and you’re fine.

    • Jonny says:

      5 Nov5 November 13:09

      Hmmm… it doesn’t say commercial or business on the back, but I’ll contact Curve to change to personal. Thanks.

      • Sundar says:

        5 Nov5 November 18:25

        Isn’t there a BIN range to identify this ?

        • the_real_a says:

          5 Nov5 November 19:05

          Yes – the commercial cards have a separate bin, although several commercial bins are issued by curve.

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