The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 18th November

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• BuildTheWall says:

  18 Nov18 November 13:28

  Downgrading hsbc premier card – I understand I need to apply for the free card, which will result in cancellation of the paid card – but will the points be retained? or should we transfer them out before applying for the free card? Dont mind transferring the points earned in initial months, but would be tricky if i need to transfer out the whole balance.

  • meta says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:09

    I would be interested to know that too, but in any case points expire after 24 months, so my 2 year is coming up beginning of January so I would need to be transferring soon anyway.

    • Genghis says:

      18 Nov18 November 14:48

      It’s 36 months.

      • Genghis says:

        18 Nov18 November 14:49

        Check the actual date when you login to online banking, go to the credit card and click on “points balance”

      • BuildTheWall says:

        18 Nov18 November 15:34

        Hi Genghis, have you done a downgrade before? Do we lose points or do they transfer over to free card?

        • Genghis says:

          18 Nov18 November 16:06

          No, sorry. I’m unable to help on that. I keep the WE card.

        • Polly says:

          18 Nov18 November 22:35

          I did a downgrade 2 yrs ago, don’t remember losing my points tho. Was waiting for the BA bonus Transfer

  • Zana says:

    18 Nov18 November 16:02

    I downgraded in Mar. Your points balance just rolls over to the unpaid Premier card when you receive the new card and the old paid card is cancelled. Can confirm that the points you accumulated have the same expiry date as before (36 months it seems, not 24)

    • meta says:

      18 Nov18 November 16:22

      Must have dreamt that it was 2 years! Thanks. That makes it easier as I don’t have to transfer a large balance to Avios now!

    • Nigel W says:

      18 Nov18 November 16:26

      Thanks for that Zana (and BuildTheWall), I’m heading to that stage of considering whether to downgrade my HSBC card or not.

    • BuildTheWall says:

      18 Nov18 November 19:46

      Thanks Zana!

• Martha says:

  18 Nov18 November 13:35

  Amex Gold advice please.
  I recently applied knowing I would not get a bonus. Now spend £15000 for 10000 bar appears. even though this is straight after applying, will I receive it?

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    18 Nov18 November 13:37

    The spend £15k get 10k MR points is an offer that is part of the card. If you have spent that much by the renewal date you will get the bonus.

    • Martha says:

      18 Nov18 November 13:51

      I thought you only get it second year? Is this not the case.

      • Waddle says:

        18 Nov18 November 13:54

        You’ll get the 10k points on your first statement after your anniversary regardless of when in the first year you hit 15k spend.

      • Harrier25 says:

        18 Nov18 November 13:55

        No, you get it on every card anniversary from year 1.

        • Sundar says:

          18 Nov18 November 18:02

          Every card anniversary year. Something to look forward to if u can put the spend through

• Lady London says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:09

  Saw on Executive Traveller (Australia site) this morning that Qatar Airlines is also removing lounge access from award tickets in Business.

  If you have status with another OneWorld airline you will still get access to a “lounge” but it will be the so- called “1st class” lounge which is apparently cr*p, not the real Qatar Airways lounges.

  fwiw I regard Executive Traveller as an excellent website highly informative especially on Asia. Seems to have similar orientation to HfP readership and some excellent ads and the occasional feature ad for cars, gadgets and watches.

  • Rhys says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:12

    Not 100% confirmed yet.

    • David Flynn says:

      19 Nov19 November 00:28

      Rhys, it was fully confirmed by QR, we went back and forth a few times to double-check and quoted a QR spokesperson in the article – but as noted, QR now admits it got this wrong and business class reward bookings will continue to include lounge access.

      • Lady London says:

        19 Nov19 November 10:08

        Result !! 🙂

        Thanks to your prompt coverage it looks like Qatar revised their decision. Well done

  • Rob says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:51

    We have a good relationship with David who edits ET, nice bloke. Funny you mention the ads because the company which supplies his ads approached us and gave David as a reference.

    • Lady London says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:08

      A very nice bloke however article linked in email 04.54am today “A spokesman for Qatar Airways [confirmed award tickets will book into Classic ]. If Qatar realises how foolish this is then I’m sure he won’t mind printing a retraction 🙂

  • memesweeper says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:58

    I was always unlikely to redeem on Qatar. I think the chance just dropped to zero.

    • Lady London says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:13

      The officially sanctioned assaults on female passengers at Doha Airport on spurious and unnecessary medical grounds just about finished me off about flying on Qatar and given transits are often 00:00-02:00 am or similar there, then without a lounge with a decent shower, I’m out.

      • Rhys says:

        18 Nov18 November 15:56

        We live in a complicated world. If you were to tick off all the countries in the world that had human rights issues then you would likely end up with a grand total of 0 guilt-free countries you could visit, including the UK and the US.

        It’s perfectly possible to be in favour of LGBT and women’s rights, acknowledge that many countries do a very poor job of protecting them and still enjoy the cultural exposure of travel!

      • Mike says:

        18 Nov18 November 16:19

        Sorry Rhys. That’s a lot of rubbish. You’ve made an equivalence between Qatar and the UK which I find preposterous. We have minimum HR standards that Qatar just don’t reach and seemingly never will. To suggest you wouldn’t travel anywhere would only be achieved by setting one standard for the UK that is ultra-high and a very low one for Qatar. Would you apply this to democracy as well? UK is anti-democratic due to say appointed HofL but then so is Belarus because it has a Dictator…hence the same? Come on…

        Moreover, my point wasn’t about the countries which is a minefield but the carriers being so popular with the left-wing bloggers/credit card pushers while they blog away about all manner of discrimination topics to get clicks in their domestic markets. Look at Schlappig.

        As LL wrote, those poor women who were assaulted in Qatar is a disgrace. Can you imagine if this BA? Heads would roll at BA HQ. You can’t put BA and QR together in terms of the way their crew are treated nor their pax.

        • Rhys says:

          18 Nov18 November 16:48

          I didn’t say that the UK and Qatar are equivalent, just that, globally speaking, most countries are involved in questionable practises in one way or another.

      • David says:

        18 Nov18 November 18:40

        A number of us do have red lines that rule certain countries out.
        The UK also remains, at least for the time being, a step above the USA in terms of basic human rights.

      • Chris Heyes says:

        18 Nov18 November 22:04

        Very complicated world lol, remember we tried to conquer most of it
        a lot of firms still buy from places that pay slave wages, on the grounds that if they didn’t buy things cheap people would have no jobs or food. OOOooo and remember what Americans did to the natives that lived there, more more more lol

      • Bazza says:

        18 Nov18 November 23:07

        Do slaves get wage?

        From what I read those poor Eastern European girls currently being trafficked into the UK and forced to be sex slaves don’t get anything. What a disgrace its become without the slightest protest from anyone..

      • Mouse says:

        18 Nov18 November 23:14

        Very well put Rhys

  • Stuart Evans says:

    18 Nov18 November 15:11

    I see the Aus web site also, but wasn’t this morning’s story about Qantas and not Qatar?

    • Stuart Evans says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:15

      Silly me!! I see it is indeed Qatar that the story is about. Sorry!!

    • Lady London says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:20

      here https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/qatar-business-class-reward-lounge-access

      emailed 04.54am our time today. Never seen anything on Exec Traveller that wasn’t true (although I’m sure neither we nor they will mind if Qatar Airways realises how many seat sales they arw going to lose and says something different next week).

      I dont trust many websites and I admire and trust the coverage of Executive Traveller especially on Asia and, when they do it, on the Middle East.

  • meta says:

    18 Nov18 November 15:13

    What happens with people who already booked award ticket? I have AA Advantage issued award tickets back from Maldives in March that I booked in October. I’ll be pretty annoyed if I can’t use the lounge in Doha during my long wait.

    • EOC says:

      18 Nov18 November 16:52

      I used this lounge 2 years back travelling on Qatar economy with BA Silver. Its ok , very brightly lit and overcrowded at 2am , foods ok. A bit like a PP lounge at Heathrow in the summer hols

      • Lady London says:

        18 Nov18 November 19:07

        …so not really a Business lounge then.

  • David Flynn says:

    19 Nov19 November 00:26

    Hi Lady London, this is David from Executive Traveller. Thanks for the kind words on our site.

    Just an update on the issue of QR business class reward bookings being treated as the unbundled Business Classic, and thus being sans lounge access if one doesn’t also hold appropriate loungeworthy status in QR Privilege Club or a Oneworld equivalent: we went back and forth with QR over the period of a few days (and nights) to have that confirmed and double-checked, and the info then also appeared in a fare update FAQ sent by QR to its travel agents worldwide.

    However, QR has *now* (just overnight) admitted it was in error, and that business class rewards will continue to be treated as a standard business class fare, including lounge access (nominally to Al Mourjan at DOH and any QR outpost lounge eg SIN, although of course if you’re packing Oneworld Emerald, then hie thee to any Oneworld partner first class lounge as befits your shiny status).

    I’ve updated the article at https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/qatar-business-class-reward-lounge-access, and wanted to add this isn’t a ‘retraction’ as much as a ‘correction’ made necessary because QR got it wrong and has freely admitted such. I suspect the airline also has newfound appreciation for the value and vocal abilities of its frequent flyers!

    • Lady London says:

      19 Nov19 November 10:23

      🙂
      thanked you above @David.

      You led on Executive Traveller (.com.au), the Qatar fans on HeadforPoints expressed dismay, the very well-curated LoyaltyLobby picked it up still on the same day in anybody’s timezone and within a day Qatar realised the negative impact and thankyou to them for having the class to rethink.

      Let’s do this again when we need to as we help our most respected airlines lead their business out of this mess covid’s left us all in

      (David I’m the one qho complained about the ads I was seeing, about 18 minths ago and you shocked me by taking the time to reply a d assuring me they were purely local…)

• dezbez says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:13

  Not sure if people have heard of HPB – Holiday Property Bond (I suspect a number of HFP’ers may already be members?)
  Highly recommended as a holiday scheme, suitable for all age groups: https://www.hpb.co.uk/
  Locations throughout Europe so we’ve been able to earn plenty of Avios (and Tier Points) over the years travelling to them with BA.
  Plus some great UK properties too, which are potentially good alternatives in the current Covid restricted climate.

• JM says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:29

  Planning on downgrading from VA+ to standard free VA before next renewal.. is this simple to do, or do I need to cancel VA+ and do a fresh application for free VA card?

  • Rob says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:49

    Even worse.

    Cancel Plus.
    Apply for free.
    Be rejected for free (as inside 6 months).
    Appeal, explaining you are trying to downgrade.
    Get free.

    • JM says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:12

      Excellent… why would these things be simple haha.

      Thanks

      • Josh says:

        18 Nov18 November 18:39

        Nothing is ever simple with Virgin Money. Outdated is an understatement.

        • The Streets says:

          18 Nov18 November 22:29

          You should try opening their bank account!

• Jill (Kinkell) says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:34

  Just phoned Amex (Brighton) to put on OH as supplementary to my Gold card. Told no possibility of additional MR points for doing so. Has this stopped? I’d read folk were getting 3k additional points for adding on.

  • Charlieface says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:41

    It’s outlined here:
    https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/supplementary-cards/

    3000 points for first supp, I think it only works if you do it online

    • Lady London says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:23

      So if you upgrade remove all supps first, upgrade, then try your luck

      • Genghis says:

        18 Nov18 November 16:10

        Amex used to still provide an “upgraded” (e.g. Plat) supp even if you had cancelled the lower supp (e.g. former Gold charge). No idea if they’ve fixed this.

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:41

    Last I heard you should get it. Probably best to do it online

  • Harry T says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:43

    It still works. I just do it online.

    • Jill (Kinkell) says:

      18 Nov18 November 16:21

      I knew I could rely on HfP community regarding Gold suppl. points.Thanks all. Pretty shocking that the Amex CS give out duff info.

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:

        18 Nov18 November 20:22

        3000 MR points already in account. Result!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    18 Nov18 November 16:20

    Yes online only.

  • Chris Heyes says:

    18 Nov18 November 22:18

    Jill i got 5 Gold supplementary cards from 5 dif people (in June this year) after I’d referred them from Amex Platinum without a problem every one of them got 3k additional plus 20k (well just over)
    don’t know if it’s changed (had to chase 1 up didn’t go through correctly) was referred myself to BA Premium, canceled Platinum now

• Readhfpbeforebreakfast says:

  18 Nov18 November 14:36

  Not sure if people have seen it – there is an Etihad Airways offer on platinum – £250 off over £500 spend.

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    18 Nov18 November 14:54

    Mentioned on the first page and throughout. Should’ve read HfP before Breakfast 😉

    • Polly says:

      18 Nov18 November 22:49

      Love it, folks just might get the message to check before posting or asking!

      • EwanG says:

        18 Nov18 November 22:54

        What chance the bendy beardy revolting groundhog will be out again tomorrow though?

• Martha says:

  18 Nov18 November 15:27

  international transfer.
  For transferring small amounts, is it possible with cc or would there be any extra fees?

  • Lady London says:

    18 Nov18 November 15:34

    transferwise

    Revolut can do but can block monies for no good reason and virtually impossible to communicate with promptly

    • Martha says:

      18 Nov18 November 15:44

      Thanks LL. So no fees from VA or IHG if I use directly?

      • stevenhp1987 says:

        18 Nov18 November 16:02

        Transferwise goes through as MCC 4829 – Wire Transfer. This definitely has fees on VS cards, no idea about IHG.

      • Mr. AC says:

        18 Nov18 November 16:51

        No cash advance fee from IHG if going via Curve in my experience, but starts accruing interest, so best to pay off immediately.

  • Lyn says:

    18 Nov18 November 21:53

    Transferwise add on a fee for using a credit card. If you go to their main page, you put in the amount you want to transfer and use “see calculation” to cycle through the cost for their different payment options.

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