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The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 23rd December

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We have decided to run this daily chat thread on Head for Points during the coronavirus outbreak.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the de facto repository for random comments and questions.  With the news flow being lighter, we are running fewer ‘Bits’ articles.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind.  At this tricky time, and given that many of you are at home, we want the HfP community to have a place to chat.

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Comments (249)

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

  • TPB says:
    23 Dec23 December 10:14

    Any experiences of challenges at LHR from either police/BA staff on questioning reason for travel?

    I’m due to travel to DXB on 27th (assuming they don’t close their borders!) and leaving from Tier 2 so still able to travel, but don’t want any hassle at the airport!

    (Would also still be legal travel even if my region changes Tier)

    • John Gallagher says:
      23 Dec23 December 10:42

      Went through Heathrow T2 on 22/12. All normal. No extra police nor questioning:)

    • Rob says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:11

      You won’t get any hassle. You don’t need to prove you live in Tier 2, it is up to the police to prove that you do not.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:44

      BA staff aren’t going to challenge you 🙂

      Police don’t have time to ask every single person where they are from and where they are going and why then check all relevant documents.

      Onus is the population to stick to the rules in their Tier. It’s perfectly fine for you to travel though T4 if you live in T1-3.

    • Nick_C says:
      23 Dec23 December 12:09

      If your region changes to Tier 4 on Sunday (and its very likely that the whole country will, as the virus is out of control and people are going to be dying in their thousands in the next few weeks), then you will be breaking the law if you leave home without a reasonable excuse. Whether or not travelling to Dubai on Sunday is reasonable, only you know.

      If tier 4 is extended, it will legally take effect from the time the regulations come into force. So last Sunday, Londoners leaving home to go on holiday at 07.05 were breaking the law, whereas those who left home at 06.55 were not.

      • Anna says:
        23 Dec23 December 12:25

        But according to the regulations they now are breaking the law if they don’t return home as soon as practicable! (Though if they have travelled to an area which goes into Tier 4 on Boxing Day then who the heck knows what the position is?!)

        • Nick_C says:
          23 Dec23 December 12:48

          I’m not sure that that is the case Anna. The regulation says “No person who lives in the Tier 4 area may leave or be outside of the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.”

          I appreciate the importance of “be outside of” but I can’t see anything specifically requiring one to return home, although a requirement to return home as soon as is reasonably practicable sounds like it should have been in the regulations, but it is not there. “Practicable” only occurs once in relation to gatherings.

          Having left home legally to head for the airport, is it reasonable to continue the journey once the law changes? Who knows. I doubt that any of this will ever be tested in court. But leaving a Tier 4 home simply to go on holiday seems like a clear cut act of criminality to me.

          • Anna says:
            23 Dec23 December 15:25

            I thought I saw it in the link that was posted on HFP the other day. But I suspect a lot of the people heading out of London at the weekend will not be covered by the exemptions now!

          • Matt says:
            23 Dec23 December 18:08

            @Nick @Anna Of course likely to change again soon but this is from page 8 of guidance Rob linked to on the 20th:

            https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2020/12/20/tier-4-travel-full-legal-wording-now-published-in-force-from-7am-sunday/

            “(16) Exception 11 is that it is reasonably necessary for P to be outside P’s home to enable
            P to return home from any place where P was on holiday immediately before this Schedule came into force.”

          • Sharka says:
            23 Dec23 December 22:03

            Seriously, these are regulations with fines like parking tickets: what is all this “criminality” nonsense and quite bizarre statements about people dying in thousands daily? There is no excess mortality, around 1,800 due in England any day on average, and the average person dying with (not of, because no-one is dying of) covid is 83 with 3-4 preexisting morbidities and would have been classified under “flu and other respirartory diseases” in prior years. For anyone healthy under 75 there is a higher risk of dying from drowning in a year and for younger individuals a higher chance of dying from lightning strike. This is a site about arbitraging frequent traveller schemes, not a forum for the self-appointed moral vigilantes with a preponderance for gullibility: do you wear protective armbands walking done the street and maybe a portable Faraday cage or conductor strip dangling off your belt?

      • Backpacker says:
        23 Dec23 December 12:26

        But our friends at BA will not let you cancel your flight booking on this basis that it is against the law to fly (and that your destination country will not let you in) – they are still wanting cancellation fees for a flight departing tomorrow.
        I understand BA are having a tough time – but this is hardly a “book with confidence” guarantee is it?

        Warning to anyone who booked flights in the half price avios sale, your “Future travel voucher” if you take one will NOT get you to the same destination as the voucher is only good for the umber of avios and taxes paid. If you want to cancel the fee is £35 per person despite what is going on with FCO/Countries refusing UK nationals entry.

        • Anna says:
          23 Dec23 December 12:41

          But see my reply to your later comment about your Spain flights.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          23 Dec23 December 12:49

          Not the reply you are looking for but take the FTV or suck it up and pay the £35 if your flight isn’t cancelled. The airline is fulfilling its promise of a bum on a seat to your destination.

          Fulfilling the correct criteria to fly has always been the passengers responsibility.

          • Backpacker says:
            23 Dec23 December 14:37

            Hey Ho TGLoyalty/Anna, fair enough, I take your point of view.
            Yes, I did make the booking with my eyes open as to the pandemic going on, and it is interesting to hear different people’s viewpoints on this, that is why we post questions on this forum after all.

            But with Easyjet and others offering refunds, I expected more of BA – silly me! 🙂
            This is going to make me more reluctant to take punts on future BA flights though…

      • TGLoyalty says:
        23 Dec23 December 12:52

        @Nick_C OP clearly states the journey would be legal even under T4 rules. So it must fall under the allowed exemptions.

        • Nick_C says:
          23 Dec23 December 14:29

          You can also have a reasonable excuse that isn’t a prescribed exemption! The exemptions are illustrative, not exhaustive.

  • Barbs says:
    23 Dec23 December 10:25

    We are due to fly to SA today, and BA just cancelled our short haul flight, but the long haul appears to still be going today. Do they have the duty of trying to reroute us on another airline/flight to help us connect to the next flight? We have 2 other flight options for getting to Heathrow, but a little nervous that they might to decide to cancel our flight, and then we have to do a 10 day isolation because we will have to overnight in London.

    • Fab212 says:
      23 Dec23 December 10:28

      Where was your BA short haul from?

      • Barbs says:
        23 Dec23 December 10:39

        Jersey… First flight this morning went, lunch flight has been cancelled. Figured of the 2 flights that would cause us issues, it would be the CPT one, not the one from the island.

        • Anna says:
          23 Dec23 December 10:46

          BA has to get you to London if it’s logistically possible – last year they paid a £300 taxi fare to get us from MAN to LHR when our connection was cancelled, though I appreciate that’s not practical for Jersey! But they should put you on another carrier if available.
          Is SA still allowing entry to Brits, or are you residents or similar?

          • Barbs says:
            23 Dec23 December 11:03

            SA passport holders, with the negative PCR test results in hand, with flight cancellations arriving shortly after we got our negative tests. There is a flight to Southampton tonight that would enable us to make the connection to the flight to SA, so just wanted to check if I can press them to make that arrangement, revised flight and taxi, or if we must book ourselves and then submit receipts after. I want to keep everything on one ticket, for obvious reasons.

          • Nick says:
            23 Dec23 December 11:13

            Saudi have closed their borders completely haven’t they? BA can’t reroute you if there’s no airline allowed to fly you there.

          • Barbs says:
            23 Dec23 December 11:23

            @Nick, we always only think of SA as South Africa, never Saudi. flights still seem to be going to South Africa.

          • Anna says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:28

            When we were in a similar position last year we went to the airport so we could speak to the ground agents who were much more likely to be helpful than anyone in a BA call centre. This proved a wise move because we did manage to get a taxi transfer to LHR which got us there (just ) in time to connect to our long haul flight (the next one was 2 days away). I would strongly recommend doing this over trying to sort something out on the phone.

          • Barbs says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:43

            @Anna, This might be worth a shout as well, but I imagine that in Jersey the BA ground staff would only be around if there’s a BA flight, so might not be able to get much done at this stage.

          • Nick says:
            23 Dec23 December 14:18

            Ok well in ISO and all other international country codes, SA is Saudi Arabia. ZA is South Africa. My apologies for not realising you’d made up your own codes and were expecting everyone else to follow without knowing.

          • Phil says:
            23 Dec23 December 18:24

            @Nick – you might be surprised to know that the vast majority of people don’t know about ISO, and in the real world quite a lot of people would recognise SA as South Africa… even more so when in the first reply it clearly states CPT as the destination but then I guess you don’t know much about airport codes, as you are too busy reading ISO codifications.

    • Charlieface says:
      23 Dec23 December 14:24

      Yes they do have a duty, under EC261. Sometimes they can be stubborn though and need persuading.
      You can say to them that it’s unreasonable to stay over in London due to the sit.

    • Anna says:
      23 Dec23 December 15:27

      Barbs – you might want to check the latest news about travel to and from SA/ZA!

    • Jake says:
      23 Dec23 December 15:46

      Given what’s just been announced today, you are going to South Africa. Count yourself lucky you haven’t just arrived.

  • Jane says:
    23 Dec23 December 10:33

    My Gatwick reward flight to Orlando next summer was cancelled and moved to one earlier in the day which would have been fine but moving it to the later one from Heathrow would have been even better. This morning BA put up a slight fight against moving me to the Heathrow flight as ‘no reward seats available’ but only needed one reminder that there didn’t need to be to sort it out. I’m not sure what she did to move it but I now seem to be able to book seats and also appear to be on a plane with the new club suite :-). Since I can I might as well take advantage of the ability to book the seats but any suggestions as to the best way to seat 2 adults plus 2 kids (8 & 6 at the time of travel). It looks like 2 x middle might be best so an adult can lean through to help out the kids where needed. Any thoughts ?

    • Nick says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:17

      I personally would have 2×2 opposite each other across an aisle. The middle seats don’t allow access between them, but from the aisle you can open the door (and actually see in if you leave it open).

      • Jane says:
        23 Dec23 December 11:24

        Thanks for this, I don’t think we’d need to access more just lean in and sort out the screen or put the table up but now you point it out if whatever they need can’t be done by reaching then it’ll be a long trip around to sort them out – across the aisle will be better.

        • Tracey says:
          23 Dec23 December 14:46

          You would need arms as long as Mr Tickle to pull the table out from the adjacent middle seat. You could however, use the remote control for the screen to sort out any viewing problems.

        • Dave B says:
          23 Dec23 December 14:57

          Hi Jane, in the club suite won’t be possible to reach through and sort stuff, it’s just to far away. The across the Isle solution sounds better to me. I recently had two kids behind me in club suite and the small opening does allow kids to throw general stuff at each other through it! It’s a far superior seat however it doesn’t have the same group facility as in the yin/yang.

          • Jane says:
            23 Dec23 December 16:05

            thanks all, really useful info. looks like across the aisle it is. I suspect they’ll be far to excited to have a door to close and a ‘den’ to be in that we won’t hear from them at all !

  • James says:
    23 Dec23 December 10:52

    Anyone received their £10 bonus from Curve yet for £100 spend at Amazon?

    • Aston100 says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:08

      Yup, received on 15th December according to the app.
      Already spent it.

    • Sam says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:08

      Yup, a week ago. You’ll find it under Curve Cash. It is dated 15th Dec for me

    • stevenhp1987 says:
      23 Dec23 December 11:42

      Nope, not yet.

      I’ve emailed to be told a generic “we’re investigating”.

      That was a few days ago. I chased up yesterday to no reply!

    • Pid says:
      23 Dec23 December 13:55

      Yes received and used to pay my amex.

  • Kevin says:
    23 Dec23 December 11:11

    Morning, does anyone know generally how long to get BA blue upgrade to BAPP?
    Also i recall someone commented in last month that the companion voucher will be extended for 6 months if triggered by end of Dec. Is this still the case as suddenly got a purchase need to push through and taking to take advantage BAPP avoid and companion voucher.

    • Adam says:
      23 Dec23 December 13:13

      I upgraded over phone last month and within 2-3 hours I received an email confirmation following by the card name and picture change to BAPP in the online account.

  • Rob says:
    23 Dec23 December 11:15

    Yes, should do.

  • Backpacker says:
    23 Dec23 December 11:48

    BA – Had avios flight booked from 3 months ago (half price sale) to spain, and was waiting for BA to cancel them given UK nationals now NOT allowed Entry, but BA are still saying flight going ahead.

    Speaking to executive club now – Even though FCO advice is not to travel, and I am in Tier 4 and not allowed to leave my area, they are insisting that they will charge me £35 per person (£70) to cancel the flight for me.
    WTF – Has anyone else had this issue last few days with BA – how did you handle it? Did you have to pay refund fees?

    • Jonathan says:
      23 Dec23 December 12:23

      That’s entirely correct. BA sold you a ticket & it seems they will still provide their side of the bargain. Your ability to enter Spain is nothing to do with them.

      This situation is exactly what travel insurance is for (unless you booked after Covid was a “known event”).

      • Anna says:
        23 Dec23 December 12:33

        I thought it had been agreed that if you legally can’t travel then the contract is frustrated and the airline has to refund you?
        But honestly for £35 pp I would take the loss over a fight with BA and think of the money you now won’t be spending on holiday!
        OR – get it moved so you don’t lose anything and keep the half price avios rate if you can persuade BA to do this (might depend on the agent so maybe HUACA if no joy).

        • Jonathan says:
          23 Dec23 December 12:41

          That’s an opinion from the CMA. I wouldn’t bank on that holding up in a legal challenge & why should it? I’m no BA apologist but why should they suddenly have to provide insurance for something completely out of their hands? If you booked in the half price sale you knew full well about Covid so went in with eyes wide open.

          I’ve got Cape Town in Feb & California in April booked, I took the view the 50% discount was well worth putting £70 cancellation fee on the line for.

          • Anna says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:44

            If it’s a legal position then there’s no point in bewailing what BA or pax should have done. It’s worth looking into, anyway, it’s not as though BA is known for their leniency and generosity in grey areas!

          • Anna says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:45

            I have cancelled several flights this year and taken the £35 pp hit as the money I haven’t spent travelling completely dwarfs this. But other people have different circumstances and if the poster genuinely is a backpacker, £70 might be a lot of money!

          • Nick_C says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:51

            I agree with Jonathon. It’s only an opinion from the CMA. The airlines are not following that opinion, and if this goes to court and the CMA opinion is upheld, this could be the final straw for some airlines.

    • DT says:
      23 Dec23 December 14:16

      Have cancelled flights twice due to restrictions and both times paid the refund fee. The cost of booking during a pandemic. It’s not their fault you can’t travel and they are still providing the service

  • A270 says:
    23 Dec23 December 11:58

    Are there are special offers from Etihad expected for Boxing Day? Looking to book to avail the £250 off £500. Ideally want to make a genuine booking that I intend to use. However, if people have taken a voucher, how easy was it for them to get it. Did the up to $400 bonus on top get added automictically.

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