The HfP chat thread – Monday 4th January

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• niallinhk says:

  4 Jan4 January 04:12

  Good morning to everyone. I have two questions
  1. I have a HKG-BHD flight booked during the BA half price Avios sale for later this month. Due to the virus situation in the UK I am now going to continue to work here and plan to return in late August or early September. BA have now stopped flying to HK and I have heard nothing from them about this yet. I vaguely remember some posts last week about what my rights would around rebooking in this situation, ie would I still get it at the half price rate even though my chosen return date outside the dates of the original offer? If anyone remembers what day this was could you let me know please?

  2. Does anyone know if there is a HK equivalent of HFP?

  Thanks in advance

  • AJA says:

    4 Jan4 January 08:55

    I read on FT yesterday that BA has restarted flying from HKG so you may find your flight is still operating which is potentially why you’ve not been contacted by BA. If you don’t want to fly you will have to actively contact BA and discuss your options. Not sure if you’ll be able to exchange for a FTV if it’s the return sector.

    • niallinhk says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:17

      This is a one way ticket and I bought it using Avios incase the virus situation got worse in the UK, its much safer in HK. I will keep an eye on things and call later this week to cancel and rebook.

  • jil says:

    4 Jan4 January 11:16

    flyertea if you can read chinese, more like flyer talk in chinese

    • niallinhk says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:05

      Thanks jil, I can read enough basic Chinese to get the idea and can ask friends for help with the rest.

  • Nick says:

    4 Jan4 January 11:36

    If your flight is operating (which is most likely will be), then any change is deemed voluntary and will be subject to repricing at the normal rate. This includes FTV, which is an option but does not guarantee like-for-like prices. If the flight does get cancelled then yes you can rebook for a future date with no additional payment – for this you’ll have to pick the date when you call, so choose carefully. Don’t take a FTV as you’ll lose the price you paid.

    • niallinhk says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:15

      I got an email from BA about the connecting flight to BHD last week, all about hygiene practices etc, but nothing about the HKG-LHR flight. Which I found strange. I do understand that if I cancel myself I will have to pay full rates. Will hold my nose and wait and see what happens. This morning the BA site didn’t recognise HKG as a valid airport code, but it seems to be back to normal this evening.

  • Paul says:

    4 Jan4 January 13:37

    BA did not stop flying to HKG they were banned by the Hong Kong authorities for two weeks after repeatedly taking in Covid confirmed passengers

    • niallinhk says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:04

      Ah, I see, that explains why Virgin are still flying.

• Matty says:

  4 Jan4 January 05:09

  What’s the lounge offering like these days at the IC Festival City? I have heard that the champagne has gone and the wine selection is very poor. Would the IC by the marina be a better option between the two or even the IC at Abu Dhabi?

  Service standards seem to be slipping at the IC Festival City.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 09:43

    I thought it was very civilised – by far the most civilised lounge I have been in for a couple of years. Breakfast is a buffet with cooked items on request (pastries also on request weirdly). Afternoon tea was decent, given that it was free. Evening buffet was quite a Middle Eastern slant but some decent sushi too. Can’t really comment on the booze as I only had a couple of glasses of wine in the five days we were there.

    Abu Dhabi was an old terrible hotel last time I was there but does of course have the beach club. Never been to Dubai Marina.

    The FC rooms, whilst not showing their age, simply don’t compare with what you get in new places like Sofitel Obelisk where we also stayed for a night. Too small, only one sink, odd toiletries, no coffee machine (we did get one when we moved to a suite), no USB sockets and minimal plug sockets. Festival City mall is 100x better than the Wafi Mall though.

• Baji Nahid says:

  4 Jan4 January 06:15

  Rob, i dont know if its just me but have you started posting 3 articles a day instead of 2? (Along side the daily chat thread) Or maybe I’ve just got confused. Might just be making it up.

  • Peter K says:

    4 Jan4 January 06:55

    It’s usually 3 a day plus the chat thread. It was only 2 briefly over the winter break.

    • Baji Nahid says:

      4 Jan4 January 07:15

      Thats Peter! I was confused as I thought it was mostly 2 articles. Curiosity

      • Baji Nahid says:

        4 Jan4 January 07:16

        Meant to say Thanks!

• JM says:

  4 Jan4 January 06:39

  Curve free card – £500 monthly allowance for spending abroad. Is this rolling 30 days or monthly?

  • Jan M says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:14

    Pretty sure it’s rolling, and I’ve never worked out a good way to check if I’m over the limit.

    • Mr. AC says:

      4 Jan4 January 15:33

      Rolling. Don’t know about right now, but when I was on the free card the way I learned I was over was that there was a line mentioning an FX charge on the purchase details page (same place as if you’re using FX on the weekend).

• Super Secret Stuff says:

  4 Jan4 January 06:55

  Is it just me, or is the fist amex offer day is very disappointing?

  • Baji Nahid says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:14

    Yeah i got dietary related offers on my amex this morning.

  • Saiz says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:14

    Yes, all new offers very disappointing. Likely to cancel the card this week as the fees are not worth it for me.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:38

    Yes all a bit boring. Traditionally December is retail offers (which happened) and January is travel – but no one is wanting to spend on travel so I’m guessing we won’t see much. Could be a dry spell like April and May were with so much uncertainty again businesses are pulling marketing spend.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jan4 January 09:49

    Apex Hotels is handy for Edinburgh visits. 10% every time.

    Accor is back on (I think it dropped off) until 28th February, £350/£50

    But thankfully back at my desk, so will be having a fully cooked 2 course lunch from the canteen again. Goodness cooking is such a chore.

• Massi says:

  4 Jan4 January 07:15

  Has any country in EU going to allow travel for non essential reasons to UK travellers after Brexit?
  There are obviously the additional covid restrictions too, but if it wasn’t for those is any country in talks to at least have UK back on lists of non EU countries from which travel is possible?

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:34

    Given the current rate of infections here, any country that allows Brits now must be really desperate for tourism money.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:40

    The Netherlands is denying entry and returning people to the U.K. unless they have a valid reason to travel.

  • Chris Heyes says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:54

    Massi, Brexit is over the only difference it’s going to make to leisure travelers is a paltry visa fee like when we travel to USA
    and 5min filling it in and a little queuing until they perfect it
    So hardly a big deal.
    Be more worried about Covid another ball game

    • Massimo says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:43

      Chris – I think you are mistaken on your comment – in the long term you are correct. However even as recently as earyl December – you could travel to most EU destinations on the fact we were classed as EU. However now we are not – which means we are not going to be allowed to travel to EU countries for no reasons… The current COVID situation is masking the fact that after 1st January – I think we would have been banned in many countries. What I am wondering is if any country would put UK in lists with similar conditions to entry like EU countries…

      • Massimo says:

        4 Jan4 January 08:47

        For exaample… Greece

        By November 30th, 2020, the following restrictions apply:

        – Non-EU citizens / residents are not allowed to enter Greece. Exceptions apply to citizens / residents of Singapore, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Uruguay, and the United Arab Emirates.

        Will they add UK to the list of non EU?

        • BuildBackBetter says:

          4 Jan4 January 09:08

          They will, once COVID rates come down.

    • Rob says:

      4 Jan4 January 09:34

      No. As we are now ex-EU, UK citizens are banned from EU countries under the coronavirus restrictions, in the same way that Americans are banned.

  • ChrisW says:

    4 Jan4 January 07:54

    Surely Canaries are currently allowing entry with a negative PCR test??

    • marcw says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:14

      Nope. Only Spanish citizens or foreign residents in Spain.

    • Massimo says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:45

      I believe right now Spain is blocking UK due to the COVID strain… what I am curious about though – if there was not the issue of the COVID strain – would Spain added UK to a list of non EU countries which were allowed to travel to Spain for tourism? as most non EU countries are not…
      That’s the blanket EU policy – however each individual country could make exception to that rule … and add the UK on lists …

  • ChrisC says:

    4 Jan4 January 11:20

    ABSENT covid the EU wouldn’t generally ban anyone from the UK from travelling to the EU just because we are no longer members.

    I’m not even sure why you would even think they would want to ban us?

    Sure we now need to get our passports stamped and are limited to 90 in 180 days and next year we will need an ETIAS but those are basically hicups and will have no effect on the vast number of UK visitors to the EU and Schengen

    They want and need our tourist euros!

    • Paul says:

      4 Jan4 January 13:44

      Actually it will. It not just about ETTA for tourists. Visas now required for some business and work travel and at the moment there is a complete ban on U.K. citizens. At any time the EU can control both its external and internal borders as we have seen, though from all the rubbish spouted for the last few years you’d have struggled to know this. So much has changed but few people actually understand or appreciate just how mich

      • ChrisC says:

        4 Jan4 January 14:14

        The current ban is because of covid not because we left.

        That’s why we need to separate the two the – in the scheme of things – short term covid ban and then the long term post covid situation.

        I appreciate what you say about business travel but the vast majority of people going to Europe from the UK are going there on holiday not for work so needing a proper visa and closely counting how many days they are there aren’t really a factor.

        • ChrisBCN says:

          4 Jan4 January 21:07

          It’s amazing how many people are still clueless and fail to understand that if you take away rights – rights get taken away.

• Heinztein says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:08

  Hi all. Any recommendations for a family friendly Caribbean resort? Looking to book something for Q4 in the hope travel is possible, by which time we’ll hopefully have a 10 month old. Thanks in advance. PS any recommendations for travelling J with a 10 month old?!

  • Anna says:

    4 Jan4 January 08:44

    Q4 is wet/hurricane season (but this means that prices are much more reasonable) so it might be worth doing a bit of research into which islands are least likely to be affected. I think Barbados is supposed to be outside the main hurricane belt and has a lot of family-friendly properties. Hopefully you will just see one or two downpours per day and then it clears up.
    Take lots of things to keep the baby amused! You have a decent amount of space in J to get toys etc out to play with. Plan to spend a good bit of time carrying him/her around the cabin. You will need plenty of milk and baby food – I think they let you take these in hand luggage these days, unlike when my son was a baby and we had to be really creative at finding stuff after security.

    • Rob says:

      4 Jan4 January 09:32

      It was the 1950’s when Barbados was last hit by a major hurricane.

      • Zoe says:

        4 Jan4 January 15:24

        We were hit by a pretty major storm during October half term about 10 years ago. It delayed our return home by 24 or 48 hours as there were no flights. It hasn’t stopped us visiting at the same time of year since.

• Ming The Merciless says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:17

  Does HMRC accept Miles and
  More Mastercard direct or do I need to go via curve?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    4 Jan4 January 08:40

    Put the card details in and see?

    • Michael C says:

      4 Jan4 January 08:59

      Excuse, me, TG: I believe no sensible/logical replies are allowed here ;o))

    • kitten says:

      4 Jan4 January 11:13

      ….and can you please post the result here 🙂

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