The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 12th January

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

• DJ says:

  12 Jan12 January 04:39

  Hi,

  Just a few of questions regarding the Amex Business Platinum card:
  – Can I use it for personal spending?
  – Is the travel insurance strictly for business travels only?
  – Is the annual fee VAT exclusive?
  – Lastly, I remember I used to get access to the Eurostar lounge with the personal Platinum card, but I could not find any reference for it on the business card, is it still available?

  Thanks

  • memesweeper says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:04

    – No, but this is not an enforced rule — and if your company is paying the annual fee, you need to speak to your accountant to determine how to pay the fee and attribute costs if you use if for personal spend
    – No
    – VAT does not apply (0 rated)
    – Don’t know, it’s not an advertised benefit but I guess you might get lucky

    • Andrew says:

      12 Jan12 January 08:08

      On Eurostar – it depends if staff are told to allow or deny cards with BUSINESS on them – there is no swipe, just a manual look at the card expiry date (you could take out Platinum personal for a month, cancel, and then get Eurostar lounge access for about 3 years until the card expiry date).

• Tom says:

  12 Jan12 January 05:31

  Late again? 🤭

  • Andrew says:

    12 Jan12 January 07:11

    6 articles plus the chat yesterday, so perhaps it’s just 1 plus the chat today?

    • Peter K says:

      12 Jan12 January 08:40

      This.
      When an extra article is released on a day there are less the following day to allow email readers to catch up.

  • Matty says:

    12 Jan12 January 10:01

    I heard he was a bit breathless this morning. Running a temperature… 😀

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      13 Jan13 January 08:35

      Well that hotel review certainly covers lack of taste! Albeit the sheikh rather than Rob

• Matt says:

  12 Jan12 January 07:25

  Has anyone stayed in one of the vault suites (30k reward night error) in the Indigo Bath? There are very few pics, but based on the virtual room tour on hotel website, the layout looks rather cramped and distinctly cold/cave like. Wandering if it would be better to ask to change booking to premium room. If anyone has first hand feedback appreciate if you can share.

  • Anna says:

    12 Jan12 January 07:37

    Hi Matt, can you post a link to the website you’re looking at. The only one I can find says that the vault rooms are suites which I don’t think is the case with all of them. I’m also trying to work out whether there’s a chance they would put a rollaway bed in the King bed Premium Vault room I booked!

    • Matt says:

      12 Jan12 January 07:42

      Hi Anna. Sure: https://bath.hotelindigo.com/room-designs

  • Dr Lee says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:07

    Yes, we stayed there a few weeks ago. They’re pretty rubbish to be honest, the layout is terrible as they’re crammed over two underground arches. The bed is small (standard double?) and the seating areas are poorly designed meaning a couple can’t really sit together and watch tv or just chat. They are also cold. The bathroom was very nice however! Oh, and you have to go outside to get to them and the door back in to the hotel never worked so we had to use the fire exit and come back in through the main door for breakfast and checkout.

    • Anna says:

      12 Jan12 January 08:20

      Thanks Matt & Dr Lee.
      Those rooms are still selling for over £300 per night on the weekend we are booked though!

      • Anna says:

        12 Jan12 January 08:22

        Still only seems to show a suite on the virtual tour.

    • Matt says:

      12 Jan12 January 11:10

      Hi Dr Lee. Interesting so was your ‘suite’ advertised as King Suite? dezbez suggests the king suites are better which is what I have booked. Shame no pictures.

      • Dr Lee says:

        12 Jan12 January 17:47

        Yes, a king suite booked on points when Rob highlighted the availability last year. It really wasn’t worth it but perhaps there is a better room? We were in 104.

  • dezbez says:

    12 Jan12 January 10:01

    If you can get it, the King Suite Vault is the way to go, it’s a lot more spacious than the one on the link. Two big adjoining rooms, king size bed in the main room and a fabulous bathroom.
    Not sure if you’re now able to get these with points – we got ours for 27.5k last year when Rob highlighted they were available (possibly in error).

    • Anna says:

      12 Jan12 January 10:05

      I think they removed all but standard rooms from the award inventory when they realised their mistake!

      • Pete M says:

        12 Jan12 January 10:27

        Or did they want people like us going, raving about them on here and leave raving reviews on TA? 🙂

• Mike says:

  12 Jan12 January 07:26

  What are the ‘sweet spots’ for using Avios to redeem flights on other BA’s partner airlines? Particularly to Singapore/Asia.

  • Andrew says:

    12 Jan12 January 07:31

    The sweet spot generally is that all One World airlines provide a better inflight service to BA in all cabins. I book Cathay or Qatar to Singapore rather than BA direct.

  • memesweeper says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:07

    Multi-carrier awards for long haul business tend to work out better than a normal booking, based on my limited research.

    Domestics/short haul around places like US, Japan, Malaysia can throw up some real bargains, particularly if you need flexibility (hint: you do).

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:37

    Short haul economy is the sweet spot. Asian carriers tend to have a high miles requirement for even the shortest routes, so avios is good. Japan domestic is another sweet spot.

  • Rhys says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:43

    Avios Redemption University outlines some of the sweet spots: https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/category/avios-redemption-university/

  • the_real_a says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:09

    Your problem in Asia is that low cost carriers are so cheap there is virtually no point in using points. Admittedly pre-covid but i generally struggle to pay more than £30 on Air Asia to get anywhere. There are some hidden gems such as MS Wings into Mulu on Avios but now cathy dragon has ceased to operate the problem might be finding a plane to where you want to go on points.

    • WaynedP says:

      12 Jan12 January 12:31

      Do you not pay a potential cost in terms of higher risk of accident on many Asian low cost carriers ?
      Latest Sriwijaya tragedy a possible case in point ?

• C says:

  12 Jan12 January 07:26

  Have curve increased everyone’s annual limit? My partners is still £10k

  • Jimmy says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:37

    Yes just need to ask. But I use mine to play suppliers who have charges for credit card payments

  • Jimmy says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:35

    Well I am never going to hit my new annual limit of £1.6M

• John Caribbean says:

  12 Jan12 January 07:29

  I went to cancel my amex platinum yesterday as the annual fee had just hit. Offered 35000 points to stay. I’d previously gotten a retention bonus last year, when everyone else did.

  • Andrew says:

    12 Jan12 January 07:33

    Encouraging. I called last week and was told nothing for me, but my fee is due in March so I’ll try again once that has hit.

    • John Caribbean says:

      12 Jan12 January 07:41

      I didn’t ask for it, and we went through a lot of chat about how much I’d saved in Waitrose this year, and how this was likely to happen again, and then he pulled a Columbo -” just before I press this final cancellation button, can I interest you in some points”

      • Andrew says:

        12 Jan12 January 07:59

        Sounds like a game of chicken then as I don’t want to cancel so wouldn’t want them to press the button!

    • Anna says:

      12 Jan12 January 07:41

      I’ve just hit the anniversary on my Gold MR so hoping the 10k bonus points will post soon. I’m wondering if the 12k referral bonus will stick around for another couple of months as my OH completes his 2 year MR break mid-March. Also wondering whether to get him Platinum or Gold this time. Platinum is a better sign up bonus, obviously, but with Gold there’s the free first year so less rush to put the spend through.

      • Andrew says:

        12 Jan12 January 08:01

        When I spoke to them about cancelling they said it was “very likely” that more £100 credit offers would be coming – so that could offset the monthly fee whilst you hit your spend target.

        • Crafty says:

          12 Jan12 January 08:07

          Thanks for updating, that is good to hear.

        • BuildBackBetter says:

          12 Jan12 January 10:39

          Lol, thats just marketing to convince you to keep the card. Either there is an offer or not.

      • Chris Heyes says:

        12 Jan12 January 15:29

        Anna Platinum do the spend in 1 month then cancel, that’s what we did (two Platinum’s) actually took 2 months but was waiting referral’s to post (was good)
        Then me Premium, Partner Gold strangely with 22k bonus for hitting Gold spend (not complaining lol) that was June she 1k short of 15k spend so not using hers much timing it for June then cancel with fee for 1 or 2 months depending how quick posts

  • Chris says:

    12 Jan12 January 08:07

    I did cancel my card in December and was offered nothing to stay. My fee was due 4 days later.
    This was after also failing to get any points earlier in 2020.

    So it varies. And I spent approx £15k a month on the card!

    • Andrew says:

      12 Jan12 January 08:12

      £180k a year spent on the card – I’m surprised they didn’t invite you to Centurion!

      • sloth says:

        12 Jan12 January 11:13

        they are not going to invite him to centurion if he doesn’t want to pay the plat fee…

    • MonkeymaN says:

      12 Jan12 January 08:36

      I cancelled mine last week and the only thing I was offered was a downgrade to Gold charge.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        12 Jan12 January 09:33

        50k received late last week but it was my first request as I was offered a downgrade to gold (and accepted) last April.

      • Tom1 says:

        12 Jan12 January 10:02

        I tried* to cancel last week and told downgrade to charge not possible. Would have to reapply to gold credit online. Was a short call.

• ankomonkey says:

  12 Jan12 January 08:01

  Creation Marriott credit card – a few people, myself included, had not received Bonvoy points for their December statement. I checked my account yesterday and January statement points posted as normal and correctly, but still no sign of December points for me.

  • RussellH says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:40

    See my post here yesterday at 1618:
    https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/01/11/the-hfp-chat-thread-monday-11th-january/comment-page-4/#comments

    • ankomonkey says:

      12 Jan12 January 13:18

      Thanks RussellH. I hadn’t seen your post yesterday, but it aligns with my experience so far! Was hoping a call might yield a little compensation. Perhaps a few elite night credits 😉

      • RussellH says:

        12 Jan12 January 14:33

        IIRC I did get a few extra points from my contact the first time we were in touch, but that was over two years ago and no way of checking on my a/c.
        On that occasion I had had several phone calls with Creation which had gone nowhere, with them trying to pass the buck to Marriott.
        Fortunately when I did contact Marriott this person picked up the e-mail.
        It was explained to me that the role of the job involved maintaining the relationship between Marriott and Creation and that they did have contact with senior people at Creation – I note that the e-mail now actually talks about BNP – Banque National de Paris – who own Creation.

• memesweeper says:

  12 Jan12 January 08:09

  @Lady L — don’t know if you ever check it but I’ve PMed you on FT

  • kitten says:

    12 Jan12 January 17:02

    nothing showing up there. maybe I posted wrong username. you’re an IT person so historian with 1502 on there or also gb yahoo

    • Lady London says:

      12 Jan12 January 17:04

      or even 1501 tell that cat to go away

      • memesweeper says:

        12 Jan12 January 17:27

        well I’ve PMed someone on there who it turns out never posted! guess that’s not you…

        • Lady London says:

          12 Jan12 January 17:35

          there was an interloper briefly visible as LL on FT but not me – LL is in quite a few places being me but had never done on FT as FT usage very old so gap as LL was left open there. On other sites though LL is me so far as I’m aware. There is a website with a very similar name but that came along after I already had the moniker in operation.across various sites but not FT

        • memesweeper says:

          12 Jan12 January 18:36

          not wishing to tempt fate, but mine is unique (so far) … incl. FT

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