The HfP chat thread – Friday 15th January

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• Navara says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:05

  COVID recovery in a hotel
  https://apple.news/A0uJ04IdERvmSXg14JkT-RA

  • Tariq says:

    15 Jan15 January 17:10

    Best Western, 4star? Who are they kidding!

• John Caribbean says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:05

  Is Curve Fronted the only way to pay HMRC now, regular Curve won’t work anymore?
  Is Revolut an option?

  • Harrier25 says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:58

    Yes. You can pay HMRC for free with a Revolut debit card

    • xcalx says:

      15 Jan15 January 14:44

      Paid or free account. Thanks

      • Harrier25 says:

        15 Jan15 January 15:31

        Either, it doesn’t matter whether you have a Revolut paid or free account.

  • Tim Rogers says:

    15 Jan15 January 15:49

    How does this route work? Can you safely top-up Revolut using IHG via Bendy?

    • Harrier25 says:

      15 Jan15 January 16:22

      Forget Curve altogether because it will be classed as a Curve fronted transaction. Just top up Revolut with IHG directly, but remember Creation will charge you interest on the top up unless your credit card account is in credit or you pay it off as soon as it clears your credit card account.

    • Alex says:

      15 Jan15 January 16:36

      You can however IHG limit financial transactions to £700 a week so you won’t get more than that into revolut. Their CS is also shocking if you need to contact them for any reason. You can also get checks as topping up with Cc’s isn’t their main business market. Curve metal at £150 a year means you can pay HMRC as curve fronted for metal members is “free”. Look at Robs article about curve and he does some analysis about whether it’s worth it depending on how much you need to pay HMRC.

      • Harrier25 says:

        15 Jan15 January 17:22

        If your IHG account is in credit by more than £700 when you do the top-up, then you are not limited to the £700 weekly limit but by the amount you are in credit by.
        As long as you don’t go top-up stupid and keep it sensible, say £2,000 to £3,000 max a month and don’t transfer the lot out in one go then you won’t raise flags with Revolut and use the debit card for a bit of day to day spending, then the will keep Revolut happy.
        As far as customer service goes I agreed, Revolut are poor, but so are Curve! I certainly wouldn’t pay them £150 for that poor package, but I happily pay Revolut £70 a year for their Premium package.

        • h2d says:

          15 Jan15 January 18:21

          One reference point – this is not the case for me, I put through 1k to Revolut from IHG yesterday and my account was not in credit so YMMV

• DodgyDCF says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:12

  I have not had any offers across my 3 cards since November, I’ve removed my card from my online account yesterday night, will give it a few days before re-adding back to same online account and will see if that works, has anyone had any success trying to resolve this themselves?

  Next step would be to make a new account altogether and add the cards there.

  • Dan says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:59

    To be honest, other than PayPal you haven’t missed much. Offers have been very thin on the great.

    Do you mean you have no offers at all or just no new offers since Nov. – even the crappy ones?

    • DodgyDCF says:

      15 Jan15 January 14:01

      No offers at all, I had a few hotel ones saved for few months but they dropped off end of December.

  • Harrier25 says:

    15 Jan15 January 14:04

    I wasn’t getting offers on my free Amex Rewards card but receiving plenty of offers on my Preferred Gold Amex linked to the same account. I unlinked the free rewards card from the account, logged out, immediately logged back in again, relinked the card and there were 5 offers on the card first thing yesterday morning.

    • M says:

      15 Jan15 January 15:41

      I only have one amex, can I somehow relink it? How would I do that?

      • Rob says:

        15 Jan15 January 15:46

        You can click ‘remove from online servicing’ on the website and then relink.

      • Harrier25 says:

        15 Jan15 January 17:09

        Yes, your just removing the card not closing your online account.

        • M says:

          15 Jan15 January 20:30

          Thanks 🙂

• Mco says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:18

  BA cancelled my revenue flights and won’t rebook me on QR. I have a business abroad so used that credit card as it gives me 10 miles per £1 so I don’t get S75 cover. My billing address is my work one abroad on BA booking.

  I am a uk citizen so if I book own flights and take BA to court later will that effect the claim at all?

  • Anna says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:20

    Regardless of your nationality you are entitled to re-routing under EU261. Make sure you get an email from BA stating that their final position is that they won’t re-route you and you can then take them to CEDR or MCOL, no need for court at this stage.

• Sam says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:19

  Hi everyone,

  My BA Avios (Amex 2-4-1) booking to Maldives has been cancelled. I’m able to request a voucher, refund or date change online. As far as I know, date change is only possible within about a year of the booking date? That wouldn’t be useful to me as I had booked it in March of last year.

  So I’m guessing the best option would be to take a cash (+avios) refund? What will happen to my 2-4-1 voucher? Will it be extended?

  Thanks

  • Neil Donoghue says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:40

    It won’t be extended! I would recommend calling BA and ask them for the expiry date before you cancel. If you aren’t happy, take the FTV until April 2022

    • Alex says:

      15 Jan15 January 16:41

      I agree, call and check what the expiry of the voucher will be. BA added 6 months to 241 vouchers even that had been used after a certain date so check that first. If you think you can use it in the time frame, then take the avios+cash refund. If you don’t think you can then I would still cancel! Then re-book a one-way to Inverness or something and cancel that for a FTV. This way you still extend the voucher but have much less cash and avios tied up with BA.

• VH says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:24

  Hello, my flight home from MLE next week has just been cancelled by BA. Am I entitled to rerouting on another airline plus compensation under EU261? Or just the rerouting? Thank you all.

  • Neil Donoghue says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:39

    No but enjoy the extra nights accommodation at the Hilton Waldorf all at BA’s expense! All the MLE flights appear to have been cancelled today mine included. They have me departing 21 hours later which isn’t ideal but hardly unreasonable considering what is going on right now.

    • Mco says:

      15 Jan15 January 13:46

      They booked me a day before but the flight is zeroed out on EF so that will most likely get cancelled too.

      • kitten says:

        15 Jan15 January 18:45

        it may be just full if they consolidated flights

  • VH says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:59

    They haven’t rebooked me at all – just a straight forward cancellation! So I guess I need to call and ask for rerouting with another airline…?

    • Anna says:

      15 Jan15 January 14:51

      Yes they have to get you home (though of course options may be somewhat limited at the moment. Duty of care applies and I guess in the Maldives that will be where you are currently staying as you can’t exactly hail a taxi and move to a cheap hotel down the road! This happened to someone in Seychelles a few weeks ago, I can’t recall what the outcome was. Possibly BA was sorting out alternative flights, they just took a few days and didn’t communicate very well.

    • Tracey says:

      15 Jan15 January 17:38

      They are still going to be operating one flight a week, so chances are that they would move you to that one, if there is room, rather than re-route you via a 3rd country. I would get on the phone to them quickly especially if you are flying business as Bus class is very popular on that route.
      If they do offer a re-route, bear in mind that Boris has just announced that all travel corridors are off the table now, so you will need to isolate for 10 days whether you come home direct or not.

      • VH says:

        16 Jan16 January 05:41

        Update – they have rebooked to 3 days later, so they are now going to have to pay for accommodation and food at Rangali for 3 nights for me. Not the worst outcome ever.

• Tom says:

  15 Jan15 January 13:28

  Do you need to turn on fronted for Bendy payments to Ernie?

  • Steve says:

    15 Jan15 January 13:49

    No

    • Dan says:

      15 Jan15 January 14:01

      Which underlying card are you using? and is this Blue or Metal?

      I have tried to top up ERNIE through Bendy with both Beardy and the biggest bank in Hong Kong and both were declined 🙁

      • The real John says:

        15 Jan15 January 18:58

        I use blue, but you need to “train” curve to accept these transactions, and possibly also train your cards

• Anna says:

  15 Jan15 January 14:16

  Just toying with options for Dubai at Easter (it said on the news today that over 50s may be vaccinated by the end of March so I’m feeling a tiny bit more optimistic!) and noticed that BA holidays has some pretty stunning pricing compared to booking direct (even if you factor in not getting your points) and some of these even include half board at some pretty decent locations, e.g. WA The Palm, Grosvenor House.

  • Anna says:

    15 Jan15 January 14:19

    Also if you split your stay in 2 (so e.g. book 3 nights plus 2 nights), it’s still treated as a holiday booking with all the associated protections. I have done this previously with a car hire booking in 2 different locations, but it looks as though it works with hotels as well.

    • Michael C says:

      15 Jan15 January 14:36

      I’ve never done a BA holiday, but am obviously now keen on only paying a deposit for anywhere! I was just looking at NYC for Oct., Anna, and for barely GBP100 more, it included 3 nights at the IC, which I know you’d looked at at one point.

      • Anna says:

        15 Jan15 January 14:55

        Yes we were supposed to be flying in F to NYC at Easter to replace the 2020 trip but cancelled because our return was from GCM which is still closed to tourists! Just wondering if Plan B to Dubai will go ahead …
        It’s worth investing some time playing around with BA holiday bookings as you can get some amazing deals. That department is always (so far) so much easier to deal with than the people who manage flight-only affairs!

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