The HfP chat thread – Saturday 23rd January

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• Ali M says:

  23 Jan23 January 08:51

  does the nectar to avoid bonus (Rob hinted yesterday) mean that everyone who has nectar points transfers to avios ANYWAY (even if they don’t need to)and then transfer back to get effectively more nectar points? 😉 😉 (Given there is no fee to transfer to and fro)

  • memesweeper says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:10

    Probably. Maybe someone here will try it tomorrow?

    Interestingly I told two non-hobbyists in my family about the two way transfer yesterday, both were excited to turn Nectar to Avios. Didn’t question the value in going the other way — as I suspected, there’s nothing aspirational about a cheaper trolley of shopping.

    • Andrew says:

      23 Jan23 January 09:23

      Yes I agree, I think whilst some of us on here will like the new freedom of being able to cash out our huge Avios or MR balances (especially at a time when we can’t travel), regular Nectar collectors have always been able to cash out. Everyone likes something new and we are all getting that.

  • Peter K says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:25

    Basically yes. At least, that’s how I read it.

    • Lumma says:

      23 Jan23 January 09:34

      I could actually see the average Nectar collector, transferring to Avios and booking flights at the £1 level. Getting a virtually free flight is far more exciting than money off your shopping

      • Andrew says:

        23 Jan23 January 09:40

        Exactly – and without doing the maths of what that flight actually costs them in Nectar points, compared to buying a cash ticket. But everyone likes something which costs them nothing on the surface.

  • Andrew says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:42

    And presumably if you have no nectar balance now, you can transfer in some Avios and then out again to get the 500 bonus Avios (and then back to nectar again if that’s where you want them to end up)

    • Rob says:

      23 Jan23 January 10:07

      It is also the case – and this wasn’t clear in the original briefing – if you want to earn double Nectar at Sainsburys until mid April, you MUST do the ‘1600 Nectar points to Avios’ transfer to earn the 500 Avios bonus. Only after you have done that will the double Nectar points kick in.

      • Andrew says:

        23 Jan23 January 10:13

        Yes noticed that in the T&Cs

      • Harry T says:

        23 Jan23 January 10:55

        Can anyone link me to the T&Cs for the double Nectar points for an Avios transfer, please?

        • Paul says:

          23 Jan23 January 13:04

          “Plus to celebrate the launch, we’re giving you 500 bonus Avios and 2x points on your Sainsbury’s shops until 19 April when you convert 1,600 Nectar points by 14 February**” but also note, you have to wait until Monday to get the ‘double’ ball rolling…
          “Get 500 bonus Avios when you convert at least 1,600 Nectar points into Avios (worth 1,000 Avios) from 25 January 2021 to 14 February 2021 inclusive (the “Launch Period”); & Get Double Nectar points when shopping at Sainsbury’s from your date of conversion up to and including 19 April 2021 when you convert your Nectar points into Avios during the Launch Period. Full terms and conditions will be on the offer page when the offer goes live on 25 January.”
          Shame I had to go shopping today…

• Robert says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:34

  I just tried to convert to MR to Avios (ahead of the Nectar activation on Monday). The AMEX MR transfer page cannot find British Airways as a partner, and when the link to BAEC MR transfers comes up with an error. Hoping this is a “surge in visits causing temporary downtime” rather than “AMEX making changes to the system” (i.e. changing the MR-Avios conversion, MR-Nectar conversion, removing one or more partners, etc…). Anyone else able to access the page OK?

  • Robert says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:36

    Trying to transfer to any hotel or airline partner comes up with:

    SITE HELP
    Thank You for Visiting American Express
    We’re sorry. We are momentarily experiencing technical difficulties. We are working on bringing our services back online.
    For immediate assistance, please call the number on your card or statement. We apologize for any inconvenience.
    Thank you for visiting AmericanExpress.com.`

  • Steven says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:46

    I did it last night and went through fine.

• mark2 says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:36

  Hopefully the Avios/Nectar link up will goad Tesco into putting out lots of offers to compete.

  • Jonathan says:

    23 Jan23 January 11:00

    I wouldn’t count on it, Tesco’s Clubcard was already by far the one the best loyalty schemes I’ve ever seen, and doesn’t really need to improve much to compete with others

    We might hopefully see more Virgin Points when transferring Tesco Clubcard for them

    • Super Secret Stuff says:

      23 Jan23 January 12:16

      The sheer volume of points you can get from Nectar and the switch in habits this might cause, could well make them bring back some of the in store offers

      • Christopher says:

        23 Jan23 January 14:37

        I don’t get this statement, nor other similar ones here oh HfP comments.
        I just looked at my nectar app and can only see 130 bonus points available across 7 grocery items, 5 of which I wouldn’t buy.

        Compared to 3.2 avios per £ at Tesco, this isn’t so generous.

    • Sandra says:

      23 Jan23 January 12:29

      I think Tesco are now concentrating on price rather than loyalty schemes to try and woo lost customers back from Aldi & Lidl. I know lots of people who have swapped as the quality is good and prices much cheaper and now only go to Tesco for specific things Aldi & Lidl don’t stock/do as well. When I don’t get online delivery from Sainsbury, who seem to have more slot availability in lockdown than Tesco, I now use one of the low price supermarkets (although I have always bought meat from local butcher/farm shop) & don’t see myself going back to Tesco.

      • C says:

        23 Jan23 January 13:33

        Fully agree with that. I recently moved to an area with Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and Asda clustered together. I have determined that Lidl (or Aldi, but it’s less convenient when walking) is best for basics, with Asda for the few items not carried by those (eg, a specific brand if baby formula), and then local shops for everything. The Tesco is entirely unappealing –
        not competitive on quality with Lidl/Aldi, and less appealing than Asda, and for anything else I’ll give my custom to a local small business.

      • Genghis says:

        23 Jan23 January 13:38

        Yep. Sounds like us. The quality at Lidl on certain items is excellent. Why pay more? We stock up once a month on the items we like and then get Tesco delivery once a week for fresh and items Lidl don’t stock. I don’t think the Sainsbury’s avios tie up will change this set up. I’m happy having a few more quid in my pocket.

        • Genghis says:

          23 Jan23 January 14:15

          And with the relatively new Lidl reward scheme, £12 reward on £200 spend = 6% and I’ve had a few extra £1 offs scratch cards in the app. It works for us.

        • Liz says:

          23 Jan23 January 15:48

          We have always shopped in Tesco. We joined up to the Clubcard Plus when it came out. It works for us as we now shop for MIL so we do 2 big shops per month and try to get over the £200 mark. We also have our 4 phones with Tesco so we get double data and double pts on one phone plus all the CC pts for the monthly bill. With the new Clubcard prices to compete with Aldi and Lidl many of the things we buy are reduced so we are saving around £40 per shop. We will now do our small in between shops for milk and bread etc in Sainburys and pick up some bonus points. We will rebuild our Virgin miles over the next couple of years with our CC pts.

      • AJA says:

        23 Jan23 January 13:57

        I agree. I even got an email advising me that Tesco were price matching against Aldi

        • Tony says:

          23 Jan23 January 14:01

          what happened to MY Supermarket dot com ? it was a handy tool

        • Sandra says:

          23 Jan23 January 14:53

          Yes same as me Genghis, delivery for stock up of what they don’t sell every so often and I usually also get £12 off a month at Lidl with rewards plus their weekly offer coupons are generally relevant, just annoying you can’t use a scratch card win at same time as £2/£10 off!

• 747_Brat says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:40

  One for @Andrew (HfP’s resident LBG & RBS group expert) but others are welcome to chip in:

  What is the best value redemption for RBS Rewards Current Account? I have finally managed to reach a decent amount in RBS rewards. I am torn whether to “bank the reward” or “trade it” for BA Avios/others.

  I did the math for the new BA/Sainsbury’s deal, £10 in RBS Rewards would get me 1,170 Avios, which is equal to 1,872 Nectar points worth £9.36 (without any double up bonus on eBay/Sainsbury’s). This is clearly not worth it

  What are the “sweet spots” (if any) of the RBS Rewards scheme?
  Thanks.

  • Andrew says:

    23 Jan23 January 16:14

    Sorry 747, wrong bank. I’m BoS, not RBS.

    Nice 10% at Spar on BoS for me today though. That’s a £300 prepayment to my 2021/2022 Council Tax bill paid.

    • 747_Brat says:

      23 Jan23 January 16:56

      Oops, I might have confused it then. Sorry. 🙂

• Rob says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:40

  I know we don’t know how long the Nectar >Avios exchange will take when moving points, but does this mean that it will be possible to accumulate Avios very quickly now? Ie:

  – Buy goods from Sainsbury’s
  – Points show almost immediately in Nectar account
  – Transfer Nectar immediately to Avios

  This would be brilliant as with Tesco you really had to forward plan as you weren’t likely to receive the points for some time

  • Andrew says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:45

    With “faster vouchers“ at Tesco you could have them in your BA account within a couple of days of spending at Tesco – as long as you met the minimum threshold of having 150 Clubcard points in your account to request a voucher.

• Rossy says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:43

  Bendy (metal) question: has anyone had experience accidentally using a linked MasterCard to pay off some of the balance on that same card? I did this (I forgot to switch the card that was linked beforehand) and the transaction went through. Nothing out of the ordinary came up when I got my monthly statement, but I’m a bit concerned that I could retrospectively be punished for this as it might be deemed fraudulent? I couldn’t see anything explicitly saying about this in the T&Cs but wanted to get some thoughts on it?

  • Steven says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:51

    People make mistakes so I wouldn’t worry about a one off transaction. Different if they saw you doing this repeatedly.

  • Dan says:

    23 Jan23 January 09:56

    I did it a few times with the beardy card.. no issues…

  • Peter K says:

    23 Jan23 January 12:45

    I did it once a few years ago by mistake. It didn’t go through and curve warned in no uncertain terms they would close my account if I did it again.

• Steve R says:

  23 Jan23 January 09:56

  We have an RFS at Easter.. Trying to fathom out is there a cost to us now if we cancel

  • Andrew says:

    23 Jan23 January 10:01

    If you want a voucher no cost – if you want your money and Avios back then it’s whatever you paid minus £35 per person or whatever you paid if less than £35.

    • ChrisBCN says:

      23 Jan23 January 10:03

      But don’t rush to cancel your booking. If BA cancel the flight, you will get everything back.

    • Definitas says:

      23 Jan23 January 10:19

      What is the length of validity for an FTV from a cancelled reward flight?

      • Tracey says:

        23 Jan23 January 10:38

        April 2022 is the expiry of all FTVs, subject to change I guess.

    • Steve R says:

      23 Jan23 January 11:25

      Would you get a voucher with 45k Avios (3 of us) & £105 or just 45K

      • AJA says:

        23 Jan23 January 14:20

        The FTV includes your 45k avios & the £105 taxes you paid.

• Mco says:

  23 Jan23 January 10:49

  If the government starts hotel quarantine do you think they will do it to every incoming traveller or those from high risk areas?

  That means we will have to go down the Australian way of only letting in a handful of people a week? This will be disastrous for the airlines and airports.

  I can understand why they want to do this but If you vaccinate the entire population and then you get in a new variant that evaded the vaccine, then aren’t you back to square one? So borders closed for next few years?

  • Harry T says:

    23 Jan23 January 11:03

    They won’t do it, it’s not logistically or fiscally achievable. They might, at a push, ask people to do quarantine in hotels but they won’t be able to police/enforce it.

    • Freddy says:

      23 Jan23 January 11:12

      Don’t think they’d go down a voluntary/unenforced route as it would be laughable and another thing to criticise. I’m unsure how normal travel can resume when there is mass panic at every variant identified. If there was confidence that the vaccine would protect against variants then it’s be a different story, but confidence takes time

      • Mco says:

        23 Jan23 January 11:20

        Freddy surely that means no travel for the next few years. It’s a virus and it’s going to mutate. There will be another variation in 3,6,9 months from other places.

        • Freddy says:

          23 Jan23 January 11:28

          I think normal travel will resume when there is confidence in the vaccine providing suitable protection or the virus becomes less “deadly”. The government are unlikely to risk sending us back to March 2020 with no immunity or vaccine after seeing the devastation done over the last 12 months. Does that mean no travel, potentially. One of the reasons I’m minded to cash out my avios

    • Mco says:

      23 Jan23 January 11:19

      Harry but 100 flights a day x 200 per flight. 2,000 per day taking up hotel rooms. 28,000 in hotels after 14 days.

      Not to mention the logistics, sharing the same recycled air with 300 other rooms. If one person in infected in that zone it’s so easy to pass it on to all the other rooms.

      Does this mean a end to business travel for rest of the year.

      • Sean says:

        23 Jan23 January 11:30

        might want to redo your maths Mco

        • Mco says:

          23 Jan23 January 11:39

          Morning coffee hadn’t kicked in yet 🙂

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          23 Jan23 January 12:58

          although it makes his point even stronger. 280,000 people in hotels rooms ain’t gonna happen. That’s nearly double the entire hotel inventory of London…

      • TGLoyalty says:

        23 Jan23 January 14:12

        Atleast 100k people arrived last week according to Paul Charles.

        This 0 Covid ministerial group is pissing the wind

        • TGLoyalty says:

          23 Jan23 January 14:12

          Pissing in the wind.

        • Jonathan says:

          23 Jan23 January 14:39

          How many of those 100k would still have travelled if they were on the hook for 2 weeks locked in a hotel? Less than 20% is my guess.

          I don’t think it’s going to happen but the threat of it will probably be enough to suppress a lot of the not really, absolutely, essential travel for the next month which is their goal.

          It also adds to the getting tough narrative they’re pushing eg. increased fines which hopefully will nudge people back to the compliance levels of last April-May.

          The virus will mutate but the less of it there is circulating then the less opportunity it has to do that.

        • Tariq says:

          23 Jan23 January 16:26

          Exactly, avoidance is futile. Back to normal is the only sensible way to go. Anything else is just endlessly kicking the can down the road.

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