The HfP chat thread – Friday 29th January

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• Den says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:15

  Travel restricted for at least a year? The strategy of the Government seems to be moving to a Closed border approach, then Vaccinate everyone, then still very restricted travel next winter due to variants from other countries! So I cant see travelling opening up until the summer of 2022, and then only travel to vaccinated countries. The travel outlook is bleak and maybe everyone has to accept that this is the case – I only hope I am wrong!

  • Harry T says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:18

    We will be allowed to travel in the summer this year – the question is will anyone let us in, looking at how other countries are coping with vaccine rollouts. Our vaccination programme is proceeding at pace and there is a seasonal element to case numbers (they seem to drop in summer).

    • Rupert says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:37

      I think the argument, in the summer, will now fall in favour of the treasury. We cannot keep spending like this as a nation. As the capacity of the NHS increases and the at risk groups falling, there will no no reason not to open up more than now.

  • marcw says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:32

    It all depends what your expectations are. If you thought everything would ha back to normality, that’s not going to happen in 2021. The world will be on track to normality, but it will take time.
    Once everyone above 60yo gets vaccinated, things will start to be more positive, as the pressure on national health services will be reduced.
    Remember, Q1 was always expected to be quite dramatic, and probably the worst pandemic episode.

  • Andrew says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:41

    Agree, by the summer some travel will be possible, but as Harry says, very much dependant on other countries letting us in – for example Japan now welcomes visitors with negative tests except U.K. and South Africa who need to hotel quarantine. Obviously UAE and South Africa is off the table for the time being and I don’t see USA opening up until maybe the summer. And of course Australia and NZ, forget it until mid 2022. I would imagine European travel will be reasonably available over the summer.

    • meta says:

      29 Jan29 January 08:53

      Japan has currently an entry ban on anyone apart from nationals or those with residence permits. They briefly opened for business travellers for a few months, but that route is now closed. They do not intend to re-open until closer to Olympics, but even then they plan it for limited number of spectators.

• Harold R says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:42

  I wanted to put away small amounts that I save when I use points for shopping. Ideally using a card to make a quick payment into a saving account so I have a transaction to match the spend and can mark it as groceries in apps like snoop.
  Was thinking top up NS I direct saver with bendy but wondering if there is a better paying option than 0.15%?

  • Sandgrounder says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:21

    0.3% from Skipton if an ISA is suitable, its flexible so you can deposit and withdraw in excess of the annual allowance as long as your total balance never breaches the cap. They are bendy friendly.

    • Jonathan says:

      29 Jan29 January 12:36

      That’s completely against the rules around ISA’s so I’d check that. Any payment in removes that amount from your annual allowance so once you’ve paid in 20k that’s it regardless of withdrawals.

      • Genghis says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:54

        No it’s not.
        “If your ISA is ‘flexible’, you can take out cash then put it back in during the same tax year without reducing your current year’s allowance. Your provider can tell you if your ISA is flexible.”
        https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts/withdrawing-your-money

        • Genghis says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:55

          And can be taken to extremes. Not that I’d advise this
          https://www.finumus.com/blog/how-to-get-an-80000-annual-isa-allowance

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          29 Jan29 January 13:50

          Nice article- never really thought of this :).
          Not worth it for me, but definitely useful technique for someone in the right circumstances….

        • ken says:

          29 Jan29 January 14:19

          do you know if you can withdraw everything from a flexible cash ISA then put it in a stocks & shares ISA (with different provider)

        • Genghis says:

          29 Jan29 January 15:25

          @ken. No. And I don’t think you can transfer provider and transfer product at the same time. A workaround might be to:
          1) Transfer cash ISA to a provider that offers cash and S&S ISA, e.g. HL
          2) Transfer cash ISA to S&S ISA. Then buy what you actually want (or wait and transfer it all in cash)
          3) Transfer S&S ISA to where you actually want it, e.g. iWeb (in-specie ideally, if you bought something with the cash)

        • Magic Mike says:

          29 Jan29 January 17:20

          @ken @ghengis I believe you can transfer ISAs between accounts of different types. Eg transfer the balance of a cash ISA into a S&S ISA. This used not to be possible, but it is now.

          Theres rules about contributions to multiple ISAs in the same tax year if you’re doing transfers, but for transfers, it’s now a free for all…

  • Neil Spellings says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:53

    The Chip app has a feature that saves small amounts on a regular basis via Debit Card or Open Banking. You can get 1.25% interest too if referred (my code is CBA5FF72 and you also get a free fiver after two months)

  • The real John says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:24

    Premium bonds will give you median winnings of around 0.75% with a tiny chance of a big prize, and even if you win nothing bending it gives you 0.5% back straight away if you have the right card

    • Rob says:

      29 Jan29 January 10:29

      It’s 0.87% tax free on my maths, if you only look at the £25 prizes and forget the rest.

      1 in 34,500 chance of winning £25 per bond. If you buy £50,000-worth, you win 1.45 prizes per month so £435 per year, which is 0.87%. This is virtually guaranteed if you buy the full £50k.

      • kitten says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:06

        Luck is not spread evenly there, though. Many get several while others get none. So earning on the way in is best to try if you can.

        • Jonathan says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:38

          If you buy £50k though it’s such a large sample that you’re statistically as close to guaranteed as possible to be within quite a tight band around 0.87%

        • Rob says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:58

          If you buy £50,000-worth then you will get 0.87%. You will get it over a 20-year period too if you only buy £2,500-worth but it will look lumpier.

        • kitten says:

          29 Jan29 January 15:38

          Partner had premium bonds and in terms of number of smaller prizes he got was very very lucky in many years over decades. So he knew on average others must have been less lucky.

          I think Premium Bonds are more a median than an average return thing. I know over 20 years it should average out but our evidence was it doesn’t. Possibly because a true random number draw doesn’t exist.

        • Rob says:

          29 Jan29 January 16:03

          I’m sure one of our maths grads can work out the probability of not getting between 0.8% and 0.95% return (given a mean of 0.87%) on a £50k investment over 12 months ….

• Conrad says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:48

  Had a dubai flight in less than 2 weeks that was booked in the half price avios sale. Decided to keep it til last minute just in case the Welsh restrictions were different to the England ones. Waiting for BA to cancel still! Guessing there is no compensation due considering now within 14 day window. Did have a hotel with a potentially awkward cancellation policy booked also. Not expecting btw…

  • Anna says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:02

    With the new ban on flights coming in from the UAE, BA may well start cancelling more DXB services. Normally compensation WOULD apply if cancellation was within the 14 day window but it’s currently suspended due to extraordinary circumstances. You have until 24 hours before travel to cancel for a refund minus the £35 fee (I think even longer for a FTV). The main issue, which applies to a lot of us, is that if the passenger cancels you will only get the original avios price back. If BA cancels, however, you can try and change your travel date and not have to pay anything else.

  • Rob says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:39

    May still go due to cargo and people getting onward connections on Emriates.

    Etihad, for example, is continuing to fly to the UK. Inbound flights will be empty, outbound flghts will carry passengers as usual.

    • Conrad says:

      29 Jan29 January 10:40

      Having to drop my 2 night Al Maha reservation at 70000/night is particularly saddening

    • Amy says:

      29 Jan29 January 16:19

      Can you still use Emirates as a hub to make connections to other destinations and make it back to UK (not exiting DXB airport)

  • The Streets says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:26

    All BA flights to Dubai cancelled now until i think at least 8 Feb

    • Anna says:

      29 Jan29 January 10:54

      We need an article on how to keep your 50% off cancelled avios flights! Just wondering whether to give up and take a refund or try and re-book with very limited travel dates. Also how feasible is it to book beyond the 12 month ticket date (I know people have done it but it sounds a lot of hassle)?

      • Conrad says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:00

        If BA cancel, you can look for new dates on the same basis of the original booking – not sure what happens if you cancel (havent got that far yet).
        I booked two on the offer – one I have successfully moved to a future date. The other I changed also to another flight. Unfortunately that one is the to DXB which is now formally off the list, waiting for BA to show their hand on this one!

        • Anna says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:53

          Hi Conrad, if you cancel you only get back the avios you paid, and therein lies the problem. You’ve lost your flights and now only have enough avios for half the cost of replacements. Hence my suggestion that we need a strategy to be able to keep moving the flights until a time when we can actually take them!

      • Darren says:

        29 Jan29 January 13:25

        The feasibility of booking beyond the 12 month date was very easy for me, no hassle at all. I booked in the October 50% sale for a March ’21 flight and a connection was cancelled triggering the opportunity to move them to November.
        I think the key to success is to keep it simple, don’t elaborate, I told them I had a cancellation on the booking which I’d like to move to November.
        No discussion about when I made the booking or the 50% sale and no chit chat about my options, maybe I was fortunate.

      • ankomonkey says:

        29 Jan29 January 14:44

        It’s not so different to getting a great-value cash ticket that gets cancelled and refunded as cash. I bought flights to Athens for over new year just gone. £16 return/pax (hand baggage only on Ryanair). They were cancelled and I could only use an open ticket for +/- 14 days of the original dates. I had to take the cash refund because we weren’t allowed to travel. Naturally, I wanted to keep the tickets in some form or another, but I had to swallow the refund.

        • kitten says:

          29 Jan29 January 15:40

          you did not have to take the cash refund and could have re-routed.

      • elt says:

        29 Jan29 January 14:49

        How can you book beyond 12 mth ticket date pl.ease? i dont mind hassle if nec.
        BA telling me it.s totally imposs
        Thanks

• Oh! Matron! says:

  29 Jan29 January 08:49

  Morning all. Partly due to a bad memory and also being a little more casual than most when it comes to earning points, why do we refer to various credit cards, as bendy, etc? Sure this does nothing to help any new readers that we have?

  Am curious…

  • Andrew says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:52

    Because the practices people are doing are frowned upon by the companies involved and so they don’t want to draw undue attention to the activity.

    • Doug M says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:04

      And they hide this from the said companies by making reference to it endlessly in comments. I think Curve are wise to how their card is used. The silly code names are used by people to stop others from starting to do the same. I assume the intention is to limit the manufactured spend to the group already doing it and not expand it to the point cards stop it.

  • ChrisC says:

    29 Jan29 January 08:59

    Because some people think they are being clever by not naming the companies because they think their tricks won’t be found out.

    Laugh is on them though because it’s almost certain that the companies are certainly reading blogs like this one to find out what people are trying to do (in addition they know what transactions are made)

    At times it’s laughable.

    • Doug M says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:06

      If the companies involved have to read blogs to understand what’s happening when they have the data then they’re in more trouble than they know.
      How’s that Curve case against Amex going I wonder……….

      • BuildBackBetter says:

        29 Jan29 January 09:27

        Exactly. It also means, we should make the most of the opportunity before the company is in trouble.

    • Sandgrounder says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:11

      It’s more to do with not wanting results to come up on a Google search, making it really easy for others to do the same things, and then the volume gets so high the route is closed down. But the eccentric names used are also a joke, and as such are supposed to be laughable!

      • Ben says:

        29 Jan29 January 09:20

        Curve 100% know. I opened an account and went too hard on the MS route and they blocked me till I explained I have been trying to use for day to day spend also (just went too hard too quick)
        Just a recommendation from me to make sure you put normal spend through also or its hastle.

        • Sandgrounder says:

          29 Jan29 January 09:24

          I think fintech companies are often very pleased with MS at the start, it makes their figures look better than they are. I doubt any would admit that in public though.

      • Aston100 says:

        29 Jan29 January 09:48

        ***It’s more to do with not wanting results to come up on a Google search, making it really easy for others to do the same things, and then the volume gets so high the route is closed down. But the eccentric names used are also a joke, and as such are supposed to be laughable!***

        This is more like it.

        • marcw says:

          29 Jan29 January 11:13

          Do comments appear in Google searches? They do in forums, but I don’t think they do for HfP (or any wordpress run site).

        • Aston100 says:

          29 Jan29 January 11:50

          ***Do comments appear in Google searches? They do in forums, but I don’t think they do for HfP (or any wordpress run site).***

          Hi Marcw, google “sandy bendy bondies”.
          For me, the first result is:
          https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2020/10/13/the-hfp-chat-thread-tuesday-13th-october/comment-page-3/

          And yes, I’m aware of the irony that this was my own remark now visible to a wider audience, hence why I approve of the use of codewords that are not difficult to decipher but obfuscated enough to prevent mainstream awareness.

        • marcw says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:50

          Aston100, what if you remove ” and “. nothing shows.

          If others wanted to do it, it’s possible. Just search for virgin atlantic credit card curve bonds or whatever, plenty of results in the web.

      • kitten says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:11

        +1 everyone knows the providers read the blogs and the codes are deliberately simple.

        Machine scrapers automated searches are what we’re trying to avoid as these will put it out in non-specialist domains that will mean up to 00’s of 000’s immediately can it and get it killed.

    • Aston100 says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:47

      ***Because some people think they are being clever by not naming the companies because they think their tricks won’t be found out.***

      Don’t be silly Chris.
      If that was true, then the ‘codenames’ wouldn’t be so easy to decipher. It only takes a few moments to work out the most commonly used names.
      I’d say the reason is more to do with avoiding google searches and thus making the whole thing mainstream and thus closing it down entirely when the whole world is doing it.

    • Chris says:

      29 Jan29 January 14:17

      At a low level of arbitrage the companies will tolerate it. If more folks do it then it become a bigger issue.

      So the ‘code’ language is perhaps more efficient at keeping the baying masses from taking advantage of such opportunities, rather than keeping it secret from the companies themselves.

      • Aston100 says:

        29 Jan29 January 14:30

        ***At a low level of arbitrage the companies will tolerate it. If more folks do it then it become a bigger issue.

        So the ‘code’ language is perhaps more efficient at keeping the baying masses from taking advantage of such opportunities, rather than keeping it secret from the companies themselves.***

        +1
        I don’t see people refusing to help newcomers on here.
        In fact I’ve benefitted from useful advice from the regulars, be it by just following conversations and working it out, or in some cases directly asking.
        So, the ‘codewords’ seem to me to keep things from going mainstream, rather than keeping information within a selected clique.
        Like I said elsewhere, it isn’t exactly difficult working out the most commonly used codewords. Even my favourite ‘Che Guevara’ is hardly rocket science.

      • Chas says:

        29 Jan29 January 15:41

        Exactly – the codes help to keep the R-number down…

        • tom1 says:

          30 Jan30 January 10:15

          next slide please.

• MD says:

  29 Jan29 January 09:02

  Can anyone recommend a decent online broker with low fees, but who I can also transfer a small existing share portfolio to?

  There’s been a lot of chat about Freetrade and Trading212 but neither of those will accept transfer of shares bought elsewhere. Both claim to be introducing that facility soon but they’ve been saying that for years as far as I can see. Currently have some shares with interactive investor but don’t trade enough to make it worth their fees. Many thanks.

  • Neil Spellings says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:56

    I use hl.co.uk which only charge per trade, and there are no ongoing management fees for a stocks and shares account.

  • John says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:19

    IG are decent and you can transfer in very easily – they process transfer in requests extremely fast too in my experience. Your existing provider will be the bottleneck

  • Doug M says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:58

    iweb in my experience are excellent.

  • Jon G says:

    29 Jan29 January 11:07

    Looks like AJ Bell does direct transfer of shares, and deal fees are in the ballpark of £1.50.

    Alternatively if your existing portfolio sits within an ISA then Trading212 works – you need to submit a transfer form and they will exit your positions without triggering a tax event. You can then re-enter immediately when funds are transferred over. This took me 4 weeks from HSBC and 2 weeks from Vanguard.

    In the grand scheme of things 2-4 weeks out of the market will not be material – unless you are expecting a big move in this timeframe.

  • kitten says:

    29 Jan29 January 12:16

    in specie transfer legislation has recently been clarified so there is some hope of more transfers being able to be made without selling the shares.

    It will be the bigger providers first as they have the greatest chance of having in-place arrangements for whatever shares you have assuming mainstream holdings.

    Not there yet though.

  • MD says:

    30 Jan30 January 10:30

    Many thanks for the recommendations, will check them all out.

• Chris Heyes says:

  29 Jan29 January 09:07

  Because most people using codes such as bendy, beardy, seagulls and more think that the company’s are thick as two short planks (Hmmm thick as two short planks new code lol)
  Just read the posts and laugh at them like everyone else does

  • Sprout says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:14

    “company’s are thick as two short planks” 😂

    • Chris says:

      29 Jan29 January 14:20

      Ouch

  • sprout says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:16

    “the company’s are thick as two short planks” 😂.

• Mco says:

  29 Jan29 January 09:16

  In regards to this new travel ban on direct flights what’s going to happen to the 1000’s stranded abroad? EK is a global link to the UK and I can’t see them paying to put pax onto other flights especially when EC261 won’t cover connecting flights.

  What if say you are in the Caribbean and they ban the direct flight then there is no way of getting back as you can’t transit via USA.

  • marcw says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:26

    You need to seek consular advice, aka repatriation flights.

    EC261 doesn’t cover EK if your origin airport is outside the EU (+UK, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland).

    In the march lock-down, thousands of travellers were literally stranded by EK when they started to cancel flights and suspend routes.

    • Mikeact says:

      29 Jan29 January 10:54

      We should think ourselves lucky we’re not one of the many thousands of stranded Australians who still can’t get home.

      • Mco says:

        29 Jan29 January 13:37

        For now. But what the UAE ban shows us is that it could be the new Thursday update. What’s the difference between Dubai and tons of other countries like Spain who are in similar situations.

        • ankomonkey says:

          29 Jan29 January 15:01

          That’s my biggest concern. We got caught by Spain being announced as a quarantine destination on a Saturday last summer and the rules coming into effect on the Sunday morning. We arrived the day of the announcement and I didn’t check UK news upon arrival until the following morning when it was already too late to try to avoid it! Since Spain was the first country thrown into UK quarantine rules, there was also no precedent. The risk here is way more painful…

  • Andrew says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:30

    The end of that Middle East blockade came just at the right time – QR are certainly going to be busy ferrying people home over the next few weeks in the absence of EK, EY and BA direct flights from UAE to the UK.

    And this is exactly why travel is probably more trouble than it’s worth for the foreseeable – luckily for those in Dubai now, the hotel thing hasn’t quite started yet, but if it had you would unexpectedly find yourself doing 10 days hotel quarantine, when you travelled to a place that wasn’t on the red list when you went. And yes, that’s aside from the hassle of even getting home anyway with no direct flights.

    • Rob says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:34

      Logically you would fly something not on the red list, spend 14 days on a beach there, and then fly back to the UK. Problem solved.

      • Andrew says:

        29 Jan29 January 09:56

        But the problem remains that you can’t get back home for 2 weeks and have a considerably more expensive holiday than you planned. So I wouldn’t say problem solved – more that it’s a more enjoyable way to spend your quarantine if you can afford the extra flights and hotel nights.

        • Rob says:

          29 Jan29 January 09:58

          Need to dig out that £20 per night all-inclusive beach resort in Turkey that Tim reviewed a while back 🙂

        • Mco says:

          29 Jan29 January 10:02

          Is it 2 weeks or 10 days?

          Btw do we know what hotels they are using yet? Arora group has been mentioned which is the Sofitel?

        • Brian says:

          29 Jan29 January 10:10

          Yeah, it’s not as if people in the real world have jobs, which make 2 weeks on a beach an unrealistic option.

          Although, anyone travelling now should be aware of the risks of getting stuck, so tough **** as far as I’m concerned.

        • kitten says:

          29 Jan29 January 12:24

          As someone said on this thread yesterday evening : would you rather spend the money you’re now obliged to spend to return, in some hotel at Heathrow/on thr Bath Road in British weather or would you rather spend 10-14 days on a beach somewhere on the way home that the UK doesn’t require quarantine for.

        • kitten says:

          29 Jan29 January 15:47

          Arora group have a few different branded (major brands included) around Heathrow. Including the actual Arora Hotel which was a crew hotel for BA so likely to be much less busy currently.

      • David S says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:00

        I looked at an option for that for April / May and the BA price for a return flight from the nearest airport to my planned airport in a Red List country is almost 10 times higher than the normal price

        • Mco says:

          29 Jan29 January 11:34

          Brian you forget some people still need to travel due to work. I was going to start a project next month that meant me taking on 10 people but I can’t now.

      • Colin MacKinnon says:

        29 Jan29 January 11:37

        I thought of going back to the Canaries to be with wife and daughter for a week or two.

        Self-isolating back home not an issue, I work from home and there’s 80 acres of ground that we own around the house!

        But the thought of two weeks in a Holiday Inn instead is what puts me off. Even prisoners get an hour a day in the exercise yard, don’t they?

        (I mentioned the other week it was pretty obvious the hotel stays would be for high-risk countries like Brazil and South Africa. My prediction now is that Spain will join the list pretty quick because of its South America links – and it is just a train ride across the border from Portugal.)

        • meta says:

          29 Jan29 January 11:50

          Land border with Portugal is closed. But yes, air links might be problematic.

  • Mco says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:14

    What if you had a BA direct flight back which they cancelled and put you onto QR. If QR cancels flight are you out of luck or does EC261 cover you considering it was a BA ticket and you accepted the change.

    • meta says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:55

      You’re out of luck. The moment you accept re-route on a non-EU airline, you also lose your EC261 rights. This hasn’t been tested in court, but those who were stranded in Peru last year will know the game BA/Iberia were playing when they rebooked them on LATAM which then cancelled. At best, you might be able to persuade them to put you on another OW flight if there is one.

• Aston100 says:

  29 Jan29 January 09:53

  Looks to me as if all QR flights from BHX have been dropped for the rest of this year.

  • Aston100 says:

    29 Jan29 January 09:54

    And by ‘all QR flights’ I mean the one daily BHX – DOH flight.

    • Andrew says:

      29 Jan29 January 09:58

      Yes they haven’t resumed BHX yet since they stopped last year.

      • Aston100 says:

        29 Jan29 January 10:01

        Andrew, flights were bookable from late April this year if I recall correctly.
        In fact I have flights booked in May this year (Booked them in October gone).
        However, all the dates I’ve checked just now no longer have a QR flight, including my own travel dates in May!

        Will give them a call now.

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