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The HfP chat thread – Friday 29th January

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We have decided to run this daily chat thread on Head for Points during the coronavirus outbreak.

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Comments (334)

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

  • Mark says:
    29 Jan29 January 13:20

    Just walked out of Sainsburys with a trolley full of free shopping.
    Felt like I’d robbed the place tbh. 😂

    • Anna says:
      29 Jan29 January 13:40

      Brilliant, it must have been like one of those “extreme couponing” programmes where Americans manage to reduce their shopping bill to zero at the till!

    • Andrew says:
      29 Jan29 January 14:12

      That’s my plan – £2000 of nectar points with my Avios – nothing to pay for groceries for a year.

      • Mr. AC says:
        29 Jan29 January 15:52

        That is good to hear. I was worried there’d be people awash with points snapping up all reward travel for years forward. Hope I’ll be able to move nectar to Avios when the time comes…

      • Peter K says:
        29 Jan29 January 16:52

        Only £2000 on shopping for a whole year? I wish… 😬

    • xcalx says:
      29 Jan29 January 18:34

      @ Mark “Just walked out of Sainsburys with a trolley full of free shopping.
      Felt like I’d robbed the place tbh. 😂”

      I used to do that daily in Tesco when R & R was my goto hobby Personal best for one day was 2 x sat navs £299 on a golden ticket (Seacroft Leeds) 3 x moble phones £149 golden ticket (Garforth Leeds) 2 x steam system ironing station things £129 (Roundhay Leeds) Plus a selection of Simpson vidios ( golden ticket) legs of lamb, beef joints and a few bottles of wine.

      A woman at the Seacroft branch started following me and removed the SEL from anything I put in trolley. She never noticed that I had a “co worker” picking up stuff I returned to the shelf then checking out before I replaced all the items I had in trolly back . Never got banned either.

      Golden tickets were even better than getting miles for award bookings on BMI 🙂

  • John says:
    29 Jan29 January 13:58

    EU countries increasingly ignoring Brussels and doing their own thing.

    German media reporting Merkel will introduce travel ban for UK, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa and Brazil from Saturday until February 17th.

    • babyg says:
      29 Jan29 January 14:30

      EU have already said counties can control their own borders during this pandemic.

      • Rui N. says:
        29 Jan29 January 15:14

        Border control is and has always been a MS responsibility. EU responsibility is to advise (and, as last resort, sue) to ensure that the freedoms of circulation are not hindered beyond what is reasonable given the circumstances. But MS even sometimes put border restrictions for “risky” football matches, so the current situation is quite beyond that.

    • James says:
      29 Jan29 January 15:29

      Like any EU member state has always been able to do, including the idiot one that recently left 🙄 🤣🤣

  • Ben says:
    29 Jan29 January 15:08

    Has anyone had any luck getting through to British Airways? I’ve got a 2-for-1 avios flight that I need to cancel, and there doesn’t seem to be an option on the website to do anything other than get a flight voucher, whereas under T&Cs I think avios redemptions allow me the money, points and the 2-for-1 voucher back.

    When you call up, it just gives an automated message that they can’t take my call and then ends the call. It’s not super urgent, but I’d prefer to get it sorted.

  • Dan says:
    29 Jan29 January 15:15

    Question for experienced/long time Sainsbury’s shoppers out there…

    How often and when in the week do the nectar offers show up on the app? I only jumped ship from tesco’s last week. When i registered on Thursday on the nectar app, I got several new offers but I don’t seem to have any new ones this week – just the partner ones…

    • Greg says:
      29 Jan29 January 15:21

      Same here.

      $GME 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

      • James says:
        29 Jan29 January 15:32

        Mine always appear on a Thursday, by lunchtime. Comments here suggest others have different, but always a regular (for them), day.
        I’d give it another week as you’re new to see when it beds in for you.

      • r* says:
        29 Jan29 January 15:34

        We like the stock 😀

    • Hotelier says:
      29 Jan29 January 15:29

      Offers appear once a week, different days for each person but always the same day.

    • Andrew says:
      29 Jan29 January 15:35

      I think perhaps new members won’t start getting regular offers until they’ve shopped a few time.

    • ChrisC says:
      29 Jan29 January 17:45

      Mine come Friday afternoon and expire the following Saturday so there is a days overlap on old and new offers.

      Sometimes means that if I buy milk on a Saturday the same bottle gets me two bonus if Milk is on both weeks offers and I’ve not already used it earlier in the week.

      Went shopping today and the till spewed half a dozen coupons at me and all for stuff I’d buy anyway plus a 3x bonus. So always take and read them and don’t leave them or throw them away!

    • Sandra says:
      29 Jan29 January 18:00

      Mine are Monday, I think it depends what day you registered with the app.

  • BJ says:
    29 Jan29 January 15:39

    Updated datapoints on SB Nectar cc (£400/10k variant): I previously reported that I had to apply by phone. Agreement arrived for me to sign today. It referred to SB Dual Credit Card so I called to confirm it was for the correct nectar card. It was. I asked again about fuel spend as I was sceptical when informed at time of application that it was qualifying. Today the CSA said it was not qualifying and confirmed this with her manager. I also asked when the clock started ticking on the two month period for qualifying spend as I had previously suggested that it would be safer to hit this within six weeks. However, it seems that we do have close to two months: the CSA said the clock starts only when they open the account after receipt of signed agreement, and that they also factor in a few extra days for card issue and delivery. I have read several comments this week about people being unable to pay for giftcards at Sainsbury’s using nectar points. This suggests that their policy has changed very recently or that it varies by store because I have never been refused the option to pay Sainsbury’s own or branded gift cards with points. Apologies if all of this has been addressed already as I suspect it might well have, but I don’t have enough time at the moment to follow all the comments.

    • Hotelier says:
      29 Jan29 January 15:52

      Applied last Friday afternoon for SB credit card online & approved. Pin arrived Wednesday and card yesterday (Thursday) so quite happy with that. Funny enough first transaction was £1 at Morrison’s to active it for online shopping.
      Quite intrigued about comments regarding spending targets once passed the welcome offer.

    • Colin MacKinnon says:
      29 Jan29 January 16:22

      Ts&Cs are below.

      They say “Sainsbury’s, Argos and Tu Clothing in the UK” are eligible and “Argos eBay stores, Argos Clearance stores, Argos For Business, Argos Spares, Argos Financial Services, Sainsbury’s Bank, Sainsbury’s Energy and any other Sainsbury’s services” are not.

      Now, when I have spent – on other cards – Sainsbury Petrol comes up separate (different name on card statement) from Sainsbury (my food shop).

      So is Sainsbury Petrol “any other Sainsbury services”?

      Fortunately, my big petrol spend won’t be until after Easter now, with lockdowns!

      † 10,000 bonus Nectar points conditions
      1. This offer is only available when you take out a new Sainsbury’s Bank Nectar Credit Card.
      2. You’ll get 10,000 points if you use your card to spend a total of £400 or more at Sainsbury’s, Argos or Tu Clothing during the 2 months after your account is opened.
      3. Points will be added to your Nectar account within 60 days of the end of the offer period.
      4. This offer can’t be used in conjunction with any other introductory points offer.
      5. You need to add your Nectar card number to your application.
      6. Spend at Argos eBay stores, Argos Clearance stores, Argos For Business, Argos Spares, Argos Financial Services, Sainsbury’s Bank, Sainsbury’s Energy and any other Sainsbury’s services is excluded.
      7. You won’t get any points if you go over your credit limit or don’t pay at least the minimum payment on each statement by its due date.
      8. Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd award the points from this offer. No cash alternative is available.
      9. Sainsbury’s Bank reserve the right to change or cancel this offer without notice.

      †† Up to 3 Nectar points per £1 Conditions
      1. You can collect points by paying with your credit card.
      2. We’ll award 2 points for each full £1 spent at Sainsbury’s, Argos and Tu Clothing in the UK.
      3. We’ll award 1 point for each full £5 spent everywhere else. This includes Argos eBay stores, Argos Clearance stores, Argos For Business, Argos Spares, Argos Financial Services, Sainsbury’s Bank, Sainsbury’s Energy and any other Sainsbury’s services.
      4. We don’t award points on Travel Money purchases.
      5. On each statement, we calculate the points due on each transaction separately, then total them up and add them to your Nectar account within 60 days.
      6. You can collect additional points from Nectar partners, including up to 1 point per £1 in Sainsbury’s, Argos and Tu Clothing, by s

  • Nick says:
    29 Jan29 January 16:09

    @Rob, what are your thoughts on the robinhood/GameStop saga? Very interested in your opinion as a former banker.

    • Rob says:
      29 Jan29 January 16:31

      If you treat it as simply an issue of supply and demand manipulation then it is very logical. It only becomes illogical if you try and justify the valuation back to the value of the company, but you shouldn’t really do that because that isn’t what it is about.

      It is as simple as realising that if you can push up the price of an asset, certain people will be forced to buy it off you (and the irony is that the more the price goes up, the more they need to buy it). The same thing happens in ‘The Big Short’ film about the financial crash, when certain people make a fortune because they own the mortgage bonds which short sellers must buy to close out their positions before they too go bankrupt.

      • Greg says:
        29 Jan29 January 16:40

        To the moon with Rob! 🚀🚀🚀 YOLO

        Confirmed: Rob likes the stock. 💎👐

        • bafan says:
          29 Jan29 January 18:08

          I love and hate in equal measure that r/WallStreetBets is leaking out into my “real” world. I have trolled on there for many years lmao.

      • Mark says:
        29 Jan29 January 18:41

        Yes. But in this case the hedge funds got what they deserved because they had shorted more than 100% of the stock.

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        29 Jan29 January 22:42

        It was the HF that had shorted the bonds, more specifically bought the CDS, that made the money not vice versa.

        If you were short and had to buy to close out a position the asset must be going up. I assure you the subprime, sold as AAA, were not going up.

        Read the book, it’s better than the film. In fact read anything by Michael Lewis and you will be rewarded.

    • Guernsey Globetrotter says:
      29 Jan29 January 18:20

      I expect he would suggest to hodl to the moon!

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    29 Jan29 January 16:25

    Interested too!

    My take – even more attractive for shorting now! Much bigger difference between market value and business value!

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      29 Jan29 January 16:44

      Think of the reddit forum as crazy trump supporters, who have just got there toys back.

      Theyre not following logic, its a statement. They’ll continue to throw all they’ve got at it, so it’ll likely keep going until atleast $750

    • DT says:
      29 Jan29 January 18:04

      I shorted the stock at $125 and it jumped to $175 before I finished blinking, closed the position and swapped to a buy at $181, closed yesterday at $400. I wouldn’t try to apply logic to an illogical hivemind hell bent on destroying short positions

  • Dace says:
    29 Jan29 January 17:11

    Can anyone help me with how to use Bendy/Seagulls/Beardy/IHG/Revolutionaries together, I keep seeing comments but cannot piece everything together.

    • KP says:
      29 Jan29 January 17:30

      I agree with the above comment . I am considering taking a curve metal with HSBC premier elite,Hilton Barclaycard, Virgin cards with me.Planning to fund NS&I for upto 50k.Can someone please explain .

      • Amy says:
        29 Jan29 January 17:36

        Dew it!

      • Doug M says:
        29 Jan29 January 18:09

        You don’t need metal for NS&I

        • KP says:
          29 Jan29 January 19:20

          I do have HSBC premier Elite, Hilton Barclaycard, Virgin Atlantic (free) and planning to take Curve Metal. For curve metal with the above credit cards as funding ,has anyone experienced transaction as a cash advance.

    • Aston100 says:
      29 Jan29 January 17:52

      Which of those do you have?

      • Dace says:
        29 Jan29 January 18:37

        I have all of them bar Beardy, however I can get it if needed. Bendy is Black atm but can be moved to Metal if required.

        • The uncivil servant says:
          29 Jan29 January 18:47

          Why don’t you just say Curve Metal and Virgin?

          • John says:
            30 Jan30 January 07:53

            Why don’t you post with your real name and use your passport data page as your avatar?

    • Doug M says:
      29 Jan29 January 18:11

      I’m not suggesting it’s particularly complex, but there is some risk in this. If you honestly can’t work out what to do from the thousands of comments already posted then you should ask yourself if this is for you.

      • Peter K says:
        29 Jan29 January 19:30

        @Doug M
        Exactly this
        If you need something spelled out in great detail even to get started when there are comments galore then it is just a potential disaster waiting to happen in the long run for you.

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