The HfP chat thread – Sunday 7th February

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• RussellH says:

  7 Feb7 February 14:08

  Anna was asking about ways to boost her Amex spending to counteract all the refunds she is getting.

  I normally top-up my Charities Aid Foundation a/c with Amex.
  I found this particularly useful in the olden days when you could get an SPG Amex bonus every 8 months or so, but it was also essential to reach the bonus threshhold in the minimum possible time so as to minimize the card fee.

  • Blair says:

    7 Feb7 February 14:57

    Huh? Don’t Amex just let you scrape off refunds to your bank account before they settle on your card account? They do with me at least. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the q.

    • RussellH says:

      7 Feb7 February 15:11

      AFAIK once you have donated to CAF you cannot get the money back out! Just pass it on to other charities. It **is** a **donation / gift**.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      7 Feb7 February 15:34

      The points and progress towards the spend thresholds are all adjusted by transaction so they are unaffected by having credit balances refunded to your bank account before a statement hits.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      7 Feb7 February 16:04

      Anna had reached the threshold for the bonus, but then after transactions were refunded she went back below the threshold so wanted a quick way to get back above it.

      Bank accounts never came into it and are a red herring

      • Anna says:

        7 Feb7 February 18:04

        Yes – the lesson for today is don’t ask for a retention bonus which involves spending when you have refunds in the pipeline!

        • Anna says:

          7 Feb7 February 18:05

          I would just close the card as I’ve already moved the bonus points to BAEC but my annual 10k for £15k spend is due to hit any day so I’m holding out to see if I can beat the next incoming refund!

        • TGLoyalty says:

          7 Feb7 February 21:24

          Or wait until your card is dormant to request said refunds

        • C says:

          7 Feb7 February 23:12

          Just about to learn that the hard way…I expect to be shortly refunding my Easter travel on BA, while I’m on the +1 point offer. Fortunately not a lot of points at stake–definitely not worth taking an FTV over a cash refund.

• Stephen says:

  7 Feb7 February 14:22

  Has anyone worked out a pattern on what type of spend (MCCs) on Barclaycard Hilton earns points since the recent changes a month ago?

  • Bigmaggot says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:22

    Waiting for my next statement…

    • Donna says:

      7 Feb7 February 20:21

      What changed with Barclaycard a month ago?

      • Stephen says:

        7 Feb7 February 22:19

        They have stopped paying out Hilton points on certain transactions. Just got my statement through, but couldn’t work out the pattern, but got less than 50% of what I was expecting

• Peter K says:

  7 Feb7 February 14:28

  Anyone else have their curve metal card delaminate from the plastic covering? I’ve had it less than 6 months and it hasn’t had any untoward damage/going through a washing machine etc.

  Not sure whether to contact them. I certainly don’t want to pay £50 for a replacement when it’s a manufacturing fault. Also, if they don’t charge me, would the 6 months minimum term of holding it to avoid a charge be restarted?

  Thank you in advance.

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    7 Feb7 February 15:03

    It’s worth asking politely. Some agents might be helpful.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    7 Feb7 February 16:05

    Mine is doing the same, the signature strip looks more like wood chip wallpaper. I use mine thru Apple Pay so can’t remember the last time I actually needed the card but I’d suggest contacting them, they don’t charge for replacements for wear and tear but would do it you lost one a week…

    • Peter K says:

      7 Feb7 February 18:55

      Thank you.

• happeemonkee says:

  7 Feb7 February 14:29

  Quick question on the Virgin Status match offer, Theres 2 options to choose from when status kicks in.
  Upon application (within 30 days of application)
  Upon travel (on 1st day of the month you are travelling with us)
  I’ve got an April booking for a flight to Vegas which i’m looking to move to October. If I choose option 2 will the 12 month status kick in from October?

  • Tom1 says:

    7 Feb7 February 14:51

    Interesting – pretty sure that option wasn’t there at the start. Initially fairly sure it was going to start as soon as application received which Is why people have been waiting to closer the 28th Feb end date.

    can’t imagine any/many would have evidence of what you are asking. I have found virgin staff have quite some flexibility to amend this manually, so might be worth asking them the question “what if…” etc.

    Let us know if you do find out !

  • Rob says:

    7 Feb7 February 15:49

    Eh? Since when did they start offering this? This is not how it was set up.

    • BS says:

      7 Feb7 February 16:08

      No. I shall be emailing asking if I can bow delay mine.

    • Happeemonkee says:

      7 Feb7 February 16:25

      Its in a drop down box on the form you have to fill in Rob. You have to pick one of the options

    • Andrew says:

      7 Feb7 February 16:27

      That annoying, it wasn’t there last week when I applied. But I see they have now changed the form to offer this option. I would have preferred to get it to start later in the year as I’ll waste 6 months of it before I travel. I purposely waited until 1 Feb to get at least all of Feb 2022 rather than it expiring at the end of Jan 2022.

  • Mouse says:

    7 Feb7 February 17:00

    Glad I procrastinated now – saw this post and signed up today, and also benefited from this – a year of status from August will be much more useful!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      7 Feb7 February 17:59

      The risk is if it’s delayed and rebooked!

    • Andrew says:

      7 Feb7 February 17:59

      Yes I think I’ll email them tomorrow and ask them to change mine as that wasn’t an option 3 days ago. Unless they are planning blanket status extensions anyway in which case it would end up the same.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 17:58

    I’d change the flight first

• Stephen says:

  7 Feb7 February 14:48

  Question regarding Qatar Airways mileage upgrades

  We managed to get 2 x Economy tickets from LHR to DOH to DPS using the Healthcare promo. We were originally in Economy Promp Fare (W) class, which is excluded from the redemption upgrades.

  Our flights were cancelled and they have now rebooked us into Economy (S & V) class – does anyone know if we’ll be able to upgrade these?

  Can you upgrade part of the journey (e.g. LHR to DOA)?

  • Stephen says:

    7 Feb7 February 16:00

    Just actually had a message from Qatar Airways saying they are going to void our tickets.

    They said the Medics Promo must be fully flown by 31st March 2021.

    I explained that we were originally looking to fly in September 2020, but they cancelled the flights. The agent re-booked us to fly 31/03 to 10/04/2021, and one of these flight was cancelled.

    The phone agent re-booked and sent the new tickets/ticket number for August 2021.

    Do I have any legal rights to avoid them voiding this ticket?

    Thanks

  • Alex D says:

    7 Feb7 February 16:07

    “ For as little as 25,500 Qmiles you could bag yourself an upgrade from London to Doha if you are travelling on tickets sold under the “Flexi” fare category (with booking codes B, H and Y). If you purchased a “Value” or “Saver” fare (with codes V, L, K, N, M, Q or S) this same journey requires 30,000”

    • Stephen says:

      7 Feb7 February 16:15

      Unfortunately, despite issuing us with new tickets (email confirmation/eTicket numbers/confirmed in online account) someone has gone in an hour later and voided our booking as they said travel must be prior to 31st March 2021 (under this promotion).

      Can I make a claim under EU261? Route is LHR-DOH-DPS

      Thanks

      • BS says:

        7 Feb7 February 16:27

        Doubt it. Ec261 doesn’t cover ‘free’ tickets.

        • Rob says:

          7 Feb7 February 17:29

          It does cover Avios tickets. ‘Free’ tickets means staff travel or similar.

        • BS says:

          7 Feb7 February 19:25

          Free tickets = free tickets given to medics. EC261 does cover avios bookings as you have ‘paid’ for it with avios. It will not cover the Qatar free tickets as they are genuinely free.

      • kitten says:

        7 Feb7 February 18:51

        As of today, would your travel on that date 31March be legal and physically possible on that route in all of Lon Doh Dps?

        And I assume you were also still ready and willing to travel on the March date.

        As of today they have cancelled your March flights.

        As of today, assuming your answer to all of the above is yes then in response to their cancellation you chose a reroute on a later date convenient to you. It is irrelevant IMV that your new date was beyond the promotion end as a ticket had been issued to you for August.
        As faced with their cancellation your right to choose to travel at a later date was a statutory one under EU261 so superseded the contract(ticket) terms and those of the promotion – if they had even still been relevant (and I’m not sure they were as you were still willing and able to fly on the March date and they cancelled not you).

        So basically them voiding the August ticket means you have been denied a reroute.

        Them voiding it now is particularly useful as it means that as of the situation today, assuming you could legally still do that route and were willing, you can now insist on a reroute and claim off them.

        Later, if it had become legally impossible at one of the 3 country points for you to be allowed to do the trip, Qatar could claim the contract was frustrated ie stopped frombeing performed due to external factors so void. I think this is where Qatar is coming from – dont worry voiding a ticket is just a word for cancelling an issued ticket. (We used to have to handwrite VOID across the flights list on the old paper tickets to ensure they couldn’t be used and it was impossible to forge around.)

        The situation could change later to frustrate your contract(ticket) and make it void – so you are lucky they did it today when govts are still letting you to do that route in all 3 countries. Restrictions that would stop you, such as an extension of UK restrictions or hardened reatrictions in DOH or DPS, that would have allowed QR to claim their contract to fly you was frustrated at a future date when those restrictions might arise, are irrelevant as QR has voided your ticket today so your rights to deal with this are based on the situation today.

        So demand your reroute on someone else if they won’t carry you. Either 31 March(gut feeling this is legally stronger/easier) or the August date Qatar did agree to and issue you a ticket for in accordance with your EU261 rights but has since repudiated.

        Go for it. See below.

        • kitten says:

          7 Feb7 February 18:57

          Section 75 on UK credit card if used to buy original ticket or pay even £1 towards it/its taxes.

          MCOL if not.

          Before you do the above call QR again Monday-Thursday office hours and tell them you will be taking these steps and ask them to reconsider. Be nice but if no, email them Letter Before Action giving them 14 days to provide your rerouting rights as agreex on today date ie reissue rerouted ticket as agreed.

          On Day 15 call credit card or MCOL.

        • Stephen says:

          7 Feb7 February 22:28

          Thanks for such clear advice.

          I have checked and can see that I paid the taxes of £314.92 on my American Express card, so will follow your guide and let you know.

          I have just seen that on Qatar’s website –

          https://www.qatarairways.com/en/legal/eu-air-passenger-rights.html

          It says to be entitled to EU261 re-routing, that they would have had to inform me of the cancellation less than 2 weeks prior to the scheduled flight date?

        • kitten says:

          8 Feb8 February 04:27

          Stephen i’m not even going to look at that link as it would be airline ts and cs and EU261 is a statute supersedes.

          Rerouting right is provided under duty of care part of EU261. As your flight departs Europe/ UK EU261 applies. Under duty of care you have right to choose reroute whether they canceled 1 minute before your flight or 1 year ahead. 2 weeks only apply to compo section not duty of care.

          Be very, very sure that as of the date they voided your ticket you were legally allowed to do the flight in all 3 places on your March flight date. Screenshot current regs all 3 countries if you can as these will be harder to recover later as regs might change against you on later date than they voided tkt. Needed to counter frustration defence at MCOL (you could also CEDR if they are part of a mediation scheme in the UK).

        • kitten says:

          8 Feb8 February 04:37

          PS Amex must be credit card version not charge card for Section 75 replacement of ticket/cpnsequential losses. Works even if ticket costs more or if extra hotel/meals away needed due to best available timing of reroute if March (don’t over-egg it).

          Chargeback doesn’t work here as you want replacement ticket not money back which is all QR is hoping they can just give you. Check the components of what you paid btw hopefully it’s not just taxes and airport govt charges in case of the defence the other poster brought up.

• YH says:

  7 Feb7 February 15:04

  I was able to move a cancelled First booking made during the 50% Avios sale from off-peak to peak dates without any issues at all today.

  • Alex D says:

    7 Feb7 February 15:28

    When BA cancel on you, you can re-book for any date! Doesn’t matter if peak/off peak or whether they have award availability or not

• DR says:

  7 Feb7 February 16:12

  I have comfortably reached just over £10,000 for my BA/Amex 241, included in that fig is £2,000 for acc in Oct 21. This acc can be canx (possible family reasons) there won’t be any problem getting my £2,000 back (can canx up to a week before).
  My cutoff date for BA/Amex is 5 Jul 21, BA voucher normally issued beginning of Aug. If I canx this acc in Oct 21 will BA/Amex take my voucher back (not been in this position before) or will my target be 12,000 instead of 10,000 for the next year voucher?

  • AJA says:

    7 Feb7 February 16:46

    Once the 2-4-1 is in your BAEC it won’t be taken back. Your target for next year’s voucher will just be £12k instead of £10k

• John says:

  7 Feb7 February 16:53

  Don’t think this is really a big issue (despite some OTT media coverage) but just in case some people think the Dublin Dodge will work…

  https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0207/1195560-covid19-ireland/

  • Andrew says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:36

    Loads of people carry an Irish Passport in addition to a UK passport.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    7 Feb7 February 19:55

    Shapps and FCDO literally put out a press release saying use indirect routes to get here.

    Really don’t understand the flight ‘ban’

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