The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 9th February

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• Uzi says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:35

  Sorry, reposting from an older article:

  Question on the best way to optimise my current situation, if at all possible:

  Have a companion voucher expiring July 2022. However the more pressing deadline is our daughter turning two in mid-May this year. We ideally wanted to be able to book her as an in-lap infant at the 10% Avios rate. Other than obviously travelling before she turns two (looking unlikely) – is there any way to be able to book now, and travel after she turns two, but avoid having to fork out the additional Avios for a full seat? How will the FTV handle this scenario?

  • Nick says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:03

    If the kid is over 2 when you rebook then you’ll have to top up the FTV with enough to buy them a child ticket. It doesn’t keep the ‘infant’ status, just the passenger’s name.

  • ChrisC says:

    9 Feb9 February 18:22

    Once she is two then she can’t be a lap infant even if you biy the ticket now.

    Her age will be spotted at some point. Better do it when you book and ensure there is a seat for her than at the airport.

• Igloo says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:36

  Is there any way of seeing progress towards the voucher on the Virgin Rewards plus credit card?

  • Alex D says:

    9 Feb9 February 14:12

    Nope! It’s extremely annoying, fingers crossed now it’s App only they will improve it. I have been keeping a spreadsheet with a running total for this

    • Igloo says:

      9 Feb9 February 21:53

      Thanks, I will need to do something like that going forward to make sure I do get the voucher before the end of the card year!

      • Alex D says:

        9 Feb9 February 22:04

        If you phone Virgin they can give you a year to date spend if you ask them. I did this last year 3 weeks before I knew it was about end of year. I had less than 1000 to spend so was no worry. Could call maybe 3 months in advance to check if spending is low ish

• Anna says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:42

  Ideally you want to book something that BA is going to cancel (a gamble, of course). I think someone posted recently that in the case of a cancelled flight which was then moved to a later date after the infant had turned two, BA just provided another seat at no extra cost. The problem with the FTV is that you’re effectively starting a booking from scratch so you might need to pay the extra avios and taxes for your daughter AND you’d need 3 avios seats to be available on your flight.

  • Anna says:

    9 Feb9 February 12:43

    That was to Uzi.

  • Nadeshka says:

    9 Feb9 February 14:55

    I tried this and was told I had to pay the additional fare for her, and needed avios availability. However that was a domestic flight, I have another one that’s international which I will likely fight harder for. They are already providing a seat on the return leg (as she turned 2 for the original trip) so it’s only one more.

• Andrew says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:03

  Good to see the strict new border rules coming into place – up to 10 years in prison for hiding the fact that you’ve been to a high risk country.

  • Nick says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:08

    Let’s hope they also apply it to those using the ‘Irish loophole’, as reported in yesterday’s Guardian. Funnily enough the focus was again on Dubai influencers…

    • TGLoyalty says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:22

      As always the devil will be in the detail
      Of the SI. If Irish travellers do not need to fill in a PLf to cross into UK then you can not be fined or jailed for not filling in a PLF.

      • memesweeper says:

        9 Feb9 February 13:34

        In practice, they need to introduce PLFs for those crossing the Irish sea into GB (and vice versa). Somewhat common quarantine rules on the island of Ireland would be very sensible, although not every dot and comma needs to be the same. GB/NI alignment, conversely, isn’t that important if you introduce PLFs and checks on entry to GB/Island of Ireland within the common travel area.

        I wonder if any of that will happen?

        • AJA says:

          9 Feb9 February 13:43

          There was a report in the BBC yesterday that the Garda have started turning back NI residents at the border if they do not have an essential reason for travel. So you would hope that they would do the same for Republic of Ireland residents crossing into NI.

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55966155

        • Charlieface says:

          9 Feb9 February 21:26

          Which is just nuts as it’s a completely porous border, there are loads of back-roads and fields

  • mutley says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:40

    Nonsense, totally over the top, complete trashing of our tolerant democratic precedents, and moving more towards a populist totalitarian state.
    This regime doesn’t make a move without checking focus groups, hence they are incapable of leadership, the average time served for murder is 14 years!

    • Yorkieflyer says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:55

      Daily Express and Telegraph readers applauding but will Daily Mail readers be so keen on the looming prospect of having to holiday once again in our godawful overpriced, wet and unfriendly plague island?

      • Brian says:

        9 Feb9 February 15:56

        No one “has to” holiday anywhere. I’m sure they’ll survive

        • yorkieflyer says:

          9 Feb9 February 16:17

          nobody said “has to” but people will “want to ” jab and go, quite reasonably by the time we reach the summer in my view.

• JustinJ says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:09

  One thing I’m confused about re the hotel quarantine. It says
  UK and Irish residents have to book a place in hotel quarantine if travelling from a red list country.
  What about foreign nationals travelling to the UK, do they no have to?

  • Andrew says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:10

    They are not permitted to enter the U.K. at all.

  • marcw says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:14

    Non-UK residents are banned if travelling from a country on the “red list”

    • TGLoyalty says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:24

      Or have been in a country on the red list in the past 10 days

      You can travel as long as you left more than 10 days ago.

  • ChrisW says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:17

    Under international law I believe a country cannot deny entry to its own citizens and residents.

    It looks like the hotel quarantine must be booked in advance.

    It will be interesting to see what happens to citizens returning to the UK who cannot or will not pay!

    • meta says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:31

      You’ll need to provide proof of booked hotel and/or tests to board the plane. You will probably have to pay in advance for these via government portal which is launching on Thursday.

      • Anna says:

        9 Feb9 February 15:06

        That’s interesting as initially they were saying the government would recoup the costs at some point in the future, they must have realised what a stupid idea that was!
        TBH it’s all now so confusing I’ve stopped trying to keep up with it until such a time as it’s announced that the restrictions have all been lifted. In the meantime I’ll just keep cancelling and re-booking …

• Bee says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:14

  I saw two random credits on BA amex account for £3.70 and £1.70 with the description British Airways BSP (PA STANSTED). Anyone else have this?

  • AJA says:

    9 Feb9 February 14:22

    BSP stands for IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP).

    https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/pressrelease/details/86/2016-72/6214

    “BSP automatically calculates the money due, collects and pays the airline. Via NDC British Airways has now made it possible for agents to pay them using existing industry functionality, without making major changes to their systems.”

    It sounds like some payment has been taken via this system.
    If you don’t recognise the payments query them with Amex under the dispute this charge mechanism.

    • Nick says:

      9 Feb9 February 16:31

      BSP does mean that, true, but BA’s payment descriptions don’t always accurately reflect what they’re for (i.e. they don’t get updated if the outlet changes). You could call and ask what they refer to though, if you don’t recognise them? Not really fair to jump to dispute without at least asking the merchant first.

      • Nick says:

        9 Feb9 February 17:11

        I’ve just had a look at a similar credit on my account… I had a redemption which I wanted to rebook but which had to be pushed through as FTC first (complicated reasons). Turns out that the recalculation then released a credit of £3 ish which was refunded to me automatically. Processed by the call centre rather than online so I also had the ‘stansted’ description… suspect it just means ‘offline’ now. HTH but worth checking email receipts in case it’s the same here.

• Andrew says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:44

  Just had my third “Spend £30 on Fuel and get 500 Nectar points”

  With the second and third also got a “Spend £30 at Argos get £5 off” valid until the end of the year.

  10% back at Selfridges is back on BoS and Halifax too

  • AJA says:

    9 Feb9 February 14:31

    Lucky you. Unfortunately at my last visit to Sainsbury’s the machine that spits out these vouchers at the till was jammed so I didn’t get any vouchers. I did get x3 points on your next visit to Sainsbury’s vouchers two visits in a row. I like this Nectar partnership I have already “earned” 1367 Nectar points to swap for 854 Avios on £257 spend at both Sainsbury’s and the attached petrol station. That’s before the x2 bonus which should pay out in May. With a similar spend at Tesco I would have only got 600 Avios. I just hope the bonus points keep coming.

    • Zoe says:

      9 Feb9 February 17:25

      I’m only just starting to use Sainsburys are these till spits coming from manned or self service tills please ?

      • Jay says:

        9 Feb9 February 18:33

        Yes, the voucher machines will issue from manned, self checkout and the self scan checkouts it they are separate from the self scan.

• Gringo says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:45

  Recommendations for a trading platform for a beginner (e.g. etorro/trading 212/IG etc)?

  • Ste Cox says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:55

    I find Tradng212 really easy to use. I used to use x-o which has a flat fee of about £6 per trade, but trading212 is free, they also offer ISA’s. App is really easy to use and understand as well (my parents can use it)

    If you create a Trading 212 Invest account with this referral code 4KCL7AN and we both get a free share! (you add it under the ‘add a promo code’ bit on the site or app.)

    • Gringo says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:58

      Thanks Ste 🙂

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