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The HfP chat thread – Thursday 11th February

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Comments (355)

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

  • Frankie says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:53

    In case this is of any interest to anyone, I flew EasyJet from Gatwick to Belfast yesterday on the first day of EasyJet’s new baggage policy. I noticed no difference really from the last time I flew with them. Some people in all seats were boarding with bags that were bigger than the new permitted smaller cabin bag, and the overhead lockers were all being used and were packed with all bags and coats as usual. There were only five flights from Gatwick yesterday in total of which one was this EasyJet flight. There were no other EasyJet flights. Maybe they’ve just not bothered being strict yet about the new baggage policy. The flight was jam packed. I urgently needed to get to NI for a family emergency. There were zero BA flights yesterday (so no option of avios redemption) and it was either this EasyJet one, or the single Aer Lingus one that was going in the evening. I had to pay £250 one way. Ouch!

    • Anna says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:16

      Thanks for sharing this – I’ve got 2 trips booked for the end of this year flying with EasyJet and have covered all bases by booking the 2 cabin bags plus extra leg room seat options! Still about half the price return (to France and Germany) of your one way – ouch indeed! I hope your family emergency was resolved. Do next week’s changes affect NI (hence the full flight and high price) or are there just a lot of people who travel for work?!

      • Frankie says:
        11 Feb11 February 11:00

        I think the busyness is just lack of flights. New rules don’t affect NI as far as I know as still UK.

    • Nick says:
      11 Feb11 February 11:35

      I’d have taken the £50 train+ferry option over a £250 flight to Aldergrove! YMMV of course 😄

  • Andrew says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:53

    Waking up to -18C in Perthshire this morning.

    • Anna says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:20

      I bet it’s very pretty though! I love Perthshire in the winter, we have done some sublime walks over the years such as the Birks of Aberfeldy when it was almost completely frozen and Ben Lawers on a day clear enough to see across to Ben Nevis from the summit.
      They always manage to get the roads cleared by about 9 am as well whereas here in England councils always react as though snow and ice in winter are completely unexpected events!

      • Nick says:
        11 Feb11 February 11:48

        I hate this argument, it totally misses any ideas of economic reality. Councils in areas where it snows badly for maybe 3-6 days every 4 years don’t see the need to invest in mega snow clearing equipment as it’s better value just to accept it, but the parts of the UK where snows for lots of every year can more easily justify it. Basic economics in a sector that has to justify itself to taxpayers. It’s not an English vs Scottish thing at all… parts of England such High Peak council (covering Buxton and surrounding areas) are also mega efficient – they have to be, it snows a lot there every single year – so they can carry on as normal. Whereas my council in the SE could never justify the same expense for such an irregular event, and quite right too. (Rant over)

        • Callum says:
          11 Feb11 February 12:27

          I’d also go further and say the uselessness of England during snow is always vastly exaggerated. Perhaps I’m (uncharacteristically!) lucky, but all major roads around everywhere I’ve ever lived in southern England get gritted and cleared either preemptively or very soon after an event like this.

          • The Savage Squirrel says:
            11 Feb11 February 13:24

            So true. There are always a huge number of people complaining, essentially, that their small obscure side-road or cul-de-sac was not gritted within an hour of snowfall.

        • Anna says:
          11 Feb11 February 16:29

          Well, yes, the SE, don’t you grow grapes there?!

        • Lady London says:
          11 Feb11 February 16:31

          Where I go i Austria the local farmers are on contract. When a certain number of cm if snow falls they put a wide blade on their tractor and clear it. They bill the local council and obvs a best use of equipment. Basically it just works.

      • Charlieface says:
        11 Feb11 February 12:46

        I don’t find that.

        Much more of an issue is the complete lack of care to the roads after huge amount of freeze-cracking and potholing. It happens every winter, but there are potholes which just seem to get larger every year.

        Most A-roads are patch-repaired instead of resurfacing, even when there are tens or hundreds of holes.
        And don’t even mention the state of residential streets. They’re no even cleaned for leaves.

        • Rhys says:
          11 Feb11 February 13:00

          This is what I don’t understand. Roads in Germany and on the continent quite regularly see higher and lower temperatures throughout the year, but potholing never seems to be an issue. In Canterbury, where I grew up, some roads would literally disintegrate every year! I’ve never really found out why German roads seem so much more resilient.

          • Nick says:
            11 Feb11 February 13:29

            They’re willing to spend more to construct and maintain them.

          • Lady London says:
            11 Feb11 February 16:37

            they use better materials whereas British councils and major road/motorway maintenance refuses to pay for quality materials and longlasting quality of work.

            For instance for many years now Europe motorways are resurfaced with a special surface that drains well in rainy areas which adds to safety – doubtful if the UK has invested.

        • John says:
          11 Feb11 February 19:40

          My street is cleaned but I am in a rich borough of London.

          In 2017 I drove across the England-Scotland border multiple times in a sort of zig zag pattern from berwick to gretna. The improvements in road quality every time I entered scotland were noticeable.

  • Roberto says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:53

    If u have an offer through Nectar for say 200 points for a jar of coffee will points be paid out for just one only?
    If I purchased 5 jars would I get 1000 points?

    • Andrew says:
      11 Feb11 February 07:54

      You’ll get it once each week it appears.

      But…

      If you use it, you’ll likely to get it again in a few weeks.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        11 Feb11 February 08:34

        Seems like Friday/Saturday are the best days to shop too as you get offer overlap

        • Tracey says:
          11 Feb11 February 08:43

          Mine overlap Wednesday/ Thursday.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            11 Feb11 February 08:50

            interesting. Mine always arrive Friday morning and expire the following Saturday. Which I used to prefer but not so much during these times as I’d rather go when it’s quiet.

          • meta says:
            11 Feb11 February 08:59

            Mine arrive on Tuesday and expire on Wednesday.

        • MattB says:
          11 Feb11 February 09:12

          Our 4 cards get new offers on 4 different days so I assume it will always be between Monday to Friday.

          These days we get better value offers for the cheaper items we get for the food bank than for or own shipping.

        • Yorkieflyer says:
          11 Feb11 February 12:14

          Same here, Looking forward to the weekly Nectar offers the most excitement I get nowadays as I’m following GOV advice not even to dream about booking a holiday…

      • Lady London says:
        11 Feb11 February 16:41

        so if you get an offer on each of 2 consecutive weeks then it would credit for the one item k each of the two weeks if you made sure to save those offers and buy the one item on your overlap day

    • Rob says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:31

      In my admittedly limited experience of this it only pays once.

  • BuildBackBetter says:
    11 Feb11 February 07:59

    Was so excited about the eBay nectar bonus offer until I realised it’s just 4.375 avios per £ compared to 4.8 I used to get at Tesco (with their debit card). Granted I can get credit card points too for Sainsbury’s, but imagine once the offers dry up.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:55

      The offers won’t dry up, it’s part of the strategy to make Nectar like a game. So you get a buzz from it or whatever…

      • MattB says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:14

        They have been going for a couple of years and if anything seen to be better at the moment, so not sure why the obsession from the new experts that they will just stop. The overwhelming majority of Sainsbury’s shoppers won’t even know or care what an avios is.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:
          11 Feb11 February 09:59

          I’d always taken an interest in Nectar on the basis that at some point, a replacement for Easyjet will come along so I can use them for travel.

          People said I was crazy to be so optimistic… jokes on them

      • TGLoyalty says:
        11 Feb11 February 10:26

        Yeah the lucky dip weekends show nectar prefer a game type approach to loyalty than pure earn and burn.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:
          11 Feb11 February 17:11

          Exactly, it’s like the Tinder of loyalty schemes. Somehow addicting for a lot of people. It’s actually a trend called gamification and works well for a lot of industry’s

    • Andrew says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:21

      Did you used to collect Tesco Clubcard points at eBay then? Don’t really understand your comparison here.

  • Andrew says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:11

    Anyone had any luck with Virgin and the status match, who applied before the option for delaying the start date appeared, getting them to allow you to do that now?

    • WaynedP says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:15

      Someone who applied before Monday’s change said on yesterday’s chat thread that they received a polite but firm no from Virgin when they asked Virgin to change their start date to comply with the newer policy.

      • Andrew says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:22

        Thought as much – a shame I applied 3 days too early and I thought I was being clever waiting until February to get the full month of Feb 2022 rather than applying in January and only getting until end of Jan 2022.

        • Tom1 says:
          11 Feb11 February 13:22

          What I can’t work out is why they changed their offer a few weeks in.
          Suggests they didn’t get as many as they expected – but how did they work out that delaying the start of the status match would incentivise more?

        • WaynedP says:
          11 Feb11 February 16:15

          My procrastination worked in my favour, and I applied on Monday lunch-hour following Rob’s article of that morning.

          I received confirmation of acceptance before noon on Tuesday, confirming in writing that “Your Flying Club membership will be upgraded on the 1st of the month you are due to travel with us.”

          My next flight with Virgin is due on 7 March, which I fully expect will be cancelled.

          But will it be cancelled before 1 March, and if not, will my status upgrade kick in on 1 March, only to be worthless in that month when the flight is cancelled within days ?

          I will watch with interest and report back on the HfP forum if anyone’s interested.

  • Anna says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:24

    Just called BA to get our DXB flights refunded as there was no other option if we can’t travel at Easter. We can just hope for another 50% sale! On the plus side I got through pretty much straight away just after 7.30 am and it was all sorted in about 30 mins, including chasing up the missing avios from other flights I cancelled online about a month ago. Avios balance now looking extremely healthy and in another few weeks I can start looking at options for spring 2022!

    • Claire says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:35

      BA cancelled my March 17th flights to Dubai and I took the refund as they said I would have to travel by Oct 11th to keep the sale price (booked in the 50% off sale too) at least because they cancelled I saved the £35 per person fees. I also really hope for a 50% off sale again! I also surprisingly got through straight away at about 4pm, I had taken a book to read while waiting, as I expected a long queue!

    • Michael C says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:51

      I’ll be thinking of you, Anna: already checked that our school breaks up 31 March 2022, to get ready for the -355!!

      • Anna says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:00

        Knowing our luck even if we do manage to go abroad at Easter this year that’s when we’d get called for our jabs! So aspiring to a domestic break seems the most sensible option as Easter is now less than 8 weeks away and things are getting stricter, if anything. Though it remains to be seen what Boris announces on the 22nd!
        We’ve got GCSE’s next year (or maybe not, who knows?), so the plan is to do a short break that Easter then as soon as the exams (or whatever!) are over head off somewhere hot for 3/4 weeks. Should be a bargain as we have 600k avios, 4 companion vouchers, nearly 1 million Hilton points plus IHG free nights!

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:05

        There is a lot of education to make up. Since the first lockdown in Mar last year mine have done less than 10wks in school due to closure and periods of isolation. Good chance term dates for the next academic year move around.

        • Andrew says:
          11 Feb11 February 09:24

          And potential plans to reduce the summer holidays to a couple of weeks.

          • Rob says:
            11 Feb11 February 09:42

            The chance of the teaching unions agreeing to that is nil. The private schools might do it – my son did an extra week last year and it wouldn’t surprise me if they do an extra week at Easter too.

          • Anna says:
            11 Feb11 February 10:07

            Rob, I agree re teachers not agreeing to it, they could very well argue that if they’d been prioritised for vaccination schools could have returned sooner, and they’d have a good point.
            Parents will also have annual leave booked which they can’t change and won’t want to give up after the year’s everyone’s had.

          • Anna says:
            11 Feb11 February 10:10

            I think you mean “by” a couple of weeks, not “to”! But parents will flatly refuse to send their kids if they’ve got annual leave booked, and why should they when they’ve been home schooling for months on end?

          • mutley says:
            11 Feb11 February 10:41

            My son was at prep last year and their zoom home schooling was a bit haphazard, now he is in senior school ( third year) the masters have them on zoom from 8.30 until 16.00 daily which is excellent.

            Perhaps its the school area but I have a neighbour who’s daughter attends a special needs school which has been open throughout the pandemic, the parents were given the choice whether to send their children, most didn’t and she is in a class of three attendees, which again is excellent for her.

    • Yuff says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:19

      Did you have a link to re-book the flights in the cancellation email?
      You may have been able to book for next Easter as my link said there was no limit as to when I could re-book.
      I re-booked my flights for October half term and it was handy not needing Avios availability but needed to make sure there were 4 cash seats in F as I had 2 241 bookings to make.
      I haven’t given up on going at Easter albeit the chances currently look slim. I changed my BA flight for Etihad flights from Man but I gather I can change my Etihad flights without charge and I have a refundable booking at the Atantis.
      However my more immediate issues are, stuck in Mallorca, Irish passport application suspended as Dublin are level 5 lockdown, and no direct flights between the UK and PMI………🤦🏻‍♂️

      • Anna says:
        11 Feb11 February 10:08

        Can’t do a long break next Easter or I would have tried. I did consider every possibility and there was nothing!

      • Callum says:
        11 Feb11 February 11:53

        I’m not sure the teachers would have a good argument about them being open if they had been vaccinated at all. Schools aren’t closed to protect teachers (the way my college lecturer sister has been treated shows very clearly that they couldn’t care less!), they’re closed to stop the children spreading it amongst themselves and taking it home to their families. It would be pretty easy to isolate the teachers from their students with perspex screens etc otherwise.

        And quite frankly, we’re living through a deadly global pandemic. I really don’t care if an over entitled parent believes it’s crucial that they get a nice foreign holiday this summer (especially if they want to disrupt their child’s education even more than it already has been in the process!). I didn’t get a single one growing up, I’m sure they’ll survive just this once…

        • Anna says:
          11 Feb11 February 16:33

          I didn’t mention the term “foreign holiday”. I referred to annual leave which is the one time in the year when exhausted parents actually get to spend some quality time with their children and don’t have to spend their evenings helping with the endless “home learning” they get these days. This is way more important than education, and as a tutor with a PhD, I do know the value of it!

          • Callum says:
            11 Feb11 February 21:02

            If the ONLY time a parent can spend quality time with their child across the entire year is a few weeks in the summer then they clearly aren’t remotely a priority to them. I’m not sure the “value” of it could ever be enough to make up for the other 50 weeks!

            I know you’re just exaggerating for effect, but I think it goes far enough to invalidate the argument!

    • Stagger Lee says:
      11 Feb11 February 11:30

      I’m with you on looking for 2022 options.

      Currently sat here working instead of being where I should be, on BA253 to Grand Cayman 🙁

      • Anna says:
        11 Feb11 February 11:45

        Never mind, Stagger Lee, you are saving an absolute fortune in F & B costs, at least! I’ve moved my summer trip to Miami and if that goes ahead we can literally eat out every night as opposed to 2/3 times per week in Cayman. Also that flight is a bit too long, even in J – the 9 hours to NAS is just about long enough but then you have an hour on the ground and another 90 minutes to GCM which is basically a pain as the crew can’t be bothered doing much on that leg! Last time we went a private jet crash landed on the runway at NAS just as we were about to take off so we were stuck at NAS for an extra 2 hours while they towed it away. Crew went to forage for snacks in the terminal but all they could find was a few boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts. I honestly prefer to go via the US and have a city break as well!

        • Stagger Lee says:
          11 Feb11 February 13:08

          Fair point about the F&B. TBH I’m really not that upset, there are worse things happening in the world to be worried about missing a holiday.

          We have a Canada trip booked in May/June and BA have moved the return flight to a day later, which we can’t do. It’s a bonus really as we can now move that to September when hopefully we might actually be able to travel.

          I could eat Donuts all day long 🙂

  • PaulC says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:51

    Any info of Lloyds upgrade vouchers being extended? Had to cancel flights back in December and had the voucher extended until early March, time running out and already booked for Jan 2022 using a 2-4-1 and can’t see any use for it this year with limited Business seats long haul.

    • Tom says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:56

      Was speaking to Avios on Tuesday about booking in May. Said currently extensions to March but that may change as we get closer to that time

      • Callum says:
        11 Feb11 February 11:55

        So far they haven’t been agreeing to extensions until a couple of weeks before expiry for me. We may need to wait until next month to find out.

  • ScienceTeacher says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:53

    It’s been 45 days since my gold card anniversary with Amex – I am still waiting for the 10k points. Chat say it’s awarded on day 90 – some three months in to the £140 fee – is this correct?

    I’d normally trust Amex with things like this but it seems a bizarre move.

    • Anna says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:04

      I don’t think it’s that set in stone. My anniversary date was Jan 16th and I was told I would have the 10k points by March 7th (next statement date). I think Ghengis has said previously they normally hit within 6 weeks as well.
      I’m getting slightly nervous as I need the points to hit before my next BA refund, otherwise they will be wiped out by taking my spend back below my recent spend target bonus (this has already happened once and I had to quickly spend another £700 to get them back!)

    • Harry T says:
      11 Feb11 February 09:10

      Usually arrives a month after your renewal date.

      • Harry T says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:10

        Assuming you spent the required amount. I always screenshot the completed spend tracker on the date I hit it.

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