Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 16th February

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

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the de facto repository for random comments and questions.  With the news flow being lighter, we are running fewer ‘Bits’ articles.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind.  At this tricky time, and given that many of you are at home, we want the HfP community to have a place to chat.

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General

Comments (365)

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

  • Ammar says:
    16 Feb16 February 12:00

    QUick Q – any Scottish Power customers – got my bill to pay, just wondering how to maximize points – was thinking of using paypoint at coop (but it states Cash only on the bill). Has anyone managed to pay via amex at coop or will it just not accept it? Do not want to waste a journey in the rain to find out….

    • Charlieface says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:13

      You need a Paypoint barcode, if you have one then you should be good

    • mark2 says:
      16 Feb16 February 15:26

      I have made hundreds of PayPoint loads at various Coop stores in the last few years never with cash usually Amex cards.

  • Mr. AC says:
    16 Feb16 February 12:03

    Tried to read T&S but couldn’t figure it out. Amex Gold Priority Pass – 2 free lounge entries per year. Is that 1+1 guest visits, meaning 2 people can go into the lounge twice? Or it’s twice for one person, or once for two?

  • TJ says:
    16 Feb16 February 12:08

    Marriott supplementary card: do I still get a bonus if I apply for a supplementary card or does it have to be via an offer?

  • Sandra says:
    16 Feb16 February 12:35

    Data point – Just spent £200+ on Amex Gold and even before I had the confirmatory email for my order I received the Amex email confirming that I’d just used the spend £200 get 1000 points and they’ll be in my account within 5 days.

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      16 Feb16 February 13:09

      Given that this offer is available only for primary card holders, I assume spend on supplementary cards will not be counted?

      • Sandra says:
        16 Feb16 February 13:13

        If you mean cumulatively I doubt it

        • TGLoyalty says:
          16 Feb16 February 13:37

          should work in both cases

          • 747_Brat says:
            16 Feb16 February 14:57

            I met the criteria on the supplementary card, but they refused to add the points and told me to do to spend on the primary card. Apparently, there is a condition regarding this on the T&Cs.

  • AndyW says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:05

    Anyone able to help me with a UK number for Marriott to transfer points between people. The odd 00800 one says it is chargeable, sure I have used a free one in the past

  • Geoff says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:19

    “ Four passengers at Birmingham Airport have been fined £10,000 for failing to declare they had travelled from a high-risk “red list” country – which now requires a 10-day stay at a quarantine hotel.

    They were stopped by Border Force officials on Monday morning, the day the new rules came in, and were not allowed to leave the airport, West Midlands Police said.”

    They’ll probably play the victim and act like they didn’t know the rules. Oh well.

    • Anna says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:03

      I thought fines were for failing to quarantine, and that not filling in the passenger locator form was going to be dealt with under current fraud legislation? Let’s hope there’s not going to be more backtracking because someone got this wrong (again).

    • Charlieface says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:14

      Did they fly in direct? How did BF know?

      • Anna says:
        16 Feb16 February 14:20

        It sounds very dubious – it’s been reported elsewhere that Border Force can only issue £500 fines for anyone who arrives having not filled in the locator form properly. It was held back at the start of the pandemic that to fine someone £10k they’d have to be summonsed to court for means testing.

        • Callum says:
          16 Feb16 February 17:48

          Do you have a link for that? These quirks of law are quite interesting!

          I know the £10k (and up to 10 year prison sentence) has been well publicised since the announcement though. I’d imagine it’s relying on different legislation to the fines you’re referring to.

          It will be interesting to see how they were caught too.

  • Matthew says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:23

    HSBC Premier Q. I have an advance account and they won’t upgrade at mo due COVID. So I followed the advice on here of just applying online for a *new* Premier account which has worked but just wondered if anyone has had it merged with their old account or will they both be open now? Thanks

    • gareth says:
      16 Feb16 February 13:32

      If you ring up they will merge the customer numbers together- takes about a week from request

    • AD says:
      16 Feb16 February 16:10

      Hi, what evidence will hsbc require as proof of income please? Will deposits in account suffice? I have an advance account currently. Thanks

  • JW says:
    16 Feb16 February 13:25

    Booked some Avios flights for Sat 5th Feb 2022 last night. Apparently 5th Feb is now a peak date – never has been before – perhaps all Saturdays will now be peak???

    • Anna says:
      16 Feb16 February 13:59

      Previous Saturdays aren’t peak though so hopefully it’s a glitch in the Matrix! Though I wouldn’t put it past BA to be looking at ways to reduce the colossal amount of avios people must be holding at the moment.

      • JW says:
        16 Feb16 February 14:09

        A glitch though means higher pricing already so I doubt it’s a mistake, if it is I’ll be after a refund for the difference. Looks like Sat 12th Feb 2022 and Sun 13th are also peak but that coincides with VD so probably not a change – will be interesting to see what Feb 26th 2022 is shown as (Feb 19th will probably be Half-term)….

        • Anna says:
          16 Feb16 February 14:23

          How can you see that far head, avios flights are only out up to Feb 5th? 12th and 13th are the start of half term 2022 which is why they are peak dates, nothing to do with Valentine’s Day (I assume that’s what VD means 😂).
          Though BA might take into account some schools having different half term dates, and some private schools have 2 weeks off (Rob can confirm this), so it’s possible that the period from Feb 5th to 20th will be classed as school holidays and therefore peak.

          • JW says:
            16 Feb16 February 14:33

            I like the use of VD – whatever it means – hahaha. If you look to change the date of an existing Avios booking the calendar now goes out as far as 19/2/22. Dates are greyed out beyond 5/2/22 but it looks like S5/F11/S12/S13/M14/F18/S19 are all peak. This is similar to 2021 except Sat 5th is an addition for 2022….

          • Anna says:
            16 Feb16 February 14:41

            That would fit in with Feb half term 2021, except for the lone 5th! There are some odd peak/off peak dates altogether over the next 12 months, though as so few people are booking in the short term it’s probably gone unnoticed. For example, June 1st, 2nd and 3rd – bang in the middle of spring half term week, are off peak so would make for a bargain short break is travel was possible by then!

          • Michael C says:
            16 Feb16 February 16:39

            Ours is Feb 18-28 next year. We “usually” do a Euro trip Mon-Thurs, always works out cheap.

    • Genghis says:
      16 Feb16 February 14:20

      I woke up during the night and went to book only to notice the peak pricing. 6 Feb is off peak so we’ll travel a day later than I had planned.

      • Anna says:
        16 Feb16 February 14:32

        RFF throws up quite a few random peak and off peak dates if you look over the full year. Obviously it’s not always 100% aligned with BA and it’s currently showing every day as peak from December 15th onwards!

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