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The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 17th 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.

Please only comment under the main articles on the site if your comment is directly related to the topic of the article.  This has long-term benefits as it keeps the commentary relevant for people who read those articles in the future.

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Comments (287)

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

  • xcalx says:

    A compound interest question
    £0 start
    £18.50 per month for 424 month : 35years and 4 month
    @ 5% compound interest with yearly breaks
    = £54200 ish ( company calc) or £21700 ish (my online calc)

    My I must be doing something wrong, hopefully. Thanks.

    • stevenhp1987 says:

      Not sure what you mean by “yearly breaks”.

      I get £21,534.02 (if you add £18.50 on the first day of the month).

      https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoundinterestcalculator.php

      • xcalx says:

        It’s a small pension pot of £64000 ish I do not want to turn into £40-£50 per week. So I enquired about leaving it to be paid on death instead and was quoted £54000 ish
        The policy states If the annuitant dies before any benefit unde this policy has commenced to be payableand this policy is then in forceall premiumswhich have been paid will be repaid with compound interest at 5% per annumcalculated by yearly rests.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:

          Sounds like to me the difference in calculations is to do with company contributions on top of what you pay. So double the contribution amount and you should get to the same answer.

          I think it will more than double the pot because of the compound interest on higher interest amounts and so on

          • Super Secret Stuff says:

            Another thought, the difference between the age you retire and the average age of death will account for some difference as it will continue to grow at 5% a year

          • xcalx says:

            It is a private pension that I took out 35 years ago, so no company contributions. I phoned the pension company today and they are going to send me the formula they have used to arrive at £54k

          • xcalx says:

            @SSS pension is paid up so no more contributions. I asked them for a figure if payable on death today (this was last month) I am happy with the figure they provided but am convinced it’s wrong.

          • kitten says:

            pension tax relief on top, at your marginal rate of tax? so being credited at a much higher amount than £18.50.

            Rumours Rishi might have to look at taking the ‘marginal’ out and replacing with ‘basic’ at some point. So the sums might not work the same way soon.

    • The cyclist says:

      Probably enough to pay for a decent funeral in 35 years time.

    • Genghis says:

      I make it just over £21k, with contributions at start of the month and interest compounded annually.

  • W. says:

    Hi

    I’m scheduled to fly to Belfast from Heathrow on Friday morning, flying back home, been working in London and will be flying back to London on Monday. Are there any restrictions of flying domestically within the UK (or GB to NI)?

    I’ve spoken to BA a couple of times re this. The first consultant I spoke to told me to contact the British Embassy!!! The second consultant just referred me to the UK Gov website, but also to “contact the Irish Government”. By this point I was getting frustrated by what I was told by two different people at BA.

    Please would any HFP readers be able to help and clarifity any restrictions between London and Belfast (and return).

    Thanks for your help.

  • Tom says:

    The Daily Mail Nectar offer is dead – email cancellation because i wasn’t in their email list who got the offer.

    • Hotelier says:

      +1
      Just received it!

    • Lloyd says:

      Same, payment refunded as the offer was only sent to a group of personalised customers.

    • Phil says:

      Snap,

      “Thank you for subscribing to The Ultimate Pack (with £150 worth of Nectar points). This subscription was only offered to a group of selected MyMail customers who were sent a personalised email inviting them to take up this offer.

      As our records show you were not part of that group, unfortunately we are unable to accept your subscription and your payment has now been refunded to you.”

    • Ryan says:

      +1
      They obviously had a great influx of customers all of a sudden

    • Youllnever says:

      Yup dead as a 🦆. Weirdly enough, the subscription itself doesn’t seem to have been cancelled yet – does that mean I need to call them up to actually cancel it?

    • BuildBackBetter says:

      +1. Someone doesn’t like HfP fans reading daily mail.

    • Harry T says:

      Honestly though, the people who rang to ask if they would get the nectar points after not being targeted are probably ideal Daily Mail customers, as they clearly don’t think before opening their mouth 😂

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Suggest everyone that signed up when there was no mention of it being targeted complains. Especially if payments were taken.

      • Alex Sm says:

        perfect opportunity for a class action!

      • Andy says:

        Are you serious? No mention of it being targeted because IT WAS TARGETED. You should never have seen it, so why would they have to say it was targeted. (face palm)

        • TGLoyalty says:

          You do realise how the internet works don’t you?

        • Rob says:

          The majority of deals we cover are only emailed to a few people but are not targeted.

          The email had a big slug of rules. Plenty of scope to mention it was not transferable if they wished.

        • Char Char says:

          Because it is in Google and clearly searchable, they could have simply requested email validation or just terms to avoid this situation

    • Alex Sm says:

      I received this email today but my partner received a different one with some contacts to ring/email to challenge their decision if one wishes

    • AndyW says:

      I’m amazed they had systems clever enough to figure this out

  • Harry T says:

    Thank you to the committed knuckleheads who were dense enough to call the Daily Mail and ask them if they were eligible for a targeted offer when they hadn’t been targeted… You killed an opportunity for everyone else who was savvy enough to recognise we could fly under the radar. Did you honestly expect the Daily Mail customer service to tell you that you were magically eligible for an offer you wouldn’t have know about without head for points sharing a targeted promotional email? This is almost as bad as the people who ring Virgin, Curve or IHG to tell them that their Ernie top ups via Curve aren’t working…

    • TGLoyalty says:

      +100

      We don’t need codes or to fly under the radar. Daily Mail CEO probably gets Robs mailer anyway ….

    • Andrew says:

      You mean I’m not supposed to ring Creation and say that? 😂

    • Callum says:

      I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have noticed either way. Just like with almost every other thing people claim was only discovered because people call in. I personally picked up on things like this happening (with far less severe consequences granted!) several times just by casually looking at what the system was generating in a previous job – it’s generally not hard!

      • TGLoyalty says:

        Perhaps they might have eventually but once the vouchers had landed on your doormat it would have been far too late.

        Instead the muppets gave them a heads up straight away!

        • Callum says:

          Purely depends on how their system works, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t incredibly obvious that sign ups suddenly spiked for no apparent reason.

    • bazza says:

      That’s your average head for points reader your talking about! Not sure old Rob will be impressed – talking about his London fliers like that!

    • bazza says:

      Think its more your Liberal Elite on here.

    • BJ says:

      Lol, sounds like The Original Harry T is back with a vengeance today 🙂

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      I think looking after ones self regardless if any cost to ‘others’ is the core characteristic of a Daily Mail reader no?

      • Freddy says:

        Almost as bad as someone helpfully explaining that beardy is the virgin card and Ernie is premium bonds….woops

  • Rich says:

    Am surprised no one wanted to buy a 12 year old A318 from BA and so they’re parting it out / scrapping it.

    • BJ says:

      Yeah, sign of the times. May be wrong but I thought a318s required shorter runways so would have thought that in itself would ensure a niche market for them.

      • Super Secret Stuff says:

        Very bad fuel efficency, better alternatives for private jets, not a single commercial operator really operates a large fleet of them.

        Great plane, bad circumstances

  • BJ says:

    My partner and I now had the email cancelling our Daily Rag 15k subscription. Anybody challenging the cancellations on the basis that there was nothing in the T&C specifying the offer was open to recipients of the email only?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Yes I’ve gone back saying just that.

      Especially when it’s not an obvious mis price.

    • shuggy says:

      yes – just emailed them saying so. Will be sending a letter next time I’m out for my Government sanctioned COVID compliant exercise – not a mis price, and the contract was accepted when they took the money and confirmed the subscription

      Associated Newspapers Ltd
      Northcliffe House
      2 Derry Street London W8 5TT

      • Callum says:

        Based on what law exactly?

        It very clearly was a mistake, and their terms and conditions clearly state that the order is only accepted once they’ve verified your details.

        Good luck – I despise that scummy paper and every penny they’re deprived of is great in my book. I just don’t think you have a leg to stand on.

        • shuggy says:

          a mistake! – not very clearly I would argue – they had various offers of digital for £1 for 8 weeks etc on their subscription page, so £26.40 + £150 worth of nectar points doesn’t seem un-reasonable or a mistake

          I’m not a lawyer, but me offering to purchase a subscription, DM taking the money and then emailing me to confirm my subscription + £150 of nectar points sounds like they agreed to a contract to me.
          they’ll either bluster for a bit and meet their obligations – balls currently in their court, well before it ends up in the Scottish Courts anyway 😉

          • memesweeper says:

            I’m not sure I’m up for the fight, but the confirmation email isn’t going to help their cause if it gets challenged…

          • Andy says:

            As you say, your not a lawyer. Although you might see certain offers on their site, you didn’t see this one, you know why, because it was targeted. So try telling a court that you just signed up because someone on the internet gave you a link to an offer that you were not entitled to.

          • Callum says:

            Please tell me that you thinking £1 for 8 weeks (effectively a free trial) is remotely similar to “pay £50 get £150 back” is just you being too close to this to see the obvious difference!

            The terms and conditions clearly state otherwise, and I can’t see an argument of that being an unfair contact term holding any weight. They’ll easily be able to argue that things like this are exactly why that term needs to be there! I’d love to see them lose in court (for any reason at all), but I think your confidence is misplaced.

          • TGLoyalty says:

            @callum their problem is they *confirmed* they accepted our subscriptions INCLUDING the £150 nectar.

            No thanks for your order we will let you know etc but confirmed!

            “Thank you for subscribing.

            We are delighted to confirm your subscription to the The Ultimate Pack + £150 worth of Nectar points “

        • BuildBackBetter says:

          So any contract can be broken claiming it was a mistake?
          Some legal expertise that is…

          • memesweeper says:

            ‘we didn’t mean to make the offer’ is *not* a defence… it was only an ‘invitation to treat’ *is* (google that wonderful phrase!). Unfortunately for them they doubled-down on their error in the email with what looks a lot to me like an acceptance.

            I was thinking I couldn’t be arsed, but you know what? I hate the Mail… so maybe…

          • Anna says:

            “Treat” as in “negotiate” or “bargain”, not as in to buy yourself something nice! This phrase gets misinterpreted even more than “survival of the fittest” …

          • Callum says:

            Their argument will be the contract was never finalised, regardless of the confirmation email – as per their terms and conditions.

            I view them as fair, if you lot are so certain they’re not then feel free to sue them. I’ve never claimed to have “legal expertise” and, as I keep saying, anything that damages that scummy excuse for a newspaper is ok in my book!

        • Char Char says:

          You can’t argue with Callum, that is their whole purpose of being here to prove that every HFP is in the wrong because of his superior knowledge and training in every area of life

        • Char Char says:

          Stop referring to the offer as targeted, you can search google and the page comes up so no unique email needed. You need to stop arguing with people this is not Twitter

      • A says:

        Does anyone have a cut and paste of the T+Cs relating to their right to verify mentioned by @ Callum? Thanks

        • shuggy says:

          This is from the T&C’s presented on the offer, early Saturday morning

          “3.3. By submitting your payment and other Subscription details, you are making an offer to us to buy a Subscription. Your offer will only be accepted by us and a contract formed when we have successfully verified your details, at which point we will provide you with access to your Subscription (and, if applicable, your 13 week voucher book which will be posted to you and which should arrive within 14 days of taking out your Subscription). We reserve the right to reject any offer by you at our discretion, for any or no reason..”

          “verified your details” I only provided them my name address and payment details, answered no other questions

          • Tony says:

            Does anyone want to buy a Vacuum Cleaner – I think that Hover are doing some promotion or other …

          • TGLoyalty says:

            Yup and my account showed as a subscriber some time after as I recall trying to enter the competitions in the afternoon but couldn’t and then trying again Saturday night and it working.

          • A says:

            Thanks – that’s helpful.

            Is there anything else in the T+Cs relating to acceptance of their offer, or payment?

            Were you provided with access to the subscription at all?

            Thanks

          • shuggy says:

            Tony – I was just thinking that this is turning into the Hoover fiasco, I remember that very well

            A
            why is it helpful?

          • shuggy says:

            A
            To answer your question, yes, i have a subscription and can see the current and previous copies of the DM – god it’s an awful paper

          • High Grade says:

            From reading the t&c’s my take on it is, if they confirm by email and gave us access to our subscription, then they are accepting our offer and a contract is formed. Not a lawyer but it seems pretty clear to me. Whether I can be bothered to persue it is another matter.

          • A says:

            Shuggy

            It was helpful in the sense that I didn’t have a copy but now i do, that’s all!

            But more broadly – if anyone received a confirmation email, and then was in fact given access to the subscription (in the sense of online access) before DM purported to cancel, looks a lot like that was them accepting your offer per their T+Cs

          • shuggy says:

            Well i have just recieved an email “as per your request we’ve cancelled your membership”

            I have written back explaining i didnt request any such thing and given them 14 days to honour the contract, ironically i still have access to my subscription 🤷‍♂️

            I no longer want the nectar points now, they’ll be donated/converted to a food shop, and donated to a food bank. I have disdain for big companies thinking they can just do what they like because it’s their ball and they’re no longer want to play

  • Hotelier says:

    Nectar questions.
    1- I think I saw an offer last week (500 NP??) for first time users of the Shop & Go app at Sainsbury’s. Tried to find it today to go in store and couldn’t find it or remember where I saw it (HfP, Nectar app..) someone knows or was I dreaming?
    2- Slowly working my way to the £400 spend at Sainsbury… Planning to buy Sainsbury’s gift cards to reach at the end but realised doesn’t get you NP on purchase… do you get points when using them ? Or are you simply giving up on those points? I mean the points per pound spent at Sainsbury’s not the ones from Sainsbury CC
    Thanks

    • Lord Doncaster says:

      You get nectar points on your Sainsbury’s purchases when you use a giftcard as payment.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:

      1) it’s targeted so you probably read it on HfP but it’s not on your card
      2) no NP on purchases of the gift card. NP when you spend the giftcard and scan your nectar card

  • 747_Brat says:

    I received the Daily Mail cancellation email, but no signs of refund (paid for my subscription via PayPal). Those of you who mentioned above that they have received the refund. Please could you confirm after how long did you receive the refund, after getting the cancellation email?
    Thanks.

    • Bill says:

      PayPal- instant refund

    • rjn21 says:

      Nothing received in my PayPal. I’ve sent an email to the PayPal contact address from the transaction, asking for refund within 24 hours, or a PayPal Buyer Protection dispute will be opened.

      • 747_Brat says:

        Thanks @rjn21
        I would give them a call tomorrow asking for a refund, failing which I would also raise a dispute.

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