The HfP chat thread – Thursday 18th February

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• Jonathan says:

  18 Feb18 February 13:50

  Can a Revolut account be opened without any unavoidable fees, I know the their pay accounts offer free delivery and their free account requires a £4.99 delivery for the card, but what if you don’t need the card ?

  • Paasan69 says:

    18 Feb18 February 13:56

    Yes, you may open account without fees. If you don’t need a physical card, you can create a virtual one.

    • EwanG says:

      18 Feb18 February 15:05

      It also seems that the Revolut Business account allows you to order a physical card for free – combine this with the £50 on offer for referring a new business which subsequently spends £200 on that card (or a virtual card would be simpler) for some easy money!

  • Track says:

    18 Feb18 February 15:04

    Unfortunately, nothing much behind Revolut. Can’t exchange more than 1000, then fees kick-in. FX rate is no longer spot — consistently worse.

    Plus new fees for international transfers. Plus regular reviews (semi-annual).

    Now a hassle.

• Doog1000 says:

  18 Feb18 February 14:08

  Sorry for another bendy question – for those getting emailed and their account paused are they Metal fronted customers – the whole point of fronted seems to be to enable a credit card to be used as a debit card so seems odd they have an issue with this as this has been a key selling point
  I’ve been putting larger sums via Ernie since the limits were raised and wondered if I should be doing this via fronted

  • The real John says:

    18 Feb18 February 14:22

    You can’t choose to use fronted. If you are not metal and you turn fronted off, any transactions requiring it will just get declined. Ernie doesn’t require it, so if you have fronted on ernie will still go through without the 1.5%

  • mark2 says:

    18 Feb18 February 16:55

    My account is locked and I have got the clunky metal card!

    • Doog1000 says:

      18 Feb18 February 17:44

      thanks Mark – so metal no way to avoid a lock! how much were you putting through if I may ask and is there any prospect of unlocking if you commit to easing off?

  • Harrier25 says:

    18 Feb18 February 19:28

    May I just point out that you don’t have a right to pay off a credit card with another credit card just because Curve say you can if you pay them £150 a year.

    • Lady London says:

      18 Feb18 February 21:49

      Thank you for pointing that out. In case anyone had missed it.

      • Polly says:

        19 Feb19 February 00:15

        LL your reply had me laughing out loud.. talk about stating the obvious in their comment…H25 l mean… seriously, where have they been the last couple of years!

    • John says:

      19 Feb19 February 05:10

      It’s curve doing the suspending though. At least they must refund the metal fee if they don’t let you use their product

      And you do have the right to do that- it’s not illegal but the underlying card company also has the right to prevent it and close your account.

• Navara says:

  18 Feb18 February 14:15

  Greece may allow the vaccinated this summer
  https://apple.news/Av3n1_RYMRQKbsg2Dt1j5Sw

  • The Lord says:

    18 Feb18 February 14:31

    Seems sensible. I struggle to believe that after being able to go away last summer, albeit the window was short, that we wont be able to go away this summer. The list of possible options might be smaller and more hoops to jump through but it will be possible. Even if Sturge decides to ban travel that just means Newcastle Airport will have a great summer 2021.

    • BJ says:

      18 Feb18 February 15:23

      …possibly because the government can kill two (or three or more) birds with one stone – press ahead with the vaccinations, get the virus successfully suppressed, get life back to something closer to normal within the UK, and enjoy the benefit of that and the holiday pot getting invested in the UK economy.

      • chabuddy geezy says:

        18 Feb18 February 18:06

        An issue with that is that most domestic hotels and places to stay will be at capacity even if we are allowed to travel abroad. You will also see more redundancies in the aviation and travel sector if travel abroad is banned.

        • Rob says:

          18 Feb18 February 18:28

          Yes, I was never under the impression that huge amounts of U.K. holiday accommodation was sitting empty in August because everyone was off abroad.

        • Ken says:

          18 Feb18 February 19:33

          Indeed – trying to book a decent cottage or house in school holidays, half terms & new year has always been peak prices & full.

          What we really need is lots of Japanese, Chinese and Americans spending money here rather than people whinging that they could get food and 6 pints of Stella in Benidorm for the price of a cheese ploughman’s in a pub here.

• Damien says:

  18 Feb18 February 14:43

  How does it work if BA cancel the return leg of an Avios flight just a few days before the outbound one is due, but >14 for the return leg they cancelled?

  Do you still get to claim compensation? And can you still get them to book you onto any carrier for both legs at a later date?

  • Scallder says:

    18 Feb18 February 15:19

    Yes you can still force them to put you on another carrier (although from memory they have the right first to give a reasonable alternative – say a day either side perhaps). 14 days is only for cash compensation. All other safeguards still exist. But it does now allow you to cancel the whole ticket and not be charged cancellation fees if you wish

    • Anna says:

      18 Feb18 February 15:35

      No compensation anyway at the moment due to extraordinary circs.

    • Damien says:

      18 Feb18 February 16:02

      So my outgoing would be on the 28th Feb which they haven’t cancelled, but they have just literally cancelled the return leg on the 11th. So the outgoing is less than 14 days, but the return (part that’s cancelled isn’t). What I’d really want now is to be able to rebook at any later date without having to find Avios availability….. Online doesn’t seem to be allowing it. It’s checking for avios availability…. but I’m wondering if they’re supposed to be more flexible given the outbound < 14 days

      • Lady London says:

        18 Feb18 February 16:51

        yes you have to call.
        if they cancel even one flight o your booking you can choose a later date convenient to *you* to rebook (=”reroute”) the whole booking. Even if a 241, voucher, discount, avios etc.

        You do *not* need an avios seat to be available on your new date. If they’re selling any seat in your cabin you have a right to it.

        This under statute EU261 now in UK law. As a statute it outranks anything BA ever says, writes, publishes, or fantasises about.

        So some BA agents may tell you you can only rebook to a date say, 3 days before or 14 days after or onto a date in same peak/offpeak season or where there is a full moon, not true. *you* choose a date for same travel convenient to *you*.

        There is a minor admin issue where it turns out it doesn’t work for you to travel till more than 12 months after you booked in that BA would have to issue a new ticket due IATA ticketing rules but EU261 is a right to travel rule not a ticketing rule so if your reason is reasonable then BA can easily issue a new ticket to reroute you by endorsing it INVOL.

        As your cancellef flight is not the first one on your ticket let BA know you won’t be flying it as currently before the departure date and that you intend to reroute and will call them back when you’ve decided. You don’t have to decide before the departure date but it will stop you looking like a no-show.

        • Damien says:

          18 Feb18 February 17:23

          This is very reassuring. The original ticket was booked on the 28th of March, so I do have some hotels booked to cover the 2 weeks before this. But given the likelihood of lockdown still kicking around, I would prefer to go later on.. I’ll look up and see if there’s other hotel availability later in the year and see if I can get them to do that.

          cheers

        • Damien says:

          26 Feb26 February 14:17

          FYI. Phoned up and rebooked there now. Initial person on the BA line was really quite rude. Insisted there was no way that it could change beyond the 1 year of issue. Said it wasn’t EU261 and when I asked to talk to someone else said “you can hang up and phone again”. Second call was lovely, person obviously knew the system and wasn’t reading from a prepared script to force people to take FTVs. Sorted it in a few minutes. The difference was stark!

• Dom B says:

  18 Feb18 February 14:45

  How does comment moderation work here? I posted a comment at 13:58 and whilst it was still awaiting moderation I replied to myself at 14:07 and both showed as awaiting moderation. The reply was then accepted and didn’t show awaiting moderation anymore, the original comment it was in reply to however still shows as awaiting moderation which means neither are visible!

  • Rob says:

    18 Feb18 February 15:06

    If you’ve not posted before, one of us needs to approve your comment. Certain key words can also cause a block.

    Rarely an issue Mon-Fri but sometimes Rhys and I are off on other things and it can sit for a while.

• Geoff says:

  18 Feb18 February 15:08

  The Greece tourism minister has said that summer holidays could be on for vaccinated Brits.

  Vaccination certificates are going to become quite common aren’t they?

  • Andrew says:

    18 Feb18 February 17:39

    Depends if the U.K. government issues them. At this stage it also poses an issue of age discrimination and in some cases always disability discrimination if the access to some goods and services in U.K. were to require a vaccination certificate.

    • Ken says:

      18 Feb18 February 19:36

      Age discrimination claim against the Greek government?

      Good luck with that one, regardless of who issues the vaccination certificate

  • TGLoyalty says:

    18 Feb18 February 19:18

    Perhaps for summer 2021 as vaccinations will be low worldwide.

    Once the local population has had there’s I don’t see the point.

    • Ken says:

      18 Feb18 February 19:48

      We don’t know what percentage vaccination rate is required for herd immunity. We are guessing it’s 80-85%. It’s an educated guess but a guess all the same.

      I think the UK will struggle to get past 85% and some European countries will undoubtedly be worse.
      In addition we think that regular vaccinations will be required.

      People’s common sense & idea of social distancing measures go out the window on holiday.

      Whatever the logic, i reckon we could have a good few years where various places will require a vaccination certificate.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        18 Feb18 February 20:49

        Don’t know where this 85% myth has come from.

        If 50% of the population have some immunity (vaccine or natural) the R is chopped in half. M

        Once you’ve vaccinated the majority of the those in your population that end up in hospital then this really is no more of a problem than any other air borne virus.

        People will get Covid 19 for years to come and what a good vaccination programme for the at risk that shouldn’t strike fear into your soul just like catching flu doesn’t.

        Regular vaccines will absolutely be required for those at most risk.

• The Lord says:

  18 Feb18 February 15:09

  Wonder if the upgrade voucher is a like for like replacement of the old Lloyds one?

• Oli says:

  18 Feb18 February 15:17

  I just had Eurostar to confirm that a point transfer into an account resets the points expiry. I have not travelled with them for 23 months but transferred points into my account from another Eurostar account last July:

  ”You are correct that, as points have been shared into your account, this activity will prevent the expiry of your points until July 2022. If you were to travel or apply another qualifying activity, the two year validity will start from the newest activity date.”

  • Rich says:

    18 Feb18 February 17:03

    Yep, any activity resets it for 24 months. I know this to my cost!

  • southlondonphil says:

    18 Feb18 February 17:35

    Just had an email from Eurostar extending points expiry to 30th December 2021 (oddly not 31st!??). Points were due to expire in September, so only another 12 weeks grace period which is fairly meaningless but you take what you can get.

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