Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Monday 22nd 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 (359)

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

  • womble88 says:
    22 Feb22 February 11:37

    My wife hasn’t had any Amex card for over 2 years now. I have the BA Amex Premium Plus consistently for the vouchers. What’s the best way to maximize new sign up points for my wife through my account? Is it just to refer her for a gold account or is there a better way of doing this? Thanks.

    • Rhys says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:49

      This guide should help to explain which order to do things in: https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/01/22/how-a-couple-can-earn-186875-avios-from-american-express/
      This is for two new applicants, but the principle is the same – you just refer from your BAPP.

      • womble88 says:
        22 Feb22 February 16:35

        Thanks but my confusion on that article is that it asks you to apply for several Amex cards and you can’t have held one for two years but once you have been accepted for one aren’t you immediately ineligible for the sign up bonuses on the other cards? Or am I missing something here?

        • BuildBackBetter says:
          22 Feb22 February 18:34

          Cards have different eligibility requirements

        • Kevin D says:
          22 Feb22 February 23:58

          No. Essentially you can look at it as 3 different types of cards. One collects Nectar points, one collects MR points and one collects Avios.

          I suggest…

          Refer her for Amex Nectar Card. You get 5000 Nectar points = 3125 Avios.
          She gets 21000 Nectar points = 13125 (Must spend 2k in 3 months)

          Refer her for Amex Platinum card. You get 5000 Nectar points = 3125 Avios.
          She gets 35000 MR points = 35000 Avios. (Must spend 4k in 3 months and note £575 fee per annum but can cancel after you hit spend and get the 35000 points and you will be refunded pro rata.

          Refer her for BA PP Amex. You get 9000 Avios.
          She gets 26000 Avios (Must spend 3k in 3 months)

          You can refer her for 1, 2 or all 3 and she will be entitled to bonus sign ups on each one.

  • ChrisC says:
    22 Feb22 February 12:16

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/22/british-airways-pension-covid-flights-loan?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    BA deferring £450m payments (a years worth) to one of its pension schemes.until Sept 2021 to cover a pre COVID deficit.

    Part of the agreement is that it won’t pay dividends to IAG until at least 2023

  • Matthew says:
    22 Feb22 February 12:33

    Sorry, I know its been mentioned before but I can find the thread with the answer. Have a supp card for my wife’s PRG but I still don’t have any offers loaded on to it (been a month of no offers available). Never had this issue before and my wife’s card has offers. Tried removing from online services and adding again but no luck. Any thoughts how to fix this? Thanks

  • James. says:
    22 Feb22 February 12:49

    Hi, seem previous posts regarding Trading 212. Looking to take the leap and invest. any tips, guidance, referrals etc

    • IanM says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:00

      I think 212 have stopped taking any new clients, too much demand. Try etoro….they are all pretty much the same. Trading 212 has quite a restricted set of stocks available

      If you’re thinking of crypto then Binance is quite good and you can deposit via credit/debit

    • Rhys says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:27

      There’s a waitlist for T212 but I believe you can still sign up for the refferal and get a free share when it’s your turn:
      http://www.trading212.com/invite/GISlRsY8

      What I like about T212 is the ‘pies’ you can create – essentially a mix of stocks/funds etc that you can automatically balance etc. Makes keeping track and topping up much easier.

      If you don’t want to wait (or want to try multiple platforms) Freetrade also does referral shares (and doesn’t have a waiting list!): https://magic.freetrade.io/join/rhys/dd5e9b4a

      Thanks – let me know what you get!

      • James. says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:46

        I am probably too late to the Tesla bandwagon as 12-24 months ago would have been best. Looking at NIO.just filing a tie at the moment.

        Anyone else have any tips?

        Any ideas of Curve can be used for top ups with no cash advances on underlying

        • Rhys says:
          22 Feb22 February 13:51

          My tip is not to bother with active investing but to just invest in passive index funds. Everything else is akin to gambling.

          • RussellH says:
            22 Feb22 February 16:31

            Quite. Plan to invest for a minimum of 5 years, or accept that you are, in fact, gambling.
            That said, if something I invested in had doubled in value in, say, 18 months, while the rest of the market had gone up by ~15%, I would be selling half thlding and banking the profit.

          • Genghis says:
            22 Feb22 February 16:40

            The purest passive investor would say that you don’t need pies but only one global market cap weighted fund. Having non-market cap allocations to index funds is still active investing: what says that you know more about the allocation of capital than the market?

          • TGLoyalty says:
            22 Feb22 February 19:49

            There’s always a time a place

        • IanM says:
          22 Feb22 February 14:32

          I tried to use Curve on etoro and it failed, although it may be the underlying IHG card.

          Not sure we want to get into stock tips on this site.

          • RussellH says:
            22 Feb22 February 16:27

            Creation have blocked payments to Trading 212. Tried using both my Marriott and IHG cards. Transaction goes through the full process, card details, OTP sent to my phone and accepted, then Trading 212 says that the tranaction was denied.
            Hilton Visa works fine, though. Have not tried Virgin Atlantic…

        • Mr. AC says:
          22 Feb22 February 15:12

          Curve can be used with T212, but only the first 2k top-up is free via any type of cards, then there’s a 0.7% fee. BACS is free.

        • Alan says:
          22 Feb22 February 18:52

          Not on the ones I have tried – HL and etoro

      • Crispr says:
        22 Feb22 February 14:43

        Rhys what shares are you getting? are they typically sub £10 of value?

        • Rhys says:
          22 Feb22 February 14:47

          The lowest I’ve had is around £5 but most have been between £10-£40. Worth signing up even if you’re not really interested in investing.

          • Super Secret Stuff says:
            22 Feb22 February 16:47

            Slightly cobtrovertial opinion, I think norwegian air is undervalued and once they start flying again outside of Norway the price will go soaring up. Potentially to more than pre-pandemic levels as they will have managed to wiggle free of the 737 Max and 787 engine problems

            (Runs for cover)

      • Kevin D says:
        23 Feb23 February 00:05

        Thanks Rhys
        Any thoughts on etoro?

  • Ash Raj says:
    22 Feb22 February 12:49

    Hi does anyone know where to check your Virgin CC anniversary date or what remaining spend is required to hit the 20K to attain a companion voucher? Thanks

    • IanM says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:00

      Check your statements

    • Alex says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:18

      You can call and they’ll give you a year to date spend, I did this about 2 weeks ago and was easy enough

      • Rich says:
        22 Feb22 February 14:03

        Presumably your year starts when you opened the account, then restarts with your 13th statement?

    • James. says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:47

      I am keeping a closer eye on this now given they took 5-6 months to credit my reward after prompts and chasing

      • Alex D says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:52

        now they have removed online, i have opted for paper statements so it’s easier for me to keep track as-well. just going to add up the totals myself in a spreadsheet. Hopefully now it’s app only they’ll actually make it decent like AMEX.

  • Keely says:
    22 Feb22 February 13:23

    Morning all speculatively looking at avoid flights to Spain in august in the hope we can get somewhere- not a lot left…but loads to San Sebastián. Any advice what it’s like please?

    • marcw says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:31

      Food. Food. Food.

    • BSI1978 says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:31

      An absolute delight, particularly for food and at that time of year will be thoroughly decent weather I’d imagine. Will be intrigued as to how long you are going for, we’ve done long weekends previously.

      Possibly not enough for say 2 weeks, but easy enough to also venture to Bilbao and Biarritz (subject to borders regs. I guess)

      • Keely says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:44

        I’m just looking for a quick week away , somewhere no more than 4 hours flight away . What are the prices like please? We are in our early 50s, like walking , but do like somewhere there’s a bit of life too . (We have Santorini booked in June and I’m keeping everything crossed for that ! )

    • Craig says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:32

      Love the place, very easy to get lost amongst the fabulous tapas bars.

    • Michael C says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:42

      As others have mentioned, excellent (not always cheap) food. V nice city-centre beach. However, no guarantee of weather (three times London’s annual rainfall). City is small, but plenty of nice daytrips around, including Hondarribia on the Spanish side, and St-Jean-de-Luz in France. Small-track train chugs west along the northern coast.

      • Keely says:
        22 Feb22 February 13:45

        Thank you ,that’s interesting re the weather as I’d just presumed it would be lovely in August .

    • ChrisBCN says:
      22 Feb22 February 13:48

      Beautiful but smallish place. A historic resort for Spanish royalty to visit. Very busy in normal summers. Great for eating out, I wouldn’t spend any longer than 3 or 4 nights here, maybe pop along the coast to Bilbao. You can do that on the train (it’s slow but good scenery) or driving is faster. Bilbao has museums and great food too, although I find it an ugly looking city in parts!

    • Anna says:
      22 Feb22 February 14:26

      Keely, northern Spain is beautiful and generally less busy than the south. You would have a much better chance of good weather heading over to the coast of Galicia – have you checked for avios availability to Oporto which is reasonably close to the Spanish border, or if that’s still likely to be closed Iberia used to fly to Santiago and Vigo which might be other options. There is sublime mountain scenery for walking, eucalyptus and pine forests and quiet, white sand beaches – google Cies Islands and Playa de Nerga for two examples!

      • Genghis says:
        22 Feb22 February 15:07

        +1 for the North Western Iberian peninsula. One of my most fun holidays. But going across borders probably not recommended in these times.

        Flew to Porto. Took an Uber to Vigo (only about EUR80 IIRC) for the Cies Islands, train to Santiago and then explored the Death Coast and then flew Santiago to Bilbao on Air Nostrum and then Bilbao to London (zone 1 so you’re not paying extra to go via MAD).

      • Keely says:
        22 Feb22 February 18:15

        Thank you Anna , that’s interesting, I’ll take a look. (I wish there was a notification to show you had a reply ..!)

    • Tony says:
      22 Feb22 February 22:06

      Avoid the Mercure on the hill. Only go for the view. Don’t stay. There is a “lift” from the end of the beach.

  • Craig says:
    22 Feb22 February 13:24

    Well that was a tease, email from Aegean saying something is waiting in the app. They obviously sent it to everyone at the same time and the server can’t cope with the load!

  • Michael C says:
    22 Feb22 February 13:37

    Just looking at booking a suite at the Sheraton Rio for Jan.
    The hotel’s webpage says cancellable until Oct., then charge full price. When I book, will they charge my Amex immediately even though the reservation is cancellable??
    Booking.com says cancellable until the day before – but of course, no rewards points, right?

    • Harry T says:
      22 Feb22 February 19:22

      Should say if they charge a deposit up front in the rate terms and conditions. I always screenshot them too for posterity. There’s a difference between prepaid and non refundable rates, and prepaid and refundable rates too. Marriott is usually quite explicit if a rate is prepaid and/or non refundable.

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