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The HfP chat thread – Thursday 25th February

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Comments (337)

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

  • ant says:
    25 Feb25 February 12:44

    Hi I would like to try & book a long distance flights using an FTV with avios & cash on a flight that hopefully would get cancelled. Any suggestions on routes?

    The FTV came about as the agent found it too complicated to change my booking to a different route & i did not want to risk losing the reward availability so just did a new booking & cancelled the original for an FTV.

    • Pablo says:
      25 Feb25 February 13:13

      You won’t gain anything by doing that. If they cancel the flight which you bought with a FTV, you will get back the FTV again.

      • E says:
        25 Feb25 February 13:18

        No, you won’t. If the cancel the Avios flight you’ve booked with a FTV then you get the Avios and cash back. This happened to me recently and instead of getting the FTV back, I got the cash and Avios back as though I’d not used a FTV.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    25 Feb25 February 13:37

    TUI just pulled their Aberdeen Airport based aircraft – so down from 10 routes to four for this summer.

    They obviously know stuff about forward bookings etc. Reinforces my feeling that less popular routes just won’t get the booking to justify operating this year.

    Will they next year? That’s the key question for Easyjet, Ryanair and Jet2 – and people with holiday homes bought because they were on a LoCo direct route.

    • Colin MacKinnon says:
      25 Feb25 February 13:38

      Ooops, meant to put the BBC link:

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-56194305

    • BJ says:
      25 Feb25 February 14:34

      I’m curious to see if Jet2 benefit at the expense of Ryanair and Easyjet given their respective responses to the pandemic. I aim to book them for our flight to Gran Canaria that we missed out on last spring.

      • Colin MacKinnon says:
        25 Feb25 February 15:33

        Funnily, after my experience with Jet2 – booked flight on Monday for Weds morning, flight then cancelled on the Tuesday afternoon, but Glasgow and Edinburgh flights to Tenerife ran – I’d go with Easyjet (flew an empty aircraft to Lanzarote to pick up 15 passengers) or Ryanair (continued to operate when Jet2 binned everything) and Easyjet and Ryanair who still operate Canaries to UK and Ireland, albeit just a few flights a week.

        • Super Secret Stuff says:
          25 Feb25 February 15:45

          Jet2 have very rarely cancelled anything at such short notice.

          I suspect easyjet did that flight for another other than to collect 15 passengers. Maybe something to do with crew or a lazy controller?

          Jet2 have been really, really good over the last year

          • yorkieflyer says:
            26 Feb26 February 00:47

            not in my experience, Jet2 selling seats last year a week out then repeatedly cancelling, very sharp practice. Ryanair have maintained lifeline flights even with very low loadings, credit where credit is due.

        • BJ says:
          25 Feb25 February 15:54

          Thanks to both, I wasn’t going to book anything before BKK which is already booked in for December. However, I’m itching to go someplace now so might have a look at early November; might be smart to get out of here during the climate summit in Glasgow. Canaries will be a first for us so quite looking forward to it.

    • Chrism20 says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:55

      The Aberdeen based was a Sunwing frame which they will probably not be getting this year. Given the amount of Ws the ABZ aircraft done anyway it was likely to be one of the first to go. I’m sure it done at least three Ws a week.

  • Sandgrounder says:
    25 Feb25 February 14:27

    I have had my complaint to Virgin dismissed about their undisclosed requirement to be able to evidence enough recent travel on Virgin/JV routes to have qualified for status, in order to be status matched to an airline other than BA. Disappointed, but once travel opens up again I’ll just put my pent-up spend through OW to take advantage of my Qatar status instead I suppose.

    • babyg_wc says:
      25 Feb25 February 20:18

      I’ve found usually asking nicely works better than a complaint with virgin…

    • Jonathan says:
      25 Feb25 February 22:41

      Waste of time complaining as status matches are completely discretionary so they can refuse whoever they want.

      It’s also been their long-standing practice to require evidence of travel on VS routes for all matches (including BA).

      It makes sense to them to try & steal some BAEC members now hence the relaxation of this requirement for them but that doesn’t mean they want to open the floodgates to all & sundry. The terms you were offered were still far better than anything BA ever offer!

      • Sandgrounder says:
        25 Feb25 February 22:56

        I have heard that this is a long-standing practice, but it certainly wasn’t mentioned in this campaign. I wouldn’t have booked a flight I could have got cheaper elsewhere if I would have known the rules in advance. It’s my own fault, I was going to liquidate my miles asap and have no more to do with them after the delays in refunding me last year. Should have taken my own advice.

  • Mike says:
    25 Feb25 February 14:28

    Where is Curve live chat located?

    • mark2 says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:15

      Do you mean how to access it?
      I hope to be proved wrong, but I do not think that such a facility exists as it would conflict with the Curve ethos of no support.
      I have a metal card and my card has been blocked since 5th Feb because I invested some money in Premium Bonds. They asked me for copies of the card statements but chose the supplementary cards on my wife’s accounts and seemed not to understand the concept. I asked if they will still charge me while my account is blocked, but radio silence!

    • Sina says:
      25 Feb25 February 16:52

      It’s the last button on your Accounts tab on iOS, not sure about Android?!

  • BJ says:
    25 Feb25 February 14:46

    To date I have only had an amex card linked to my PayPal account. I decided today to link a current account at Halifax. During the process it is requiring me to authorise a direct debit. Is this correct, do they use the direct debit mechanism to facilitate transfers between PayPal and tbe bank account?

    • 747_Brat says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:05

      You can skip setting up the direct debit mandate, and can still link an account without it. If you skip the DD, on the “wallet” section, you will see an exclamation mark (!) next to your bank account, but it works fine for paying for your purchases and withdrawing money to your bank account.

  • Mike says:
    25 Feb25 February 14:56

    Returning to the UK:

    For the day 2 and day 8 testing requirements, arrival day is day 0, hence you can have two nights before you need to pay for the silly test. For a one night trip, it therefore means it’s possible to avoid these tests because you would leave the country before that deadline is reached?

    • meta says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:03

      I think you need to pre-book tests and put in the code into the Passenger locator form. It’s checked by the Border Force so no way to avoid it.

      • idrive says:
        25 Feb25 February 15:06

        Also, you need to check if Airlines are now enforcing travel ban for permitted reasons (are they now obliged to?). Any news?
        It depends if you are Uk resident or National, they may not even let you in at some point. As meta said, i believe you need the booking prior to entry.

    • John says:
      25 Feb25 February 17:55

      You have to pay for the tests but you won’t need to take them

  • Kevin D says:
    25 Feb25 February 15:16

    What was the big points news Rob teased us about yesterday? Or did I dream that?

    • Rhys says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:18

      Sliiiiiightly delayed!

      • Doug M says:
        25 Feb25 February 15:25

        Interesting. Rather like someone that commented I thought it was the Amex bonus increase and was underwhelmed. Good if there’s good news still to come.

      • stevenhp1987 says:
        25 Feb25 February 15:27

        I assumed it was the Amex Biz bonus yesterday he was referring to when he mentioned that 2 days ago…

      • BJ says:
        25 Feb25 February 15:29

        Me too, and I don’t usually miss much.

        Btw Harry, did you cancel your Japan trip or decide to keep it for a bit longer?

        • Harry T says:
          25 Feb25 February 16:12

          @BJ waiting to see if BA cancel first. I don’t think we will be able to go, even though I’m fully vaccinated now. I can’t really see Japan opening up to the UK by June.

          • BJ says:
            25 Feb25 February 16:52

            If the dates work for you then you could take a punt on being there for cherry blossom next year. That’s what I decided to fo as I’ve never been there at that time.

      • Alex D says:
        25 Feb25 February 17:00

        so it wasn’t the amex plat bonus?!?

    • Harry T says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:21

      I missed this!

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:54

      Barclays avios?

  • Aston100 says:
    25 Feb25 February 15:46

    I found a 1000 mr for £200 spend anywhere (by 12th April) on my Amex PRG.
    No idea when this appeared, I guess I must have missed the article.

    Has anyone successfully used this on a PayPal transaction?

    • Harry T says:
      25 Feb25 February 15:49

      Should work for anything. They actually gave me the points twice but then withdrew one aliquot.

    • 747_Brat says:
      25 Feb25 February 16:03

      Doesn’t work on PayPal, I am afraid. I have a first hand experience of this. They refused to pay me the bonus on PayPal transactions done on eBay. Amex treated PayPal as a payment aggregator and there are specific T&Cs on the offer excluding such transactions!

      • Track says:
        25 Feb25 February 16:52

        This Payment Aggregator term ruins the offer.

        I have an executive education bill, and utility bill that would not be eligible.

        Besides, it is not possible to know if the Merchant is submitting a transaction via Stripe — there is no notification/or sign!

        • Jay says:
          25 Feb25 February 19:31

          Payments processed via Stripe work fine as they are nor an aggregator, just provide merchant accounts.

    • Track says:
      25 Feb25 February 16:57

      Has anyone tried this or alike with Billhop? Offer triggered?

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      25 Feb25 February 17:16

      That popped up about a week ago, its a good offer. Surprisingly no restrictions other than payment aggregators

    • Rob says:
      25 Feb25 February 17:31

      It’s £200 by 12th April …. even my 13 year old will spend that much. No need to manufacture any spend!

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