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The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 3rd March

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We are running 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 (292)

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

  • Anonymous says:
    3 Mar3 March 16:30

    We purchased Covid testing kits for the day 2 and day 8 tests. Ordered them on the day the website went live. Paid with Amex still haven’t been charged for them. Even though we’ve used and received results for the test kits. Anyone else have a similar experience?

  • BuildBackBetter says:
    3 Mar3 March 17:08

    Krisflyer 50% off redemptions. Travel by 31st Oct, book by 8th March!
    Time to empty your MRs?

    • KBuffett says:
      3 Mar3 March 17:11

      Wow!
      But Singapore aren’t letting travellers in!!

      • Aston100 says:
        3 Mar3 March 17:29

        Can’t imagine it would take very long for Singapore to get their population vaccinated.

    • Andrew M says:
      3 Mar3 March 17:36

      Seems to be only for flights from London to Colombo, Bangkok and The Maldives up to 31/10/21. That’s what the email I received from them said. I initially thought it was for all flights.

      • Andrew M says:
        3 Mar3 March 17:38

        and LHR – Phuket as well.

      • Andrew M says:
        3 Mar3 March 17:43

        It’s also worth noting that the Krisflyer mileage rates on those routes via Singapore aren’t particularly cheap, even with a 50% discount, as they involve a fair about of backtracking,

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    3 Mar3 March 17:33

    So the contact tracers still can’t find 34 people who were on the LHR-Aberdeen flight with Scotland’s three Brazilian Covideers.

    Now, I am presuming most people would have been travelling on business, probably quite a few long-haul. So does that mean as many as 34 weren’t BAEC members?

    You would think – based on this bubble – that everyone travelling for work would be avid Avios collectors!

    Rob, do you know how many BAEC members are on a typical flight? Is it mentioned in those annual reports?

    Or is it that contact tracers haven’t heard of BAEC? Though you’d think they’d ask BA for all their records?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      3 Mar3 March 17:35

      Since you fill in a PLF with an address and seat number you’d think they would have all the info they need

      • TGLoyalty says:
        3 Mar3 March 17:38

        ah ignore me LHR to Aberdeen! d’oh

        I imagine a high percentage of business travellers are BAEC members but you know there are many more reasons to legally get on a flight from LHR to Aberdeen other than business.

        Perhaps BAEC don’t have to / can’t give that info up (data protection / no legal basis?) but I don’t know what SIs Scotland has put in place for COVID-19

      • Charlieface says:
        3 Mar3 March 19:48

        It’s not like they do address verification on it, you could put anything down.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          3 Mar3 March 20:02

          Isn’t anyone worried about 10 years in prison (laughable)

  • 747_Brat says:
    3 Mar3 March 17:49

    Contactless payment limit increased to £100 for debit & credit card payments in today’s budget!

    • Richster says:
      3 Mar3 March 17:54

      That’s fabulous news! Cash is dead! yay!

    • Alex D says:
      3 Mar3 March 18:01

      an odd thing to put in the budget i think…if you use apple pay etc it doesn’t matter anyway. Not really something to brag about i feel, will it encourage spending? doubtful!

      • Sandgrounder says:
        3 Mar3 March 18:22

        That’s potentially a lot of inconvenience for anyone who loses a debit card attached to their main bank account. l always leave that one at home, miles isn’t the only reason to use another card for everything.

        • BuildBackBetter says:
          3 Mar3 March 18:33

          Nobody should be using debit card for any spending unless credit cards are not accepted. I use curve so no reason to take any other debit cards with me.

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      3 Mar3 March 18:34

      They should be encouraging contactless with biometric authentication like Face ID or Touch ID. Not this one. Too risky.

      • Callum says:
        3 Mar3 March 19:11

        People regularly claim it’s risky, but where is this allegedly huge increase in fraud we were supposed to have had?

        I have no idea why banks would be pushing it when they’re partially liable for the fraud if it’s so rampant.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          3 Mar3 March 19:32

          What I don’t understand is why in the USA and Spain I can use my pin via contactless but in the UK when it fails I have to revert to chip and pin …

          • Chrisasaurus says:
            3 Mar3 March 19:55

            In the USA it’s mostly Chip and nothjng from my experience…

          • Alex says:
            3 Mar3 March 21:02

            Some modern machines do this – for example when I went shopping in Bicester pre-lockdown you tap the card and then input pin like you say

          • Harrier25 says:
            3 Mar3 March 23:01

            I’ve had that a few times recently, but only with Amex cards.

  • Lula says:
    3 Mar3 March 18:19

    My IC ambassador membership expired on 1 March, and I didn’t see the point in renewing since there’s barely any travel happening right now. I received an email from them today saying that if I renew by 1 April, I’ll still get the 15k points that I’d normally get for renewal. I hadn’t realised that the 15k points weren’t awarded on new sign ups. Has that always been the case? It’s ages since I first signed up, and can’t remember. Thanks all

    • TGLoyalty says:
      3 Mar3 March 18:52

      Yeah always been on renewal only.

      Worth about £60 have to weight that up with how long there is before your next IC stay and if they are worth more than the pro rata monthly cost you won’t use inbetween.

      • Lula says:
        3 Mar3 March 19:18

        Thanks. I was confused because when I emailed IHG (whose CSAs admittedly seem to know very little) they said there was no benefit to lapsing and rejoining over renewing. Given that I’m now (blindly) optimistic about travel for the end of the year, I might renew on 31 March…

    • Andrew says:
      3 Mar3 March 20:49

      Is it still the case that if you’re Spire and renew ABM, it renews your Spire for the coming year too? And do you get the 15k if you renew with points rather than cash?

      • Matt says:
        3 Mar3 March 23:26

        You get platinum not Spire with AMB. You only get 15k points when renewing with cash.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          4 Mar4 March 00:16

          It comes with platinum

          But it was a side effect that you retained spire if you held AMB.

  • cinereus says:
    3 Mar3 March 18:36

    RIP Bendy 🙁

  • MilesOnPoint says:
    3 Mar3 March 18:59

    Whilst international travel is banned until 17th May according to UK Gov timeline, when do people think non-essential travel within common travel area (from London to Dublin) will resume?

    • The real John says:
      3 Mar3 March 19:24

      Ask Micheál Martin

    • Rob says:
      3 Mar3 March 21:21

      The ‘stay local’ rule drops away at the end of March. Unless new regs come in you are free to travel anywhere – including abroad – from then, since travel itself is not banned, only leaving home.

  • Oli says:
    3 Mar3 March 19:11

    I used Addison Lee on 25 February with Amex Platinum and the £10 credit is dated 1 March on the credit card statement. Does anyone know if that’s my March £10 credit gone?

    • KBuffett says:
      3 Mar3 March 19:37

      If the debit is in Feb then you are still entitled to your March offer. It seems from your post that your Feb debit was credited in March, so you can still spend again in March for another credit.

    • Rob says:
      3 Mar3 March 21:20

      Don’t think so. I did a trip on 31st Jan and another on 1st Feb and got two lots of credit even though credits arrived in February.

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