The HfP chat thread – Friday 5th March

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• Danny says:

  5 Mar5 March 03:15

  If BA cancel my flight back to London, EU261 allows me to take either the next available flight home (3 days later) or any later flight at my convenience.

  If I do pick the nearest flight, I assume BA pays my hotel for those 3 extra nights (duty of care)?

  If however I pick some later flight, does BA still pay my hotel for all those nights (could be months!) – this is what the EU261 wording seems to suggest! Or would they offer to just pay for the 3 nights, or 0 nights?

  • ChrisC says:

    5 Mar5 March 04:43

    The purpose of the regulation is to get you back home ASAP and to provide duty of care until that can happen on the next available flight. The fact the airline had to cover duty of care is to chivvy them up to sort a flight out ASAP because the bills will soon mount up.

    If you chose to rebook onto a flight weeks or months later then any costs are down to you for a decision you made to delay your return.

    Once you have rebooked onto a later flight BA no longer has an obligation to provide duty of care to you for any period.

    • NC says:

      5 Mar5 March 05:21

      Yes, but to add one wrinkle – if all the airline offer is a departure date BEFORE your original flight home, or a departure date 3 days after your original flight home, then the airline has a duty of care for the 3 extra days. There’s no obligation on the passenger to cut their trip short.

    • Danny says:

      5 Mar5 March 11:39

      Thanks for this insight! Do you have anything from the regulations to back it up though?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:26

    3 days yes If that’s the next available flight.

    Months no, if there were flights offered after your original date but you chose not to take them.

    • Tyler Durden says:

      5 Mar5 March 10:41

      EU261 doesnt say days…

      https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004R0261

      (c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger’s convenience, subject to availability of seats.

      • Jonathan says:

        5 Mar5 March 11:45

        That’s referring to flexibility in rescheduling the flight. You don’t get open ended duty of care reimbursement if you decide to refuse the earliest date they offer you.

        • Danny says:

          5 Mar5 March 15:08

          By my own common sense I would well agree with you. But by the wording of the legislation I can’t see why you wouldn’t get open ended reimbursement!… which is mad

        • Danny says:

          5 Mar5 March 15:13

          Unless “hotel accommodation in cases… where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary” (Article 9) wouldn’t include the extra months because they’re not ‘necessary’.

          Suggests that BA WOULD be responsible for your hotel for the 3 nights from the original cancelled flight until the first one they were able to offer – those ones are necessary?

        • TGLoyalty says:

          5 Mar5 March 17:20

          All you have to think is when you’re refused, because you will be, will the judge at you MCOL hearing think you were reasonable.

• Gothbe says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:04

  Has anyone who applied for the business Platinum received an email from Amex asking them to call. If so, do you know what questions they are likely to ask?

  • Tanya says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:25

    I had to call. My company is registered at my accountants address and I want card registered to home address. I just had to send a bank statement with address and was approved a few hrs later.

  • Jay says:

    5 Mar5 March 11:30

    +1 @Tanya, it is purely where the trading address doesn’t match the companies house address. If they call, they normally email 2 minutes later and ask you to email in a bank statement. Within 36 hours of sending sth bank statement the card was delivered. The speed of card delivery is very good at the moment.

• Andrew says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:25

  New Mr Porter offer on Platinum – spend £450, save £125 which isn’t bad although I think the Christmas one was slightly better terms. The 10% off selected brands offer for “new” customers continues and it’s currently 8 Avios/£ on the portal.

  • HeadingForNoPoints says:

    5 Mar5 March 13:51

    Nothing here as usual on platinum, did a bit of spending through them over Christmas. Did you get the outlet offer too?

• Si says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:34

  Using all the lingo, anyone had joy this morning paying Ernie with personal bendy? My bendy has started to bounce.

  • Alex says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:26

    Just now tried and invested £7000, no probs

    • Si says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:40

      I need to up my stakes. I can only do £2k a day (daily limit) but for some reason can apparently do up to £1.4m annually…

      If could churn that much, I think I’d just sell my house and live in a hotel for free on constant IHG rewards nights!

      • Scallder says:

        5 Mar5 March 09:38

        I had a new card (coming to end of expiry date on original one) and my limits were cut down to £2k a day (from I think £9k) but still with the 1.4m annually. Cash withdrawal has also been cut from 50k to 10k annually.

  • Anna says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:44

    No joy for me either. It went all the way through, authorised on bendy then just got the message that it was declined 😫

    • Secret Squirrel says:

      5 Mar5 March 09:23

      @Anna- are you bendy Personal or Commercial card?

      • Anna says:

        5 Mar5 March 10:22

        Personal

        • memesweeper says:

          5 Mar5 March 11:27

          Strangely I’m getting a message that the underlying card is declining. Not a block on the BIN at the merchant end.

    • Leigh says:

      5 Mar5 March 12:29

      Keep an eye on your underlying card transactions. Although Ernie declined it, the transaction was approved by underlying card and was shown as pending. Hopefully the pending transaction will disappear in a few days.

    • Nick Burch says:

      5 Mar5 March 16:37

      Just tried with a Commercial card, still getting “Invalid card number”

      Might have to ask Bendy to swap me to a Personal one, anyone know if that’s just a support message to do?

      • Suck My Points says:

        5 Mar5 March 16:49

        Yep, ask via support ticket. You can stay on same plan, keep same limits.
        App next day shows virtual card details you can start using before physical card arrives.
        All my spend counters reset to zero.

  • Mutley says:

    5 Mar5 March 11:01

    I asked Ernie to use my bendy, but beardy objected and got seagulls involved which proved a bit messy

    • Kevin D says:

      5 Mar5 March 23:27

      This made me chuckle! Love the cryptic.

  • Jay says:

    5 Mar5 March 11:31

    £9k Pers Bendy HH, no probs

    • Bigmaggot says:

      5 Mar5 March 12:51

      Highest for personal 4.5k?

      • KBuffett says:

        5 Mar5 March 13:14

        How does one know if one has a personal or commercial card? 53759000 are the initial numbers on my card.

        • Rob says:

          5 Mar5 March 14:05

          Turn it over

        • KBuffett says:

          5 Mar5 March 20:02

          Rob – my card is relatively new and it doesn’t state on the front or the back (the main card number is on the back)

        • Rob says:

          5 Mar5 March 21:43

          If it’s new its a personal card. They stop issuing commercial cards a couple of years ago.

  • DarrenS says:

    5 Mar5 March 14:04

    3500 declined, 1000 accepted. 3500 is below my daily bendy limit.

  • Justin says:

    5 Mar5 March 17:15

    Just tried it, backed by M&M. Declined. It was working on Tuesday. The Bendy app thinks the transaction went through.

    • Justin says:

      5 Mar5 March 17:41

      It was a bit worrying because the app shows lists the transaction as if it succeeded and includes it in the total monthly spend, but if I open the transaction it does say “This transaction has been fully refunded and cannot Go Back in Time”. Rather confusing UI.

• Andrew says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:39

  Sounds like USA could be hopeful for a summer opening – could well be a safer bet than going to Europe based on vaccination rates. I might make use of booking with confidence to move forward rather than back my September trip.

  • MattB says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:15

    I posted before my purely gut feeling about being able to go in August was around 25% , it’s probably closer to 50% now. Although with some states now abandoning pretty much all restrictions that may drop down again!

    • Pablo says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:28

      With new emerging strains potentially resistant to vaccine induced antibodies you may have to add the cost of Heathrow hotel on return. https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/one-year-since-pandemic-hit-new-york-new-strain-emerges-in-upper-manhattan-155652651.html

      • MattB says:

        5 Mar5 March 08:56

        Yahoo that’s a blast from the past.

        • James says:

          5 Mar5 March 12:13

          Is that your way of convincing yourself that 50% is still fair odds?

• Michael says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:43

  Is there anyway to get BA to price a ticket without Reward Flight Saver as online they only quote “cash cheaper” but much more avois, I prefer the old pricing?

  • Andrew says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:47

    Just click the “other pricing options” it brings up the old option and options in between.

    • Michael says:

      5 Mar5 March 09:12

      Just compared with an account without RFS and brings up a completely different list 6-8 options non as good as the account without RFS, and dont have points in other account to book from there?

      • MilesOnPoint says:

        5 Mar5 March 15:07

        Create a household account with the RFS eligible account as the head of the house old and join your other account to that. Then you can redeem RFS from pooled Avios balance

• N says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:53

  One for the AUH F1/W crew…

  Is there any indication if the hotel will be welcoming guests for this year’s race?

  I’ve been trying to book for ages but can’t as the dates are blocked out. The 2 weekends before and the weekend after are also blocked.

  Emailing the hotel gets a vague and terse “your dates are unavailable” reply ignoring my other questions.

  For those who had a booking for 2020, are you communicating with a named person at the hotel? Do you know if they’re opening bookings to new guests at any point?

  Thank you!

  • Matthew says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:34

    From previous years experience, they are blocked out for 95%. Every so often they release a few rooms on points then gone again. They obviously prefer to sell them for cash and have lots of deals with companies selling packages. With this year being different and the uncertainty of dates (already been moved once) then they are blocking a few weekends. Best bet is to keep checking and normally something will appear much closer to the time.

    • Matthew says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:34

      *blocked out 95% of the time.

    • Matthew says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:37

      Also, think there was a minimum 5 day booking over the race weekend (the guys who’ve already booked from last year will be able to confirm this) so if you choose say 2 nights it won’t show up (when it is available that is!). So always search for 5 nights when checking availability.

      • N says:

        5 Mar5 March 09:42

        I’m looking at the “Flexible dates” calendar, so any availability should show up. They actually blocked out the race weekend’s dates about a week before announcing the race had been moved (originally weekend of 5th, now weekend of 12th), so the fact that they’ve blocked out the weekends of 28th, 5th, 12th and 19th is not filling me with confidence tbh.

        Our flights are booked, I’m just wondering to what extent I’m wasting my time by checking the app once/twice a day!

        (and when I say the dates are blocked – not even for cash bookings!)

  • Harry T says:

    5 Mar5 March 10:43

    They’ve moved my booking from last year to 9th to 13th December, without charging me extra points, so I’m hoping they are allowing spectators. As far as I know, the race is going ahead and guests will be allowed to stay at the hotel.

    • Harry T says:

      5 Mar5 March 10:43

      I’m not booking my flights until I’m more certain the race will be staying on that weekend though!

      • N says:

        5 Mar5 March 10:49

        If I can’t stay at the hotel, then happy to liaise with you re cancelling my flights and you grabbing them. I’ve got BA F out and back to DXB 28/11-15/12. But obviously I’d rather go myself!

        Could you ask the hotel if they’re releasing more availability for your “mate” to book and join?

• James. says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:59

  If anyone is having issues using Bendy, I would advise to reach out to the support as they have made me aware of 3DS issues where you approve the transaction but it doesn’t get processed:

  We are aware of an issue that is preventing a small portion of our users from completing transactions via 3DS. Unfortunately, your account has been affected by this.

  They do not have an ETA on this issue. I circumnavigated this by reporting my old card lost and they sent me a replacement within 3 days.

  • Si says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:12

    This is what was happening to my card this morning.

  • Secret Squirrel says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:14

    @James – does this 3ds issue effect all bendy cards like personal & commercial did they say?
    Did you try deposit at Ernie, declined then ordered a new card & tried Ernie with the new card all works ok now?

  • Anna says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:46

    Could be the case here then.

  • xcalx says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:46

    £9k tranfer to Ernie yesterday no problems from a 90 personal card. Today I tried £1K approved via App, failed to reach Ernie, Solihull showing £1k debit.

    First time having a problem, I assume I sat back and wait for it to be sorted rather than contact anyone?

    • LST says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:54

      Same here. Yesterday was the first time I have used Bendy for Ernie. Paid in £300 into kids premium bonds without an issue but £500 to my premium bonds was accepted via the bendy app and got a notification from WE card showing payment had been taken. Payment was then declined by Ernie but WE balance has been increased by £500. Bendy shows the figure as having been refunded. Guess I will sit and wait it out.

    • Benilyn says:

      5 Mar5 March 11:29

      Yes money comes back (cancels) after after a few days

  • James. says:

    5 Mar5 March 09:12

    I was getting this 3DS failures with Virgin Money.

    Don’t use my Metal for Ernie.

    Since card replacement no issues

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