The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 31st March

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• Joints&Piles says:

  31 Mar31 March 09:57

  Does the Capital On Tap refer a friend bonus work if the friend takes the free card?

  Terms just say “a capital on tap credit card” so doesn’t seem to require the paid card, but £75 each for taking a free card sounds too good to be true.

• Claire says:

  31 Mar31 March 10:09

  Hi, I want to join airtime rewards, am I right in thinking there were referral links / codes on here the other day? What do you get if you join with a promo or ref code? Thanks 🙂

  • 747_Brat says:

    31 Mar31 March 10:14

    In case you are looking for a referral, feel free to join using my code: E8HLJK4E

    • 747_Brat says:

      31 Mar31 March 10:16

      You will get £0.5 on joining and an extra £1 when you make the first transaction. No min spend

      • Claire says:

        31 Mar31 March 10:27

        Thanks, I just used it. Can you add an Amex card? I see lots of you talking about Morrisons / Amex / Airtime / Virgin combos 🙂

        • 747_Brat says:

          31 Mar31 March 10:32

          Thanks Claire.
          Amex is not supported by Airtime Rewards unfortunately. But you can use the remaining combos you mentioned and stack them all up.

        • Jonathan says:

          31 Mar31 March 11:05

          Careful stacking. I tried Virgin CC/Airtime/Virgin Shop saway & not had the last two track 12 days down the line.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          31 Mar31 March 11:14

          I did the same and both have tracked took 10 days.

  • Reney says:

    31 Mar31 March 18:20

    Virgin CC, Airtime, PAW stacks for me but not shop away. I have not seen one person who said shop away has tracked in the last few weeks I don’t think… although reading today’s’ thread backwards so maybe I’ll get to one later…

• PK says:

  31 Mar31 March 10:21

  Has anyone had £12 fee deducted from their Barclays account for Avios Rewards scheme? I joined Avios Rewards the day I opened the account but they have still not deducted the fee strangely.

  • Craig says:

    31 Mar31 March 10:25

    No, quite honestly wish I hadn’t bothered. 35 minutes to find out I can only have a £10 overdraft!

    • 747_Brat says:

      31 Mar31 March 10:30

      @Craig
      I also got £10 overdraft limit, which certainly didn’t feel very ‘Premier’.

      @PK
      I recall someone posted about this earlier. The fee is not payable until the end of the month. And I believe the month is not calendar month but the month from your joining the scheme.

      • Chas says:

        31 Mar31 March 19:06

        Thanks – that’s really relevant to me – was timing my upgrade to Premier so that my voucher will expire just after Easter in future years (knowing that it is issued 5 days after the 12th payment has been taken), and had assumed that the 1st account fee was taken as soon as the account was opened. I’ll bring forward my upgrade by a month now.

  • AndyW says:

    31 Mar31 March 13:03

    I have to say I don’t see why a decent overdraft would be a premier perk. Might just be me but would never have my current account anywhere near that.

    • Craig says:

      31 Mar31 March 14:20

      I haven’t used an overdraft in the last 5 years but it can be a useful buffer to prevent the withdrawal of savings, especially as up to £500 is interest free.

      • ee says:

        1 Apr1 April 04:16

        Barclays Premier overdraft limits seem to take some time (several months) to be available to request online and in the app. Once the functionality appeared they offered me up to £9k, and I was told I could get an overdraft sooner if I visited a branch (I didn’t bother!)

• Ja says:

  31 Mar31 March 10:27

  I need your advice. Through online banking I cancelled a dd for a yearly subscription. Did this back in 2020 probably about September or so. I found today that the subscription has come out of my bank again. After online chat with my bank they said I would have to take it up with the company. Apparently when you want to cancel a dd you have to do it through the company rather than the bank. Do you agree or disagree. I thought cancelling through my bank was enough.

  • 747_Brat says:

    31 Mar31 March 10:36

    You are absolutely right. Cancelling with the bank should have been enough, unless you signed up for another direct debit instruction with the merchant.

    Per this Direct Debit rights guide, money shouldn’t be collected from your account after you have cancelled the Direct Debit and, under the Scheme rules, an organisation would have to obtain your authority to reinstate a cancelled Instruction.

    https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/Pages/Cancellingpayments.aspx

    • Ja says:

      31 Mar31 March 10:48

      Thanks for that information

      • kitten says:

        31 Mar31 March 10:53

        plus while they’re investigating it doesn’t the direct debit code say they have to credit it back to your account?

        • Ja says:

          31 Mar31 March 10:59

          Didn’t get very far with the online chat and will ring them later. Wanted to be prepared before I call.

        • Phil says:

          31 Mar31 March 11:05

          Yes. The DD scheme makes the Bank liable.

        • Harrier25 says:

          31 Mar31 March 11:20

          Threatening to go to FOS will encourage the bank to credit back the funds to your account immediately.

  • Andrew says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:27

    It is indeed enough to cancel the DD with the bank.

    However, cancelling the means of payment collection doesn’t cancel the contract with the organisation. Whilst the organisation definitely shouldn’t have collected the payment (no doubt under a different reference to try and avoid the bank detecting it), it’s always wise to cancel the contract directly with the firm too.

    Was it a gym?

    • Ja says:

      31 Mar31 March 11:45

      No. It was a subscription to visit places (won’t name them) which obviously we haven’t been able to do

      • Harrier25 says:

        31 Mar31 March 12:09

        If the DD was cancelled the bank had no authorisation to make the payment and the issue to refund sits solely at their door. The fact that you didn’t cancel the contract with the organisation is immaterial.

  • Roy says:

    31 Mar31 March 12:20

    Was it really a direct debit (i.e. you gave your bank account number and sort code) or was it a continuing authority on a debit card (i.e. you gave your debit card number)?

    Cancelling a direct debit is done at your bank. (But note that, that is just cancelling the payment -you may still be liable for the payment if you don’t also cancel the service. Many companies will cancel it for you, if you don’t make alternative arrangements to pay – but don’t assume they will.)

    Cancelling a continuing authority (on a debit or credit card) generally needs to be done with the company concerned (although a very few card companies offer the facility to block them, I believe).

    • Ja says:

      31 Mar31 March 12:44

      Definitely a dd and wasn’t for a service so I don’t owe anything.

• IanM says:

  31 Mar31 March 10:34

  So much for all the pundits hying up the Deliveroo IPO !! Ouch!

  • kitten says:

    31 Mar31 March 10:50

    Time the regulator hastened his review into why all the tasty IPO’s miraculously never get opened to retail investors.

    The “lemon” theory operates here as it does for second hand cars – if it’s on the open market (ie not been snapped up by someone connected/in the know) then it’s more likely to be a lemon.

    The regulator has said they plan to look into making offerings more even between retail and instiutional investors though.

    • ken says:

      31 Mar31 March 10:59

      The retail element here was limited to £50m in total and as 70,000 individuals applied that gives an average share allocation of £700 each (well £550 now). So a loss that’s like half a dozen Delveroo takeaway orders. Not the end of the world.
      A lucky escape I would say.

      On the positive side first day returns are rarely predictive of long term returns for IPO’s

      • TGLoyalty says:

        31 Mar31 March 11:16

        And now you have potential 70k pissed off customers 🙂

        Deliveroo might offer something for their confidence to offset the 30% loss

        • Rob says:

          31 Mar31 March 11:43

          Yes, I think having 70k of your best customers lose at least £200 is a bigger problem!

        • The real John says:

          31 Mar31 March 12:59

          Maybe customers shouldn’t become shareholders just because they like the company’s products

    • JDB says:

      31 Mar31 March 11:09

      Perhaps you don’t remember the queues of retail punters delivering applications for Laura Ashley, Mrs Fields’ Cookies, Coloroll, Hillsdown etc. Didn’t do anyone a lot of good.These deals are either massively oversubscribed, so you don’t get many or you get what you want which is worse news. The old days (in the UK) of ‘tasty’ IPOs is long gone.

      • Anuj says:

        31 Mar31 March 11:16

        There have been some good opportunities on primary bid. Argo blockchain and cellular goods for example

• Blindman says:

  31 Mar31 March 11:01

  Amex:-
  Before I get back into the Amex PLat\Gold\BAPP game after a 2 year break-
  And as I am now retired it’s not that easy to spend £3K in 3 month 🙂

  How do I pay my Council tax with Amex as:

  1 They only accept PayZONE and AFAIK this system does not accept amex.
  2. I now have No credit at Billhop-so do not want to pay their 3% (IIRC) fee)

  On-line payments only take Visa, Mastercard, Visa Debit, Maestro, Visa Electron.

  Not sure if I can pay by Paypal with the Amex behind it.

  Cheers.

  • kitten says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:12

    research your local coops if your council will take paypoint. some coops do take amex on their pp machines even if they think they don’t just try on machine. Not all coops are really the same group/company so you might have to do a bit of trial and error with small amounts. can also work with water, gas / elec depending which one.

    • Alan says:

      31 Mar31 March 15:31

      Apologies for a very basic question – is Paypoint a dedicated terminal or just an option at any Co-Op checkout

  • kitten says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:15

    payzone is smaller retailers so as you say harder to find amex there also. think it would work if you contemplate a longer chain using usual suspects and other things not usually mentioned here that are fairly common.

  • Anna says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:55

    Is your car/house insurance up for renewal? We pay all these in one go on Amex which gives us £1k of spend towards whichever target we’re aiming at. Council tax via Paypal, but not many councils seem to accept this.

    • Blindman says:

      31 Mar31 March 12:04

      Neither of these is very big (fortunately.)

      I am with Igloo and will bung in £1k when I get the card,

      May have to buy a refundable Airline ticket.

      • Anna says:

        31 Mar31 March 12:55

        Have you tried a dummy payment on the council website to see if they accept Amex?
        Top up Amazon, buy supermarket vouchers, bring a holiday booking forward. Case of nice champagne or similar for birthday/Xmas presents? Even on a modest budget I could generate £3k of spend without having to make any refundable purchases, can’t be doing with the hassle after having so many trips cancelled this year and retrieving the refunds from closed Amexes!

        • Blindman says:

          31 Mar31 March 13:29

          Dummy payment tested.No
          Rarely buy from Amazon.
          Supermarket-Possible-Will check out Aldi.
          Champagne\Xmas presents an option-but unlike many on here I am not a “merchant banker”
          Thanks

• Andy says:

  31 Mar31 March 11:11

  Am I mistaken or has BA removed the online form where you could request a cash refund? I have the link I used in the past but it doesn’t work anymore

  • Pete M says:

    31 Mar31 March 13:16

    How far back are you thinking? The days when it would actually immediately process a refund or the more recent offline form?

    • Andy says:

      31 Mar31 March 15:33

      The online form, I used that recently and got an almost immediate refund

• Andrew says:

  31 Mar31 March 11:19

  Cunard have just released details and opened bookings for a selection of short UK cruises around the coast for the summer and early autumn, but have a vaccination policy that requires all guests to have had their second dose at least two weeks before the sailing. So clearly no one under the age of 50 would be able to go, unless they are front-line healthcare workers, carers or have an underlying health condition that meant they were vaccinated earlier than their age group. The Equality Act makes it quite clear that discrimination in the access to goods and services on the basis of age, either directly or indirectly is unlawful and whilst a company might choose a vaccination-only policy next year once there has been time for all adults to have their two doses, I don’t think it’s legal to implement this policy now for a service in UK waters.

  • IanM says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:35

    No different to an 18-30 holiday, or adults only resort. Public health trumps this in my view.

    • Chris says:

      31 Mar31 March 14:23

      If it’s about public health then surely they should also allow those to travel who have provided either a negative Covid test or positive antibody test?

      Do we really think they would apply this policy if HMG vaccination policy had been in reverse and they’d vaccinated by occupation rather than age?

  • Andrew says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:38

    31M people have had their first dose.
    4M people have had their second dose.

    By the start of the (English) school holidays

    All adults will have been offered their first dose.
    31M will have been offered their second dose.

    If the Equality Act was so black and white, there would be not free bus passes, no young person’s railcard and no senior railcards.

  • BS says:

    31 Mar31 March 11:47

    It is so easy to shout the word ‘discrimination’ and whinge. If you look at the Equality Act 2010 it IS legal to discriminate on a number of characteristics, including age, so long as ‘good reason can be shown for the for the differential treatment’. If you can objectively justify it it is legal.
    In the same way you can justifiably ban people not wearing masks on a plane (even if there is a medical or disability reason for doing so), banning unvaccinated people from a ship, a confined space without significant medical facilities, when most of the passengers will be vulnerable, will be easily justified.
    There will be a lot of discrimination based on either vaccines, masks, or requirement for a PCR test. Nearly all of it will be justified. Get vaccinated. Get used to it.

    • Anna says:

      31 Mar31 March 12:01

      Agreed – also there’s a strong element in the EA that if the end justifies the means, companies and employers can get away with it. Covid was so devastating on cruise ships last year, I’m sure many people wouldn’t consider going on one without all passengers AND staff being vaccinated!

      • Anna says:

        31 Mar31 March 12:05

        I can also envisage a few destinations eventually insisting on vaccinations before they allow ships into their ports.

  • Anuj says:

    31 Mar31 March 12:05

    Either we can spend months complaining about discrimination and rights or we can just get on with it, get everyone vaccinated and move on.

  • Dave says:

    31 Mar31 March 12:33

    No vaccine required for MSCs UK-only cruises. Tempted, but it may end up one big covid fest for those of us yet to receive the jab. Think I’ll wait till next year.

    • Anna says:

      31 Mar31 March 13:01

      Exactly – how soon do we forget the grim reports of people being stuck in their cabins for weeks on end, dead bodies in ships’ morgues, broken sewage systems and reliance of emergency supplies of food and water by rescue helicopter because ports were refusing entry?!

  • Jody says:

    31 Mar31 March 14:16

    The majority of the cruise lines doing this have stipulated you must be vaccinated for the cruises they are doing this summer including P&O, Royal Caribbean, Princess etc. Fred Olsen haven’t decided, but have said if they do make it a condition of sailing they will refund anyone who has booked but hasn’t vaccinated. MSC you don’t have to, as I think someone else has said below. There are currently around 11 different lines that have announced UK summer cruises, so there should be plenty of choice and options for people who haven’t been vaccinated.

    • Rob says:

      31 Mar31 March 14:40

      Which leads to an interesting question …. will vaccinated people choose to go on a cruise with unvaccinated people when they could otherwise join a cruise of vaccinated people?

      If the answer is ‘no’ then MSC will have a problem finding passengers.

      Personally I would prefer a cruise with ‘all vaccinated’ purely because I would expect a substantially more relaxed approach on board.

      • Bs says:

        31 Mar31 March 15:25

        It will be interesting to see!
        The issue is all the laws regarding ‘plague ships’ where there is infection on the ships are largely historical, so cover infections, rather than whether people are susceptible to the infections.
        If everyone is vaccinated you will have 100% protection against serious disease. But it probably won’t stop infections (but will reduce them). This could mean a ship could be stuck outside port due to an ‘outbreak’ that for the people on board is nothing more than a cold.

      • Jody says:

        31 Mar31 March 16:19

        I think it depends. For example, some of the cruise lines (P&O for example) have said every passenger has to be vaccinated, so this instantly rules out under 18s essentially making them adult only cruises, which appeal to a lot of people. For families however, that isn’t so great. Some have said over 18’s must be vaccinated but under 18s must have a negative covid test result, so they will appeal to some families, but only those where the adults have been vaccinated. Then you’ve got MSC who don’t require vaccinations for anyone, just a negative covid test result. They’re the line most likely to appeal to families with adults under 40 who might be lucky to get 1, never mind 2 vaccinations before these sailings are due to start.

        I don’t think Disney have said, although clearly they’re not going to go down the route of P&O and insist all passengers are vaccinated, thereby ruling out families with children, as they are the very people they hope will cruise. From some of the FB groups I’m on there seems to be a huge appetite for the DCL cruises, as thousands of families have had their Disneyworld trips cancelled and want to get a Disney fix.

        If we book anything, we will wait until we’re both vaccinated (my 2nd one is 5th June), but I wouldn’t rule out cruising on a line that allows unvaccinated people on it. Passenger numbers will be much reduced (an article today stated that the MSC Virtuosa, a 6000 passenger capacity ship will be running at 1000 passengers for the first month, at which point according to the roadmap, all restrictions in the UK should be lifted, and will then run at 80% capacity. However, MSC have been operating in the Med for months now (I think it is only Shengen countries that are allowed to book, we’re certainly not) safely, so are ahead of other cruise lines in terms of having protocols and procedures in place that they know work.

        Ultimately for us, price will dictate whether we book one of these sailings or not.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        31 Mar31 March 19:40

        I have had the vaccine and I couldn’t care less either way.

        • Rob says:

          31 Mar31 March 20:26

          I don’t believe that, if one cruise had standard buffets, open mixing, no masks and the other was imposing 2m distancing and the usual restrictions on meals, no pool, no gym, along with most events involving socialising being cancelled.

        • Cabal of rabid baboons says:

          31 Mar31 March 20:59

          I thought that you were declining your vaccine on moral grounds?

  • AJA says:

    31 Mar31 March 16:45

    I’m not sure age discrimination like this falls foul of the Equality Act. If so Saga wouldn’t have a viable business. As far as I understand it sells exclusively to the over 50s but will allow a companion/helper over 40.

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