The HfP chat thread – Thursday 1st April

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Garry says:

1 Apr1 April 12:47

UAE set to be part of the green tier list proposed soon… when will this tier system be announced?
- Harry T says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 13:02
  
  No-one is sure. Doesn’t look like international travle in any meaningful sense will be allowed before 17th May. Never make the mistake of trying to predict what Grant and cronies will pull out of their arses though!
  - Anna says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 13:08
    
    Was it Shapps (or Schnapps as he is known on this site) who managed to introduce the quarantine requirement for Spain last summer the day after he flew out to his holiday villa with his family?
    - Rob says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 13:15
      
      Yup …
    - David says:
      
      2 Apr2 April 10:38
      
      I think it was Michael Green
- The Lord says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 13:05
  
  What’s the source?
  - Garry says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 13:08
    
    Telegraph newspaper website, check out the live feed
    - The Lord says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 13:23
      
      Cheers. I’m hoping to get to Greece in June, happy and prepared to jump through some hoops and the hoops listed there seem reasonable
      - Optimus Prime says:
        
        1 Apr1 April 14:11
        
        3-day quarantine upon return sounds fine by me (as long as it’s at home). Tests 72 hours before return and on arrival should be okay too unless prices are prohibitive.
  - Paul Pogba says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 22:22
    
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/31/just-12-countries-could-safely-opened-uk-holidaymakers-june/
- ChrisC says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 13:31
  
  12th April when the government announce the results of their review of international travel.
  
  Until then they will be flying all sorts of balloons on what a tier system may look like, what criteria might be included and what countries might go in what tier and even if it’s called a tier or a given a colour.
  - Heathrow Flyer says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:35
    
    Think the date has been brought forward to the 5th Apr.
    - Pete M says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 14:45
      
      Which some people have suggested may mean bad news – delivered earlier. But fingers crossed…!
      - The Lord says:
        
        1 Apr1 April 15:07
        
        5th I expect to hear the rules of the road (vaccination rate in destination, prevalence of variants, healthcare capacity etc) and the introduction of tiers/traffic light system. Don’t expect to hear about specific countries but instead the usual “too soon to say” message. Countries probably April 17 or start of May
      - The Lord says:
        
        1 Apr1 April 15:07
        
        *April 12
- kitten says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 15:48
  
  Can’t see why when both Doha and Dubai are melting pots and transit airports, as well, for people from all Continents
  - Yuff says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 16:56
    
    People travelling through airports are probably more safe than anyone as they will have had covid tests before and after, plus uae and Qatar have decent vaccination programmes, safer than being in Paris
Russ says:

1 Apr1 April 13:18

Can someone point me in the direction of the – ‘BA. How to get your money back instead of taking a voucher’ page. They’ve just canx my TYO flights and I just can’t remember the procedure how to get my money back. Bless em! Thanks.
- Gavin says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 13:59
  
  I submitted a refund request via manage my booking a couple of weeks ago. The procedure seemed to have changed since my previous refund a couple of months ago. You’re better off phoning though if the lines are not busy. If you phone they should process it straight away, but online it takes ages (still waiting 6+ weeks for one refund)
  - Anna says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:15
    
    I gave up after 5 weeks and opened a dispute via Amex who refunded me within 48 hours!
  - Pete M says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:46
    
    Agreed on phoning – fairly efficient recently, although still waiting on some cash on the manual refund queue a month later…
den says:

1 Apr1 April 13:21

Hi, quick question on Finnair and TP’s coming across to BAEC. I flew last Saturday on a Finnair flight and ticket with my BAEC number on. In the past the TP and Avios have been credited within a couple of days but nothing yet. I was wondering if anyone had experienced anything similar?
- Jonathan says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 14:02
  
  Varies for different partner airlines. Eg. Qatar do a bulk transfer every (?)Wednesday so you get the TP’s/Avios anything between 1 & 7 days later. Not sure what the Finnair schedule is but it may be different depending on if your flight was a codeshare or not. Equally if it requires any kind of manual input to do the transfer than likely it will take longer at the moment.
  - den says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:42
    
    Thanks for the quick reply – cheers!
- Andrew says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 15:14
  
  I’ve generally found Finnair to be a bit slower than Qatar which usually post in a couple of days. As long as you’ve got your booking ref and boarding passes etc, any problems you can contact Exec club and they will do a manual addition.
trader363 says:

1 Apr1 April 13:57

Aiming for Emirates First Class on the 777 from Stanstead – what’s the best way to search for redemption availability? I tried ExpertFlyer but it showed ghost availablity
- Optimus Prime says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 14:14
  
  There’s something not right in ‘First Class’ and ‘Stanstead’ on the same sentence 🙂
  - Rob says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:18
    
    It used to only open up 48-72 hours before departure. When I did it for review, I had to fly down to Dubai and cross my fingers it opened (I had a back up flight just in case).
  - Sandgrounder says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 14:19
    
    There’s something not right about ‘Stanstead’ 🙂
    - Optimus Prime says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 14:28
      
      It’s trader363’s fault, copied it from their post! 😛
    - Aston100 says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 14:33
      
      haha!
  - Matthew says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 19:06
    
    Especially when it’s ‘Stansted’
- Matthew says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 19:09
  
  There are lots of dates with availability in advance now, mainly from Stansted. Flights not resuming until Nov 1, so look from that date onwards. Just use Emirates website to search. It can find dates around your desired date.
Nik says:

1 Apr1 April 14:25

Interesting judgement from the Court of Appeal (https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Lipton-v-BA-City-Flyer-judgment.pdf)

EC261 “extraordinary circumstances” did not apply when a pilot fell ill and the flight was cancelled. I haven’t read the case in full, but it seems that the judges considered a pilot falling ill to be something that could be expected to happen in the normal course of business and not a one-off outside the control of the airline.
- Jon G says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 14:51
  
  Make sense – the pilot falling ill may be ‘extraordinary’ but the airline should have contingencies in place to address any lapses in resourcing/scheduling.
  - ChrisC says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 15:19
    
    That’s easy to say but harder to do.
    
    Easy at an airlines home base where you can have a couple of pilots ready and waiting or on standby to come in in response to a call.
    
    But what about at an outstation with only one or a couple of flights a day?
    - The real John says:
      
      1 Apr1 April 19:05
      
      On a short-haul it’s less likely the pilot would have operated the outbound and then become too ill to operate the inbound.
      
      If this does happen then the airline should be prepared to pay compensation.
- Nectar collector says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 19:16
  
  We successfully claimed EC261 compensation from Virgin for a cancelled flight back to London from Dubai a few years ago where the issue was pilot calling in sick. We were delayed around 24 hours, received ‘duty of care’ accommodation and food etc, and were given a slug of Virgin miles at the time, but had to go down the MCOL route to get the compensation payment.
Anuj says:

1 Apr1 April 14:27

My Meliá gold is expiring in June. Does anyone know if there’s an extension announced ? Secondly for my birthday gift choice it mentions that the 20% off vouchers expire once my status does. It doesn’t say the same for the upgrade voucher option, does anyone have any idea if it does too?
747_Brat says:

1 Apr1 April 14:28

Any tips to save the 4000 Melia Reward points acquired through BAEC promo last year? Got an alert from Award Wallet that they are due for expiry soon.
Thanks.
- Kai says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 14:54
  
  buy 1000 points
  - 747_Brat says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 19:21
    
    Thanks
ChrisC says:

1 Apr1 April 14:30

Oh dear. Flyer Talk BA board not happy with the BA meals.

Complaints of missing ingredients, the box being delivered upside down so various items damaged, wrong meals delivered and wrong instructions.

Sounds like feastbox are giving the full BA experience!

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2036642-british-airways-first-home-meal-kits-do-co-feast-box-8.html
- Richster says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 14:54
  
  This kind of thing really touches a nerve with me. They have just ONE job to do, and they fail spectacularly at it. My view is that whoever the packer of these boxes is should be forced to pay for the damaged or missing items out of their own salaries. Then there would be no mistakes! grrrrr!
  - Andrew says:
    
    1 Apr1 April 15:19
    
    And for £100 it’s ludicrously overpriced compared to basically the exact same meal from M&S which would require the same level of home preparation – they really should have ensured you at least got a premium packaged experience. Glad I gave it a miss as I was tempted for a novel use of my What-a-buy plates.
- AJA says:
  
  1 Apr1 April 22:15
  
  I read those experiences and safe to say the feedback isn’t great. I’m surprised as it sounds like they are not new to the food box delivery business. I think I’d be cross if I’d spent £80+ and received what they have. Ho hum.