The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 7th April

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• VickyTM says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:38

  I have (optimistically) booked a flight to Thailand over Christmas. I’m flying BA to Rome, and then Qatar to BKK from there several hrs later. If BA cancel my flight, what will my options be so that I can still catch the Qatar flight (not on same booking) and also, if Italy is still closed to tourists, but Thailand is open, do you know if I am able to transit through?
  Just trying to make sure I have a plan B… However if everything is still closed, it won’t matter!

  • Jonathan says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:22

    High risk strategy. If BA cancel your flight or it’s delayed then you’re on your own. In normal times I’d definitely be going the day before.

    Transit: who knows what rules will be. Remember you won’t get luggage through checked so will need to clear immigration, collect luggage & check in again (ie. not a transit) or go hand luggage only.

    • Princess says:

      7 Apr7 April 16:57

      getting luggage at Fiumicino airport takes ages! In normal time there are several flights a day to Italy so if you leave several hours you should be ok. Too early to predict rules by that time…I also have tickets to Rome in Xmas time but who knows!

• Diydegsy says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:47

  Hi I have been looking at business class flights to Phuket year end with Qatar ex Stockholm but it says they don’t include lounge access which seems ridiculous but does anyone know what if any lounge options would be possible and does this mean no lounge access in Stockholm, Doha and Phuket? Now I know why they were cheap!

  • Phil says:

    7 Apr7 April 11:56

    I believe Qatar recently removed lounge access from their cheapest Business Class fares. If this is what you’ve booked, your only option will be to pay for access where this exists or utilise some other form of Lounge access product (e.g. take out Amex Plat in advance, get the Priority Pass for the duration of your trip, and then cancel and get a pro-rata refund on your return).

    • Sam G says:

      7 Apr7 April 12:59

      Singapore Airlines have some very reasonable fares out of London to Bangkok (1700) & Phuket (~2k). Unlimited free changes (though usual problem, there would still be some unknown fare difference). By the time you’ve added in the transit costs to Stockholm or Italy and accounting for no lounge access and no seat selection on Qatar there isn’t much in it -especially the risk of not being able to get to the origin point of your ex-EU ticket as you may get very stuck !

      (Note: I am assuming that a) Brits are allowed to transit Changi by then and B) we’re allowed to access the lounge – neither are currently possible but I’d be quite confident that’ll it be fine by year end, especially if vaccinated. Though the new SilverKris lounge might not be open by then but the temporary lounge looks fine for a short transit anyway)

      I’d also personally only book a flight arriving into Phuket (can leave out of Bangkok). The current plan means you need to spend 7 days there before travelling elsewhere.

      • Clive says:

        7 Apr7 April 17:26

        The current plan is all supposed to change by the end of the year with Thailand opening up and the “sandbox” plan for Phuket and other tourist areas however a few things to note:

        1. Discussion on transit through BKK is not clear as you have mentioned.
        2. There is a new wave of Covid currently hitting Thailand.
        3.The Government are prone to a change of plans.

        I would ensure that all flights have some degree of flexibility to safeguard yourself.

• Anna says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:48

  If either BA or QR cancel your outbound flights you would have re-routing rights under EU261 (it would be different if QR cancelled the return after you’d flown the outbound, I think). The big problem might be if Italy was suffering another wave and banned all travel.

  • Anna says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:33

    To VickyTM!

  • Jonathan says:

    7 Apr7 April 13:50

    If BA cancel/delay then they’re only on hook to get you to Rome though. No consequential loss cover for the connection.

    Your travel insurance may cover but beware it may not meet criteria for a missed connection if separate bookings.

    • kitten says:

      7 Apr7 April 14:50

      TBH risky I agree Jonathan. Ok in these times I would be holding 2 bookings using separate carriers to get to Rome on the previous day.

      • yorkieflyer says:

        7 Apr7 April 17:17

        Personally, I wouldn’t book an ex EU or plan a far east transit on separate tickets at the moment .We are on a boring BA 241 London to/from Bangkok for Christmas and hoping that goes to plan. Unknown entry requirements, testing, vacs certificates, cancellations, “red” listing and corona spikes are the issues to me. I’ve previously been a fan of ex EU’s cash and redemption in Diamond Club times with stopovers in Dublin, Venice, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Munich, Rome and loads of true connections so generally I’m up for it and Mrs Yorkieflyer already grumbling at the lack of a night stop somewhere new and missing out on Qatar’s service in favour of BA’s matronly style but better safe than sorry as my old gran used to say

• Waddle says:

  7 Apr7 April 11:53

  Amex Plat FHR booking question:
  Having a Platinum opens up the ability to book via FHR and as I understand it, stays will get credit to hotel loyalty programmes. Do I have to pay at the hotel with the same Amex used to make the booking on Amex Travel?

  • Phil says:

    7 Apr7 April 11:58

    My experience is that you just have to pay with any Amex. I used to have a Amex Green Euro card, and pay with this for FHR bookings in Europe. Remember to put your loyalty scheme number in the box during the FHR booking process.

    I’ve had success with FHR/Ambassador/Spire benefits staking in the past.

    • Rob says:

      7 Apr7 April 12:06

      You pay on departure.

      In theory you are meant to use AN Amex. Half of the time the check-out staff forget, should you want to slip in another, possibly 0% FX, Visa card.

      • Hotelier says:

        7 Apr7 April 13:47

        You need to settle all charges in your room bill ( including incidentals) with an Amex.

        You can provide a different card ( Visa, MC..) as guarantee on arrival but need to use the Amex on departure ( cash also not possible). I would certainly be concern if we were forgetting half of the time, you never know who will be the FHR inspector 😉

        • Rob says:

          7 Apr7 April 13:54

          Trust me, half the time you can use any card. I have done many, many of these.

        • MKB says:

          7 Apr7 April 16:06

          I’ve been unlucky. I’ve only done a handful of FHR stays, all in the USA and Canada, and they’ve been quite insistent that I had to use my Plat Amex that I booked with. To be fair, I was pushing to use a Mastercard or Visa that avoided the foreign-exchange fee, so there may have been less push-back if I’d volunteered a different Amex.

      • KBuffett says:

        7 Apr7 April 16:12

        I think things have changed now, I’m always been asked to pay by AmEx in the last 2 years. Book via Emyr instead

• MariaJ says:

  7 Apr7 April 12:10

  Morning! Just called BA to cancel my cancelled flight. The first agent was half asleep and couldn’t get the booking reference right after 4 tries. Tried again and the second one said that couldn’t refund me because the ticket has been re-issued several times and had to be sent to the Refunds department. Is this right? I haven’t had that one before.

  • Anna says:

    7 Apr7 April 12:43

    I did this recently with 2 cancelled avios/241 bookings. Got the 241 and avios back within a couple of days but they said the cash component had to go to the refunds department (no re-issuing issues though). One lot of cash came through within 2 weeks, the other never arrived, despite BA insisting that it had been refunded and I ended up opening a dispute with Amex who refunded it almost immediately. So keep an eye out for the money turning up (or not)!

    • MariaJ says:

      7 Apr7 April 12:51

      Thank you Anna.
      Does anyone know how to speed this up?

      • Anna says:

        7 Apr7 April 13:45

        They told me to allow 30 days for cash refunds and only chase it up after that. Then when I did they insisted the money had been refunded when it clearly hadn’t!

      • Lady London says:

        7 Apr7 April 13:52

        Under EU261 if they cancelled your flight they are supposed to refund you within, IIRC, 7 or 14 days (I forget which).

        Practically speaking airlines were taking much longer even before Covid. During Covid most of us would regard 30 as reasonable I think.

        @Anna’s advice is the best practically to follow and I would check weekly and phone weekly. At the 30 day point if no date for payment I might consider chargeback.

        • MariaJ says:

          7 Apr7 April 14:51

          @Lady London. Thank you very much! 🙂

  • ChrisC says:

    7 Apr7 April 22:19

    Phone agents can only generate a refund for simple bookings.

    Anything that has been changed in the past – such as into a voucher then used to pay for another flight needs to go for manual recalculation and it joins the back of the queue.

    Not really possible to speed this up. Calling just wastes your time and that of the person you speak to because they can’t bump your file up the queue.

• BuildBackBetter says:

  7 Apr7 April 12:36

  Not interesting to many on here – you can now earn elite miles on shopping on Singapore airlines portal and bank points transferred to your Krisflyer account.

  • Blair says:

    7 Apr7 April 14:57

    Linky to the announcement?

    • BuildBackBetter says:

      7 Apr7 April 15:46

      https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/plan-travel/promotions/global/kf/kf-promo/unlock-status-credits/
      Equation is – transfer 250k miles and get elite gold status.

      • Sina says:

        7 Apr7 April 16:13

        Very disappointing for me as I have transferred more than 250K since mid march!! 😭

        • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

          7 Apr7 April 17:58

          @BuildBackBetter – tyvm for the heads up !
          @Sina – it seems that until April 21 they are doing double status credit offer and so transferring 125k miles would be enough to trigger Elite Gold status…

        • BuildBackBetter says:

          7 Apr7 April 18:10

          Try calling them or send an email to them requesting to consider your recent transfers. You never know!

        • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

          8 Apr8 April 07:55

          Actually, on re-reading the small print it looks like the bonus may not apply to points transfers so ignore that!

• Ben says:

  7 Apr7 April 12:42

  Hello,

  Does anybody here know the process for getting a particular brand onto Amex Offers? i.e. as a brand how do you go about getting Amex to select your offer?

  Many thanks in advance

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 14:05

    There is someone called Lucie Moseley who you can chase on LinkedIn who heads up merchant marketing, I’m sure she can point you to the right person under her command.

    • Ben says:

      7 Apr7 April 20:02

      Thank you Rob, this is really helpful.

• mart says:

  7 Apr7 April 12:42

  Hi all, have been waiting until the 9 april deadline to refer OH for her business Gold card so as to max out time to hit 5k spend threshold on both cards. I have referred her, however, the referral link takes to a page where the business gold sign up bonus is 20k – I can see the 50k bonus is still valid until 9 April, so wondering if this is just an IT error?

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