The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 26th May

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• Rob says:

  26 May26 May 14:42

  Hi everyone I lost my bapp card in London this morning, I’ve frozen my card and ordered another one but I was hoping to use it this weekend for a Hilton stay as I saved the Amex offer to get the discount.
  Will the offer be automatically registered on my new card or will I not be able to use it?
  Thank you

  • Andrew says:

    26 May26 May 14:54

    It should transfer over automatically – if you check your online account/app now, you’ll probably already see the card number changed and you can check that the offer is still live. If it hasn’t when the card arrives call them to get the offer added.

  • David B says:

    26 May26 May 15:04

    Went through this myself a couple of weeks ago – the offers were automatically registered to the new card, though it did not show up on the online account for a few days. I used the the card before the offer appeared on my new card and it tracked fine.

    • Rob says:

      26 May26 May 15:37

      Thank you both for the info. 🙂

• BearingUp says:

  26 May26 May 14:52

  Although fairly inexperienced in the complexities of air travel, being only a BAEC leisure user, I discovered HfP a little while ago and have come to appreciate the experience often expressed via the threads. I’m now open to advice myself-
  In Jan 2020 I booked return business tickets for my wife and I from Oslo to Auckland via Doha departing mid Dec 20, returning mid Jan 21. They included full lounge and seat selection etc.
  In Nov 20 they were cancelled by Qatar for obvious reasons. I accepted the voucher, plus 10% as we still wished to travel in the future. BA also cancelled my connecting return LHR to Oslo flights – FTV taken for same reason.
  I rebooked Qatar in Jan 21 but by then they had introduced their new business classifications, Classic, Comfort and Elite – but they don’t seem to apply to all Q Suite flights. The call was a nightmare via the overseas QCS team, as London office was not resourced, and we mistakenly ended up with Comfort out and Classic back but, I thought, I’m worn out and its not the end of the world.
  Outbound was 15.55 7th Dec 21 with 2hr connection time in Doha; Inbound 9th Jan 21.
  I then rebooked the BA connecting flights, outbound 07.25 on 7th Dec, landing around 10.30.
  On April 20th Qatar cancelled the revised flights and asked me to rebook etc.
  I did so on 30th April, had more grief; Oslo outbound 9th Dec 07.45, land Doha 16.20, leave Doha 00.55. Again, differing business tickets, and , salt in wound, system wouldn’t allow seat reservation where it was applicable – had to use the contact centre which didn’t put us together but Ive sorted that.
  Had to also change BA flight to afternoon before on 8th and hotel overnight- no problem.
  As of yesterday Qatar now changed flight again! Oslo flight departs 15.55 on 9th Dec – original departure time! However it arrives at 00.30 and Doha to Auckland departs 00.55! Clearly not enough time in my mind but?
  Q: Given the likelihood of NZ opening its borders before Xmas I’m inclined to do absolutely nothing more and wait for the outcome. I suspect that if I start chasing up re the short connection time the Auckland flight may well change at some point – if if actually happens anyway.
  What do you experienced travellers think?
  Currently, the BA flight gives an opportunity for a quick look at Oslo in the morning so I’m not worried about that.
  Apologies for length.
  Thank you all.

  • Memesweeper says:

    26 May26 May 17:12

    What outcome do you want? You are right to think further schedule changes are likely.

    • BearingUp says:

      26 May26 May 20:11

      Thank you Memesweeper.
      Ideally I’d like peace of mind that the connection time is realistic but it is clearly out of my hands. We don’t want to be hanging around at Doha waiting for the next direct flight which may be the next day or whenever.
      Hmm, guess we’re just waiting like everyone else for some realistic decisions to be made.

      • Lady London says:

        26 May26 May 21:19

        DOH can do some amazingly short connection times. However the official MCT is 45min.

        What do you want? As your ticket departs UK/Eur then if any flight on the outward leg of your ticket is cancelled or changes flight number you can use that as a reason to obtain a full refund (which they cannot refuse). Given the situation re: NZ I would consider this. The fact that you took a voucher on an earlier round doesn’t change this.

        If you keep the flights I am certain QR will sort out the too-short connection time at some point by themselves or the schedule will change anyway. Bear in mind that you not being allowed into NZ is not legally QR’s problem so if their practices get tougher you might not get your money back if they can land there but you can’t.

        If you do decide to call them to sort out a different ongoing flight use this as an opportunity to ask for what you want – whether a refund, or shift the whole thing to a later date, or just a later fllight to connect to in Doha.

        Those early-hours connections in DOH are crushing so if you’re keeping it take a squizz at their timetable to see something that gets you a longer gap and get an airport hotel. (Over 8 hour forced gap QR used to pay hotel in some variants of Business – get your correct classes of travel back while you’re about it and ask if they’re still offering the hotel if next flight would be 8hrs+.)

        • BearingUp says:

          27 May27 May 10:35

          Thanks very much for your thoughts Lady London. I’m going to let things lie for a short while and see how the world moves on. We have a BA flight booked for SCL in late Oct – Nov so that may well provide an indicator of the near future. I suspect I’ll be rearranging for early 2022 for both.

• Imran says:

  26 May26 May 15:48

  Received an email from Curve. Apparently, they have raised £7.5M since going live yesterday!

  God bless these people but I seriously don’t understand why they have put money into Curve, which they probably will never see again.

  • Phil says:

    26 May26 May 15:59

    Maybe they disagree with your view on whether they will see a return. Curve Credit could potentially be quite profitable. In addition, it wouldn’t be a massive surprise if another financial institution buy them just obtain the solution/platform they’ve built, that likelihood increases with US exposure.
    Personally I am more sceptical about seeing a return this time and have therefore chosen not to invest but I don’t believe it’s the lost cause many here perceive it to be.

  • Yorkieflyer says:

    26 May26 May 18:54

    Nowt so queer as folk

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    26 May26 May 22:29

    Cool, hope they get loads more. The longer they can find other people to fund their dodgy business model, the better for us 🙂

• Will says:

  26 May26 May 15:56

  apologies if I missed the discussion already but Curve on crowdcube show this incredible valuation for new shareholders buying today; Pre-money valuation £591,716,131
  Rob, as a founder marketeer for Curve, presumably was paid in crypto Curve shares, and is on his way to his private island…

  • Rob says:

    26 May26 May 17:02

    The guy who founded Flyertalk made all his money not from selling Flyertalk, although he did get 8 figures for it I believe, but from taking a stake in points.com in return for promoting it. Points is now a major quoted company in Canada.

    I’m not against the idea. We were offered shares in something last year in lieu of cash, but I didn’t like the sound of their valuation and as we’d just had the £25k-£40k quotes for the site redesign through the door I thought the cash would be better. Let’s see if I’m wrong on that one ….

• Olly says:

  26 May26 May 16:17

  I can’t find the answer myself so maybe it cannot be done but I’m sure if there is a way I will find it on HfP – how do cancel a payment I have erroneously made to an online company I thought was DVLA to renew my driving licence using Curve card?

  • Genghis says:

    26 May26 May 16:43

    There was some discussion on this a month or two ago as I provided a response.
    Check when the contract actually comes into effect. I.e. you’ve handed over your money now but has the company actually accepted your offer? Check terms. Tell them you wish to cancel. If it’s too late, you’ll probably just have to put it down to experience, the company are providing you with a service, apparently, and therefore will want paying. You could try blocking the payment with Curve but the co will likely still want their money if the contract has started. IANAL.

    • Olly says:

      26 May26 May 18:07

      I am very much obliged Ghengis, the app shows the transaction as pending from yesterday afternoon and I have asked the company for a refund. I was hoping for some sort of Chargeback feature but couldn’t see one.

• Sukes says:

  26 May26 May 16:27

  Q re Ryanair website & changing a booking online. I’m trying to change my booking (change is allowed under the ticket terms) but under Manage Booking when I try to enter or select airports to search for new dates I’m running into IT probs…clicking ‘select countries’ doesn’t load anything and when I type in an airport name or code to search it just reports ‘we don’t fly from x’ whatever you enter. It looks like there’s something blocking the popup from working properly but I can’t figure out what…tried Chrome & Safari & VPN, incognito, & allowed all trackers, popups etc, doesn’t matter whether on mac or iphone – same issue. If anyone has encountered an IT solution would be much appreciated!

  • Lady London says:

    26 May26 May 21:37

    It sounds like a website malfunction. If on a mobile can you try Desktop View. Clearing cookies/history/changing browser you seem to have tried.

    I vaguely remember something like this on new bookings on there (not done MMB). It really felt like it was a website malfunction but I think I got round it by entering destination first (city name not airport code) and not entering anything into the departure box just destination as a starting point.

    • Lady London says:

      26 May26 May 21:39

      PS it’s a table lookup failing I think

      • Sukes says:

        26 May26 May 23:46

        Thks Lady London, tried all avenues but eventually succumbed to joining the RYA webchat queue at no 160. To be fair once I reached top of the Q CSA got everything changed in less than 2min. just hoping I don’t have to make more changes….

• KBuffett says:

  26 May26 May 16:29

  I’ve seen a few comments on there previously about paying stamp duty directly. I don’t remember the finer details, can anyone please give me a quick overview? I have a couple of transactions going through, and would like to try and pay via a points collecting method.

  • Jonathan says:

    26 May26 May 17:18

    Ask your solicitor for the payment reference (UTR) & then pay via. http://www.gov.uk/guidance/pay-stamp-duty-land-tax
    You need a personal debit card (ie. Curve). & a metal subscription to avoid the 1.5% fee.
    Remember you have to pay balance within 14 days of completion & will be subject to Curve daily limits so will need to pay in small chunks.

    • Polly says:

      26 May26 May 21:48

      We too have a similar payment coming up. If take out the metal subscription for this purpose can l cancel and revert to the free curve later?

      • Lady London says:

        26 May26 May 22:08

        I think someone said a while back the minimum metal was 6 months.

        Unless someone here has a promo code for a trial period Polly? maybe ask on this thread fresh tomorrow as it’s only us night owls here now.

• James VICKERS says:

  26 May26 May 17:22

  Hi going to Portugal for 2 nights, would doing the lateral flow test at Heathrow before I go be suitable for reentry to UK?

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