The HfP chat thread – Saturday 3rd July

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Anna says:

3 Jul3 July 08:38

Has anyone had flights cancelled by Ryanair recently but still travelled? There’a a chance out TFS flight might be cancelled, I suppose, if it stays on the amber list and there aren’t enough customers who are vaccinated and/or willing to pay for all the tests to book enough seats.
Are they massively resistant to re-routing? I am absolutely prepared to book other flights and take them to MCOL but I’m wondering if anyone else has been in this position.
- Harry T says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 08:50
  
  In my experience, Ryanair just don’t cancel their flights, regardless of what happens.
- Colin MacKinnon says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 08:51
  
  Wife had to go to Spain (brother going to hospital) in April/May. Flight from Edinburgh to Malaga with Ryanair was booked four weeks in advance – it’s only £9.99 I said, EU 265 I said, etc.
  
  Ryanair cancelled flight around 14 days beforehand: email offered (in this order): rebook for another date, reroute or refund. Was actually quite impressed.
  
  Call centre wouldn’t reroute EDI-LON-Spain with Easyjet on EDI-LON and Ryanair Lon-Spain, but offered Ryanair from Manchester and refund of the train fare from Scotland to MAN.
  
  I ended up driving her to Carlisle because the West Coast Main Line was shut in Scotland for maintenance that weekend!
  
  ps. Throughout pandemic, Ryanair have been tops – often operating with only 25% capacity.
  It has actually led me to wonder if “Reliable Ryanair” is a corporate decision to come out of the pandemic stronger and with a better reputation?
  - Anna says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:01
    
    Thanks Colin & Harry, that’s very reassuring! In this instance we don’t want the flights to be cancelled as all the other elements of the trip are now in place, but at least TFS is served by a fair number of carriers so a reroute would be feasible.
    Peak summer holidays though so I’ve paid quite a bit more than £9.99 but still half what I’ve paid in previous years!
    - Anna says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 09:03
      
      It would be interesting to know what would have happened, Colin, if you had been banned from going to Manchester at that point!
      - Colin MacKinnon says:
        
        3 Jul3 July 10:36
        
        A good law is an enforceable one!
        
        We had someone from Wales here on business the other day who said they had stopped to refuel in Manchester! I pointed out that they had actually broken the law – so better tell other customers that they had stopped in the Lake District.
        
        Don’t know why the Scottish government introduced it – there was no way anyone was going to enforce it.
        
        ps. When daughter came back from Lanzarote in late Feb, I think, I drove to Dublin to pick her up. No flights to Scotland and alternative was via Madrid and Heathrow (and the world travellers there) or overnight in Dublin and a mix of world travellers on a flight to Scotland.
        
        So common sense said me driving to get the ferry to Belfast, and then then down to Dublin – with my Thermos and sandwiches – was reducing her chance of picking up an infection.
        
        Rules in Ireland, NI and Scotland said to avoid public transport wherever possible, so I had that printed out. I then did the 10 days self-isolation with her back home, and she was able to start her job on Day 12.
        
        Since the job was high-end TV production related, her entire journey was also covered as OK by the Irish, NI and Scottish regs too.
        
        Don’t you just love rules!
  - JDB says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:09
    
    There may be an element of this, but probably a lot of other considerations as well. The return / onward flight might be busy and FR has a much lower breakeven load factor than anyone else. Quite likely also some had booked and didn’t travel, just writing off very cheap fares. If at all possible they want to run flights which will help in the upturn as people will then have to buy cash tickets more than using vouchers. EasyJet has been warning investors about this; when things recover they will be flying a lot of aircraft without getting any cash in. This will be quite a painful inflection point before the airline recovers.
    - Anna says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 09:11
      
      Best case scenario then is that our flight departs with a very low passenger load!
  - The Savage Squirrel says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:36
    
    “ps. Throughout pandemic, Ryanair have been tops”
    
    Issuing flight vouchers when a refund should have been given and then only converting said voucher to a refund after a long time-consuming battle with CS is not my version of “tops”. When I compare with how (fellow LCC) Jet2 handled a similar situation, the contrast could not be greater.
    - Ed says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 11:03
      
      There’s no way Jet2 can be described as LCC. Agree with excellent customer service, but flights are usually far from cheap.
  - Super Secret Stuff says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 12:02
    
    At the start Ryanair where impossible to get a refund out of. But if you do need to travel, they are the best because they’d rather force people to fly or lose there money than cancel and refund
  - Laura says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 19:08
    
    Not sure I’d agree on Ryanair being tops either when they claim flights are amendable but will only let you change to more expensive flights and you have to pay the difference 🙁
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:16
  
  On the might not be enough vaccinated. 65% of adults will have been double vaccinated by the end of this weekend. There are plenty.
  
  Amber list really isn’t an issue for those without kids of school age that are retired/office workers/self employed/unemployed etc and especially Holiday home owners that can be out there until it’s green
  
  The tests means they might not contemplate a long weekend and might just do a single longer trip.
- Sam G says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:47
  
  Ryanair can rebook to EasyJet or Jet2 so for Tenerife that’s actually better than BA could offer! But I believe they’d first look to get you out from another airport in the UK on their own flight and reimburse the expenses.
  
  But actually like others have said Ryanair have operated a decent amount of flights even with quite low load factors and seems like plenty of people travelling to amber destinations even now, so hopefully you’ll be fine!
Frankie says:

3 Jul3 July 08:51

Has anyone ever used hotelplanner.com? If so are they ok/legit/trustworthy? Only recently discovered their existence on a scraper site.
- Ed says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:08
  
  No experience of hotel planner.com, but in current times I’d be quite cautious about using 3rd party booking sites, especially lesser known ones.
- ChrisC says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 10:53
  
  Used them a couple of times. All legit and above board.
  
  It was a follow on from a previous site where as well as selling discount rooms (as now) you could put in details of an existing booking and other hotels in the area might bid a lower price to get your business.
  
  With some rates and hotels you can even get your hotel points – these are clearly marked,
  
  Just be aware that if you do cancel they may still charge their service fee even if the room costs are refunded. So check the T&Cs
  
  I would use them again in the future.
Njb says:

3 Jul3 July 08:53

Just for information- managed to get IHG to extend by 6 months my Ambassador membership and free night certificate due to expire Sept 21.
Took three calls but I was persistent.
- David says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:13
  
  I emailed to extend the voucher and they extended the membership without asking
  - Njb says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:35
    
    Wow – it was not that easy for me!
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:18
  
  Did they extend it of their own free will or did they actually use your once in a lifetime 6 month extension privilege…
  - Njb says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:34
    
    It was the once in a lifetime! But wont be renewing after that anyway. Sort of done with IHG – poor customer service and benefits.
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 09:46
      
      So really they did nothing for you.
      
      I wouldn’t say I’m don’t but it’s not my go to choice. They need to do more for spire so make it’s meaningful. I wouldn’t even say breakfast but some actual rules around guaranteed late checkout and upgrades would be great
  - David says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 16:14
    
    extended of their own free will no mention of once in a lifetime,
- David says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:36
  
  Out of interest did this also extend your standard elite status (e.g. Spire) to the end of 2022?
  - QFFlyer says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 14:12
    
    What IHG have done is the once in a lifetime 6m extension of Ambassador that they grant to all eligible members on request.
    
    Extending Spire isn’t part of what IHG have done, but in practice this generally happens (in that extending Amb extends Spire).
Patrycja says:

3 Jul3 July 08:54

I am filling in our Spain Health Questionnaire required before the flight.

My husband’s vaccination letter got validated but when I chose reason for certificate: diagnostic test, it only shows NAAT and RAT. Is NAAT what is should be selecting for PCR tests?

Thanks!
- Anna says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:05
  
  This is a bit unclear – are you saying your husband is vaccinated but you have had a PCR test?
  NAAT is definitely a technique for PCR tests but don’t know if this specific information would be on your result on not.
  - Anna says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:08
    
    I suspect as well that RAT might stand for Rapid Antigen Test, which wouldn’t be accepted. Hopefully Harry T or another medic might be around to clarify!
  - Patrycja says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:16
    
    Correct, my husband has been fully vaccinated with AstraZeneca. This was straight forward. You input type of vaccine you have and date of second dose (they don’t ask for batch numbers on the form in case anyone is worried about batches produce in India). You then validate the vaccination for travel and it gives you instant result (validated or not)
    
    For non fully vaccinated, you chose diagnostic test but it only comes up with the two options I listed. Not sure why they have Rapid Antigen tests as option given they are not accepted. The only other option is NAAT. Hoping someone can help.
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 09:24
      
      A Nucleic Acid Amplification Test, or NAAT, is a type of viral diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. NAATs detect genetic material (nucleic acids). NAATs for SARS-CoV-2 specifically identify the RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences that comprise the genetic material of the virus.
      
      As Marcw says pcr is a NAAT
      
      It’s nice to know a rapid LAMP would be accepted from the U.K.
      
      RAT’s are acceptable in some circumstances for example as an EU citizen (we’ve lost that right) or
      - Patrycja says:
        
        3 Jul3 July 09:35
        
        Thank you. It’s fascinating what you need to know these days to travel
- marcw says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:14
  
  Yes, PCR, TMA and LAMP are all NAAT tests.
  - Patrycja says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:17
    
    Awesome! Thank you @marcw
Anna says:

3 Jul3 July 09:12

MAN lounge datapoint – a couple of the lounges look to be reopening from Monday, pre-booking price is £19.99 at the moment which doesn’t sound too bad.
MilesOnPoint says:

3 Jul3 July 09:14

RE: Amex Lounge @ Wimbledon

Has anyone been able to try it yet this year?
Would be interested to know what the experience was like. Were you able to turn up on the day or was it possible to secure a table in advance via Resy?
- Mzb00 says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:22
  
  Resy was ditched so it’s all first come first serve. I wandered over yesterday around mid-afternoon and the queue to enter was going around the building. Didn’t seem like it was worth the time.
  - MilesOnPoint says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 09:27
    
    Good to know, thank you. Sounds like it’s probably a case of go early or don’t bother
    - Andrew says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 09:51
      
      It a shame Amex didn’t take the opportunity to provide a “benefit” to Platinum members and offer front of line access and a free drink or something.
- SteveJ says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 10:29
  
  Go after the lunch time rush, 2 or 3pm the queue was shorter. You get a free power bank or free suntan lotion, that’s it. They have a nice balcony where they’ll take a pic for you (on your own phone, not expecting you to pay them).
  
  Then you pay for your own drinks and snacks. No cheaper or more expensive than other outlets. Pretty balcony area and maybe quieter than other outlets, but not worth a long queue. If queues are short go for it.
  
  There is also a free Amex FM radio, but you pick that up from various kiosks around the ground, no need to queue for the lounge for that.
Tom1 says:

3 Jul3 July 09:30

Anyone been through LHR T2 recently and knows what lounges are open? Looks like only Plaza Prem unless anyone knows differently? Star alliance pref!
- Rob says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:35
  
  Lufty was open in December but all the B-satellite lounges were shut.
  - Tom1 says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 12:57
    
    No airline lounges open today in T2. Only Plaza Premium – they were accepting DragonPass & Amex plat but the cheap passes I bought last year have disappeared/expired (that reminds me… must apply for refund)
Joe says:

3 Jul3 July 09:42

We have Centre Court tickets today and have just been advised that we’re AmEx hospitality guests in their suite. Anyone have knowledge or experience of what this means?!
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  3 Jul3 July 09:59
  
  No idea but enjoy and report back if it was any good (or not)
  - Rob says:
    
    3 Jul3 July 10:06
    
    You get free buffet, free alcohol and a free afternoon tea if you go back later in the day – at least that’s what you get if you’re invited by Amex management during the week.
    
    Here’s a story. Today was meant to be press day, where Amex invites various personal finance journalists to the suite. However, there was pushback due to it being a weekend and I think they scrapped it, which is why it is empty.
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 10:35
      
      Journos care about weekends?
    - Joe says:
      
      3 Jul3 July 12:13
      
      Looks like it was because of this. Both AmEx suites are closed today so they’ve had to apologise – but we have front row seats on Centre, which I imagine are the seats the hospitality guests would have received – so can’t complain too much!