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The HfP chat thread – Saturday 17th July

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General

Comments (342)

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

  • GERRY says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:27

    Is anyone aware if lounges are open at Palma Mallorca ?

  • N says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:37

    Intercontinental O2 – cancelled booking.

    Been offered 20k points by the IHG Customer Services.

    Trying to work out if I can be bothered to escalate.

    • Worzel says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:41

      All the best…….

    • Andrew says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:42

      I’d take it! Most people haven’t got anything.

    • Number9 says:
      17 Jul17 July 09:46

      Oh that’s interesting. I’ve got booking in September but I knew it was a Covid hotel so made a back up at Hilton. I’ll wait and see what happens but I’ll take the points if I’m offered and be happy in my suite at Hilton.

      • Chrism20 says:
        17 Jul17 July 11:52

        15th September is apparently the expected date for a return to paying guests from what several managers have said to me this week

      • Chrism20 says:
        17 Jul17 July 11:53

        Paying guests return on the 15th September under current plans

    • Rob says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:03

      That’s 20k more than anyone else has been offered.

      • Chrism20 says:
        17 Jul17 July 10:37

        I’ve had a significantly better result this week.

        A combination of IHG saying the reservation guarantee applied followed by two very contradictory emails from the property left them nowhere to hide.

    • Chrism20 says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:39

      Push back and push back hard. You will get a result but you have to be relentless

    • Claire says:
      18 Jul18 July 08:08

      They cancelled on me twice, offered no points, so you are lucky.

  • Carpal Travel says:
    17 Jul17 July 09:49

    Well with all the traffic lights shenanigans and uncertainty over other country rules, we are cancelling our LGW-MCO trip in October. Instead we are going to find somewhere in the UK to go.

    Somehow, I cannot help but feel that this is a purposeful move by the government, in order to help minimise the inevitable economic shockwave that is looming. Either that or I need to buy a tinfoil hat!

    • Craig says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:16

      I just wish they’d say so, at least that would be consistent. Tenerife booked for the end of September, fortunately I can cancel a few days before without loss. It’s the families that are separated that I really feel for. My brother-in-law started a new job in Auckland last January, my sister and niece are still here. They were due to follow when my niece finished school, the rest is history. They have their visas now and tickets for August so fingers crossed, good job he’s classed as an essential worker.

      • Lyn says:
        17 Jul17 July 10:30

        I agree with you about the separated families, Craig. Hope your sister and niece have an uneventful journey in August.

  • Keely says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:05

    Datapoint – recently booked a hotel via BA earn 15 Avios per £1 link . Just checked my account and noticed the Avios posted 4 days after the stay . Plus the hotel was cheaper . Good result

  • LoserShopper says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:24

    Marriott Amex question. If I took out the card in June 2021 and elite nights posted 14 days later, will the next elite night posting take place in June 2022 (anniversary of card) or in January 2022 (elite nights reset to zero date)?

  • Michael AC says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:31

    I’ve had a bit of a weird issue where Lufthansa cancelled the first leg of a flight and rebooked it for several hours after the second leg, leaving the second unchanged. I of course was able to cancel with no issue but I’m not sure why their system would allow it? Wouldn’t it have been better to just tell me there were no longer flights?

    • Richie says:
      17 Jul17 July 11:55

      Art. 8 of EC261 is very clear with what airlines should do, it just seems a bit incompetent not to follow it.

    • AJA says:
      17 Jul17 July 12:54

      I wonder if you had left it a bit longer whether Lufthansa’s systems would have triggered a further change to the second leg? BA’s systems do this occasionally, you just have to give it time to filter through.

      • Michael AC says:
        17 Jul17 July 15:32

        Two rather obscure airports so unfortunately only one flight a day for each so it won’t be happening!

    • Blair says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:09

      That’s often my experience with Lufthansa group. Impossibly timed rebookings, the system does not auto-correct, and then the phone agents matter of factly say “You may not make that connection; we will rebook or refund.”

      • Lady London says:
        17 Jul17 July 13:45

        Yes Lufthansa did that to me on a round the world award booking. They simply refused to fix anything.

        TBH I don’t trust Lufthansa after this kind of behaviour and the fact that their response to refund requests for flights Lufthansa had cancelled was simple refusal and even “Refunds Department is closed” so refusing to deal at all with refunds for at least 8-9 months? after Covid began.

        If you’re a fat cat / First Class Traveller or even possibly Senator Lufthansa is fine though.

  • QwertyKnowsBest says:
    17 Jul17 July 10:47

    Regular FOREX question. I need to make Regular transfers in €’s to my Spanish bank account. Now looking for a better rate than banks usually provide. I have seen recommendations for the likes of Wise and other fintechs here. Anyone can advise from personal experience.

    Thanks

    • William R B says:
      17 Jul17 July 10:55

      Using Wise is an excellent experience. I transfer money to France regularly, almost at the middle rate for euros, a few pennies fee and in the French account within seven to ten seconds.

      • Thywillbedone says:
        17 Jul17 July 11:24

        +1 for Wise. Using their intuitive interface makes you realise how sleepy the high street banks are. Have only used twice but for 5 figure sums with no issues. And more competitive rates than my business bank account with HSBC (they obviously beat personal account fx rates by a much larger margin).

    • ChrisBCN says:
      17 Jul17 July 11:19

      Wise is the way to do it.

    • Yuff says:
      17 Jul17 July 12:22

      Revolut used to be great but since brexit they have started adding fees to fx bank transfers.
      There was a message saying they were going to sort this issue out but I haven’t done a transfer recently.
      Also some banks didn’t charge for atm transaction but most seem to have started charging fees for cash withdrawals.
      Any other options.
      The Revolut app works well for me changing £ into fx currencies but I haven’t tried any other banks

      • Yorkie Aid says:
        17 Jul17 July 12:38

        For anyone that does serious amounts of FX I would recommend Interactive Brokers (not to be confused with Interactive Investor (ii)). You are then trading your currency directly on the FX markets with tiny fees and absolutely no loading. One free wire out per month per currency. It does take junping through a few hoops to get an account open because it’s a professional trading platform but very much worth it if you have the volume.

    • Blair says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:11

      Check the requirements for an N26 € account? They seemed pretty lax when I set up an account and said I was in Ireland.

    • Paul Pogba says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:28

      Somebody on here recommended Fineco to me for something similar, I haven’t used them but it looks like it might do what you want: https://finecobank.co.uk/public/banking/banking-abroad/

    • QwertyKnowsBest says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:59

      Thank you all, appreciated.

      • Sam G says:
        17 Jul17 July 14:03

        Go with Wise. Absolutely simple and its instant . I’ve tried Revolut and something always seems to go wrong with some hidden limit or fee

        • Barraclough says:
          17 Jul17 July 14:27

          + 1. Wise is simple, cheap and fast. For my regular transfers to Spanish Current Account.

  • Thywillbedone says:
    17 Jul17 July 11:07

    Morning all. Any experience with TAP here? I have a flight in J booked but now want to cancel. Unfortunately (for the fare class I booked), the options within first 24 hours are a voucher for full value of the flight or a refund minus some rather hefty fees (£1k+). I was wondering if could chose the voucher and use it to buy a fully flexible fare (with no cancellation fees) and then cancel for full refund. Do-able or they would refund back to a voucher rather than cash?

    (for the interested, their call centre is worse than BA!)

    • Thywillbedone says:
      17 Jul17 July 11:10

      I should add that there don’t appear to be any Ts & Cs for the vouchers on the website. Don’t want to ask an agent as I’m not sure they would steer me correctly – besides, wait times are min 1 hour.

    • Rui N. says:
      17 Jul17 July 12:39

      TAP is known for even “forgetting” to issue you the voucher and only doing so after being contacted multiple times.
      In any case, I doubt that strategy would work. Refunds (which TAP also doesn’t issue, I know people waiting for over 1 year) are done to the original method of payment.

      • Thywillbedone says:
        17 Jul17 July 13:01

        Yeah, starting to realise I made a grievous mistake judging by various forums. Makes sense they wouldn’t leave a loophole open on buying a fully flex fare with a voucher but wanted to check anyway. Thing is, they offer you one ‘free’ change of dates…this would work for me but when the agent pulled up the price for new dates, the fare difference was about £500 higher than the TAP price for the exact same flights on their own website. So, clearly, they don’t charge a change fee, but simply ‘magic’ a fare differential from thin air (the agent pathetically suggested that they take into account “many factors” when calculating the new fare). I sincerely hope everyone remembers which companies misbehaved during COVID.

    • Blair says:
      17 Jul17 July 13:13

      Oh TAP! Very tempting rock bottom fares on aggregator sites. Occasionally excellent service in the air. But astonishingly bad at handling refunds and changes. I would only ever use them for direct short haul flights booked within a month of departure when I knew for sure I’d be travelling. Sorry I know that doesn’t help your predicament but they really do need to be treated with utmost caution by anyone considering them.

      • Lady London says:
        17 Jul17 July 13:28

        Germany authorities took court action against TAP for ignoring claims/refunds and grabbed their bank accounts.

        That’s a pretty extreme misbehaviour by TAP if it had to go so far.

        I might not book with TAP unless it was less than 1 week before my travel.

        • AJA says:
          17 Jul17 July 21:52

          Sounds like TAP really is living up to the acronym, Take Another Plane. Don’t think I’m ever going to take advantage of TAP’s status match which gave me Star Alliance Gold. Oh well.

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

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