The HfP chat thread – Monday 19th July

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• KBuffett says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:02

  Spend £500 get £50 back on all my Platinum Charge cards

  • N says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:25

    Bicester?

    • KBuffett says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:49

      Apologies, yes, at Bicester

  • TGLoyalty says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:53

    Just spend £500 on anything or particular retailer(s)

  • AndyD says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:38

    Hmm. Absent from mine.

• Phil W says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:27

  Good Morning. Today is the cut-off point for being able to cancel our hotel in Austria for this Saturday. I don’t suppose anyone can see any chink of light that Austria will open up to vacced UK residents or EU citizens with a UK resident partner?

  We have back-up plans in Bavaria but would love to get to Austria to see friends.

  • YC says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:41

    Probably best to cancel and rebook if things change. Not worth the risk. Also,
    I was surprised to see passengers running to buy a specific mask to board a flight to Austria (of which boots was sold out). So worth double checking all entry requirements when they do open up

  • Travel Strong says:

    19 Jul19 July 12:52

    Personal opinion (based on how they all have a common approach to open land borders between each other, but otherwise closed to non-citizens): I think Austria and the Visegrad group countries (Czech, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) will keep similar entry rules and move together after agreeing amongst themselves. This probably will add bureaucracy as the different characters pursue their different nationalistic agendas, and I’ve given up hope for this year.

• Howard says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:34

  Morning all – does anyone have experience of booking the isle of wight ferry (wightlink) using tesco clubcard. I recall last time i tried it takes you to a website with inflated prices, but it seems this is no longer the case. Any tips appreciated.

  Thanks!!

• JohnT says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:39

  I just got another Aer Lingus verification code text? Second in a week. Guess hackers trying it – or could it be seatspy?

  • Rob says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:56

    AwardWallet?

    • Doug M says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:25

      Yes, had to disable Aer Linus from AW. See AW becoming less useful.

    • JohnT says:

      20 Jul20 July 07:03

      Ok yes thanks meant AW. Phew.

  • Peggerz says:

    19 Jul19 July 10:58

    3 weeks ago received an email from Aer Lingus to update security. Appeared genuine. Received a text from them with code and completed actions required. During that night I received 6 texts from Aer Lingus with further codes. I contacted Aer Lingus and confirmed email was genuine and that the texts were a ‘glitch’. I have received a text from the airline once a week since, providing codes. I have not used the website/app since, but they insist no details have been compromised. Take care!

• Anna says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:45

  Has anyone flown with Ryanair recently? There’s a requirement to upload travel documents on their website, which refers to the Spanish PLF, but it’s not clear whether we also need to up load proof of vaccination/negative test or whether we just take these to the airport.

  • YC says:

    19 Jul19 July 08:57

    I did last week and uploaded nothing as was not prompted. However, I needed to go to the check in desk for other reasons where they checked both documents. They also checked documents of everyone again at the gate so they may be trying to automate some things (?) Upload both if u can to be on the safe side?

  • Harry T says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:05

    I flew with them on Saturday. We did upload our Spanish QR code documents and proof of vaccination/PCR test respectively. These were checked at the gate anyway, so no idea if there was any point!

    • Anna says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:13

      Thanks both, I think I will upload everything as well as taking them with us just to be on the safe side!

      • Pete M says:

        19 Jul19 July 09:39

        Uploading seems to make 0 difference, Anna – BF flew with them from Berlin a couple of weeks back and it was a nightmare. They only had 4 check-in staff for 8 flights leaving between 6-8am – everyone had to see a check-in agent as they weren’t issuing online boarding passes. Queues were insane and he made the flight with minutes to spare despite joining the queue 2hrs before departure. They offloaded about 30 bags as loads of people didn’t make it… Moral of the story – get to the airport early, although they may have learned from this / staff UK bases better!

        • Anna says:

          19 Jul19 July 09:47

          Pete M – hopefully we are prepared – flight not till 1515 hours but we are staying at MAN the night before and planning to go over to the terminal after breakfast!! (Presuming the teenagers test negative the day before 😬)
          Just wondering whether to book the lounge or is that tempting fate for the tests?!

      • Sam says:

        19 Jul19 July 09:42

        Uploaded ahead of time but still got asked for it at check in and boarding today. Probably easier (lazier) for them to just ask than look it up on the system!

        • Pete M says:

          19 Jul19 July 10:10

          Book the lounge Anna and have a great (and as normal as possible) time! I’d hope the lounge would understand if the tests came back positive and would sort you out!

• AJA says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:46

  Well that’s depressing. I just got an email from Boots suggesting I should book now for my winter flu jab. Slots are available in September and October apparently.

  • Sam G says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:28

    Yes booked mine

  • Nigel W says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:51

    Thanks for this. Just booked mine for September.

  • Mike says:

    19 Jul19 July 12:57

    AJA – not depressing. Get it booked – flu jab slots are booking up fast for Sep and early Oct

    • AJA says:

      19 Jul19 July 13:37

      It’s depressing to be reminded of winter when the temperature is 30 degrees though. Also a reminder that summer is well on its way to ending. Looking increasingly likely that I will pass the two year mark without stepping foot on a plane too. 🙁

• YC says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:47

  Flight compensation question – Ryanair had sent an email suggesting flight was delayed by 2hr 57min. I am almost certain this is touch down rather than door opens. Is there a way of still claiming compensation? I wouldn’t normally chase this but the 3hr+ delay on the ground was so badly managed that compensation actually feels fair

  • SteveKicks says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:49

    Isn’t compensation suspended right now? (Supposedly because of covid)

    • Lady London says:

      19 Jul19 July 12:02

      not bannee for lateness… the airline could only get out of compensation by crying Covid excuse if there had been a covid event strictly related to your particular flight (and importantly, not relating to any other flight such as the incoming flight). It must come from your specific flight eg a crew member tested positive on the day. IME Ryanair do lie to passengers about landing times.

      For EU261 the landing time is when landed, and at the point the first door is opened.

      Expertflyer apparently has this data for about 48hrs after the flight. Timings and official excuses are logged officially – ask on flyertalk with flight and date for someone to help

      • YC says:

        19 Jul19 July 15:51

        Thanks the flight aware app shows me landing and gate arrival up to 48hrs too. But flight was on Friday so no luck with this. Any other ideas?

  • Margaret says:

    19 Jul19 July 14:47

    Good luck with that! A couple of years ago our flight was 3 hours 20 minutes late to Edinburgh, where we had a connection flight. They claimed it was under 3 hours as the herded everyone onto a stairwell with locked doors and then sat us on the tarmac. We were told all kinds of lies (staff shortage…actually staff lunch), air traffic controllers (Stansted confirmed no issues) and they said that we’d flown the flight as well (bit of a security issue with that one!), despite asking to leave it along with another person who was going to the States via Edinburgh and having proof from Stansted that we collected out bags at a certain time when the flight was in the air! Never flown since.

• Elaine J. says:

  19 Jul19 July 08:47

  Arrived at Heathrow at 7a.m. this morning, and tried to check in my bag at the new check in at the station. After queuing for a couple of minutes, it was my turn to be checked in. After several attempts to check me in, the guy told me it wasn’t working, and I would have to go to the normal check in. Probably quicker to do this anyway, as you still have to take your bag to the drop off upstairs. You don’t leave it with the Airportr staff at the Heathrow Express station. All seems a bit pointless to me.

  • The Lord says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:09

    Was T5 busy this morning? Wondered if things have started to pick up a bit. Was dead when I was there early June

    • Elaine J. says:

      19 Jul19 July 09:41

      T5 relatively busy, especially the check in queues. BA First lounge also much busier than I expected. Not sure if it’s a Monday morning thing or because they’re cramming everyone from lots of flights (AA, CX etc) into the one terminal and one lounge.

  • Pete M says:

    19 Jul19 July 09:40

    Gosh, that does seem very pointless, Elaine!

  • Rich says:

    19 Jul19 July 15:54

    That seems absurdly pointless!

    I mean it was pointless anyway, given that you would have to walk past bag drop to get to security, but this is pointlesser.

    If all they’re doing is printing bag tags, then why not do it onboard the HEX? At least that has some (small) value.

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