The HfP chat thread – Monday 19th July

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

We are running this daily chat thread on Head for Points during the coronavirus outbreak.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the de facto repository for random comments and questions. With the news flow being lighter, we are running fewer ‘Bits’ articles.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind. At this tricky time, and given that many of you are at home, we want the HfP community to have a place to chat.

Please only comment under the main articles on the site if your comment is directly related to the topic of the article. This has long-term benefits as it keeps the commentary relevant for people who read those articles in the future.

Old chat threads are hidden from the HfP home page. If you want to look for something in an old thread, click here. This brings up all the articles in our ‘General’ category which includes the chat threads.

Category

General

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

James says:

19 Jul19 July 15:39

Can anyone tell me what you say when you ring up Amex looking for points to stay? Is it as simple as saying you don’t think you are getting value for the card and they offer you it or do you have to specifically ask for it? What is the current going rate?
- KS says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 15:49
  
  I explain how I intended to use the card benefits and now am unable to so not getting the expected returns on the annual fee. I received 50k points earlier this month after my annual fee hit. A friend who took out the card in March got 35k.
- SteveJ says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 15:51
  
  Lay out as you say that you’re not getting the value, but be blatant enough to ask if they can give you any points to make it worth staying. Got 35k with this strategy, had card for 4 months.
  - Genghis says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:14
    
    How do people play it when it’s :
    – “What can you offer me to stay?”
    – “Erm, nothing.”
    Cancel or backtrack with tail between legs with a HUACA?
    - SteveJ says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:27
      
      HUACA, or quote the “that’s really disappointing as a close friend of mine got 50k points” line and see if they budge, ask a manager etc
    - KBuffett says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 17:28
      
      Genghis
      Just line up the convo slightly differently
      You’re reviewing your cards, the annual fee is high and you haven’t used any of the travel benefits. Are there new benefits that you’re not aware of or anything you can offer as an incentive to stay. Makes it easier to say OK, I’ll have a think and come back
    - Super Secret Stuff says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 17:35
      
      I normally have a genuine reason for calling so say OK I need to do x and y before I cancel. Also I have another question…
      
      Sometimes they magically find something too
    - Reney says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 19:06
      
      I usually don’t move all my points out, so if there is no offer I would tell them I’ll call back to cancel after I have move my points.
      - Harrier25 says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 21:31
        
        I like that idea, #Reney.
    - Degsy says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 22:37
      
      In general, I’m of the view with these things you have to be prepared to follow through if they call your bluff. I think there’s always scope to backtrack but they do take notes of calls so it’s on record for the agent to see next time you call, be it in an hour’s time or three months.
      Others seem to have much more bravado (& success) than me though!
E says:

19 Jul19 July 15:43

Unfortunately yes, effectively closed to us at the moment.
MW says:

19 Jul19 July 16:03

My mum is currently living in the Netherlands (UK citizen with NL “settled” status) and I cannot visit her. Conversely, because she was vaccinated in the NL, she cannot come here without minimum 5 (really 6-7) days isolation.

Apparently recently lots of local chatter about exempting fully vaccinated UK citizens but the current placement of the UK on the “very high risk countries due variants of concern” restricts even fully vaccinated people from being able to travel.
Super Secret Stuff says:

19 Jul19 July 16:11

Apparently having 5 retention offers on one card in the past year and half means I can’t have anymore 🙃🤣
- JDB says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 16:18
  
  I sort of recall that yesterday, you asked people not to draw attention to this?! It continues to bemuse me how people wish to advertise / brag on HfP about what used to be called obtaining property/pecuniary advantage/services by deception, now simply an offence under the Fraud Act 2006.
  - Genghis says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:21
    
    I’m not quite sure of the deception. It’s a commercial decision without any lock in conditions.
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:29
      
      It is quite clearly a deception when people ask on here how to spin the lie and they clearly have the prior intention of getting the points and then cancelling, or no intention of cancelling. They also advertise the intent to deceive! Ask a lawyer if you have any doubts.
      - Super Secret Stuff says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 16:31
        
        I am not deceiving thank you very much. I will most likely be cancelling within a month as I have no need to stay
      - Chris Heyes says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 19:29
        
        JDB Go back to sleep, wake up in a better mood.
        Of course its deception. in my case I was going to cancel wanted as much as I could get before I cancelled that’s how it is, was, and going to be ! In plain English
        When My BA Premium card goes up i will ask again for a retention before I cancel and get Platinum so on so forth that’s how it is !
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:42
      
      There is the act itself and there is the ‘mens rea’ / intent and you will have seen many people openly advertise on here that they about to call in order to try and deceive Amex into thinking they want to cancel or boasting afterwards that they have done so. That is a big part of the problem. Anyway, it is all now so overt that it is unlikely to continue to be possible.
      - Chris Heyes says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 20:02
        
        JDB When I was trading on e-bay (large ish amounts) at the time it wasn’t fraud
        (it is now admittedly) but at the time it wasn’t in this country as the law wasn’t passed here then Yes I got banned for life because it was banned in the US and e-bay is a American company. But e-bay couldn’t touch me because it was legal here. You could say it was fraud but it wasn’t because at the time it was legal to do what I was doing
        My point is what people are doing here are not (at this time) breaking the law
  - Anna says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:26
    
    How is it in any way fraudulent? Amex know exactly what offers you have had, and there’s no attempt to deceive them that I can see. It’s nothing more than trying your luck.
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:31
      
      Inter alia, read s2 Fraud Act 2006.
      - Anna says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:07
        
        JDB, I’m aware of the Fraud Act as I spent nearly 3 decades investigating crime. There is no way this conduct would be investigated as a criminal offence; for a start loyalty points are not legally considered to be property or services in this country (hence they are not taxed), so cannot technically be gained or lost.
        
        It makes me laugh how people come on here to avail themselves of other people’s methods of earning points and other benefits then come over all self-righteous and start making unfounded accusations of fraud.
    - Harrier25 says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:45
      
      It’s similar to renegotiating you mobile phone, broadband or home energy contract when you offer the supplier a chance to keep you as a customer for another 12 months.
      
      Amex should really put some agreement in place saying that if they give you the retention bonus points then you agree to commit to a certain period before cancelling….but maybe that isn’t so easy to do with a credit card.
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 17:14
      
      @Anna we will just have to agree to differ on this. I believe the information I have written which was provided by a barrister to be correct. Apart from the strict legal position, I personally am not willing to call Amex with a deliberate lie and I would be horrified if my children thought it was OK.
      - Ken says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:35
        
        You got a barrister to give an opinion that asking for a retention offer was fraud by false misrepresentation?
        
        Do they get laughed out of court much ?
  - Super Secret Stuff says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:27
    
    Them choosing to give you an offer is hardly fraud. Even if you do consider it fraud if you are genuinely thinking about cancelling it is genuine, plus I had other questions so was a genuine call I needed to make anyway
    
    TBH Amex rub me up the wrong way a bit, would happily walk away if I could find a useful replacement card for me. Time to do some researching…a shame the IHG prem card is no longer available. Might do BAPP for a companion voucher but not too sure
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 17:50
      
      @ Super Secret Stuff – On this analysis, is it or is it not a fraud if a bank chooses to give you a mortgage based on false information in your application? There is a currently a case of two brothers who are being prosecuted for insider trading but also separately being prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006 for stating on their Tesco Bank loan application that the loan was for home improvements when it was in fact for share dealing. Might seem minor (?), but that element has a sentence of up to ten years and the insider trading up to seven years…
      - Anna says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 20:08
        
        Because they would have signed a legal document saying that the details they had provided were correct – that is not remotely like telling Amex over the phone that you’re thinking of closing your account because you’re not getting value out of it.
        I don’t believe for one minute that a barrister would tell you that this is fraud, but in any case their opinion is far from being case law.
        I can tell you about the CPS prosecutor who confirmed that someone who stole a Boots Advantage card could only be pursued for the theft of the card (worth a nominal £1 so not in the public interest) but not of the £1000 worth of points on the card because they don’t legally exist, they are just a way of recording how much money someone spent at Boots.
      - Anna says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 20:09
        
        No one here would consider falsifying a loan or mortgage application “minor” – what planet are you on?!
  - Karl says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:29
    
    I’d call it bargaining tactics, a bit of a game like you would do with a car salesman.
    - Super Secret Stuff says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:32
      
      It is just a game of cat and mouse at the end of the day, I will be cancelling within a month unless something changes significantly
  - mutley says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:29
    
    I say bravo Super secret stuff, if you get offered it then take it. You are doing better than me, I’ve had 35000 MR for retaining Plat and 10000 on Gold , its coming up a year since Plat so I will be trying again. JDB if your bemused by this your on the wrong site 🙂
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:31
      
      You are all trying very hard to kill the golden goose!
      - Tom says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:09
        
        How can you call it fraud and the golden goose in the space of a few minutes? Ringing up with the intention of getting a bonus to stay is not fraud. Neither is ringing up with the intention of getting a bonus to stay and then calling up the following day to cancel (although i would argue very stupid).
      - Anna says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:10
        
        Agree with that, but if there was any genuine fraud going on I think a company the size of Amex might have changed its tactics by now.
      - JDB says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:35
        
        @Tom – my two points are not inconsistent. I have never done these activities as they feel dishonest to me (and I am also legally advised that they are). The ‘golden goose’ reference was simply for all those that are OK with it and on the retention and/or BAPP/free upgrade/downgrade cycle, it may be best to keep quiet rather than advertising it on here more or less daily.
      - TGLoyalty says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:43
        
        Hardly a golden goose. This a black swan event. You’ll never get the same opportunity again.
      - Tom says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:47
        
        JDB, do you feel you are getting as much value out of your Plat card (assuming you have one) as you did pre-covid? If no (like most people), then where is the dishonesty in telling Amex that and wanting something to re-level the cost vs reward with the card?
      - Mikeact says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 17:58
        
        Do not Amex points, BA Avios etc., remain their property at all times , including those in my account?
        I too, am really struggling on the ‘fraud’ aspect. I hope I would not do anything too illegal, ie maybe 40 in a 30mph area, but if Amex want to retain me with additional points, then so be it. I have yet to hear of any court case in this respect.
        (ps Just an ordinary punter.)
      - JDB says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 19:20
        
        @Tom re your question about value in the Plat, I don’t have one as I’m not interested in the insurance, hotel benefits or only 1 point/£1. My wife and I both have BAPP/PRG which works for us. However, the way you politely put the question made me want to clarify my earlier points! If you decide the benefits of Plat are no longer worth it and call to cancel but they persuade to stay with a retention, that is of course fine. What is not fine is that people on here are quite openly saying that they don’t really intend to cancel, but are just trying to get points, that is totally different. Equally, it is different for those intending to cancel, but instead of cancelling take some points and then cancel two days later which was (again as stated on here) always the intention. As with many aspects of criminal law, ‘intent’ is key and a number of people on here are openly and publicly incriminating themselves. That is the aspect I find so strange. I think it is most unlikely that anyone will be done for it, but I doubt Amex will tolerate the abuse forever. I mentioned also the the loan application that stated the loan was for home improvements but then in fact used for share dealing. Perhaps that seems like a white lie to some, but those brothers will be in the Crown Court next April and are facing up to ten years. They may not get anything like that, but it underlines the gravity of the offence that some might consider minor.
      - Chris Heyes says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 19:42
        
        JDB But if/when the golden goose is dead who cares except them who didn’t get the golden eggs when they could ? lol
        It’s like saying Air-Miles when it was totally “free” was ruined by people flying for “free” and it’s now ruined by those people so now we have to pay surcharges/tax
        The game moves on and it will do so again !
      - Anna says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 20:14
        
        You don’t seem to know very much about criminal law, to be honest. No one here would consider falsifying a loan application as a “white lie”! I think you must read a lot but have very little experience of applying it in the real world.
        I’m willing to bet that your barrister friend used a term like “could be construed as”, which means precisely zilch until a court makes a decision on it.
      - A says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 22:34
        
        @JDB – there are technical legal reasons why it’s a challenge to make out insider dealing cases, and so the fraud is being brought in the later stove.
        
        It’s also much easier to make out dishonesty (see below – required for fraud if you read the statute carefully) for things like mortgage applications that are in writing, signed by you, and contain all manner of warnings that being intentionally untruthful on the form has consequences. Unless Amex have changed their intro music since I last called, I don’t thjnk they have any such warning.
      - JDB says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 22:52
        
        @A the suggestion that lying to pretend you are going to cancel your card in order to obtain some benefit is not dishonest is quite strange. At least one poster today has openly admitted as much, saying that obviously it is a deception. My point was that I was surprised that a number of posters have already admitted on this site their dishonest intent so that element is already made out…
        
        Even if you were correct, and it fails to reach the necessary threshold, I would be seriously concerned if people working for me, in positions of responsibility/trust/authority thought that to call Amex and deliberately lying was acceptable conduct. It goes completely against my upbringing and professional training and at best, it just feels wrong.
      - A says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 23:09
        
        @JDB – it’s not a strange suggestion. It’s the analysis required by the statute. To make out s2 you must make out:
        
        (1) a false representation
        (2) that false representation must be dishonest
        (3) that false representation must be intended to cause a loss to another / result in gain
        
        Your approach conflates (2) with (1) and (3). If all you had to show was false representation + intention to cause a loss, (2) wouldn’t be there. But it is – Parliamentary Counsel used the word “dishonest” for a reason.
        
        You say people have “admitted their dishonest intent”. They haven’t. They admitted their representation was false. Dishonesty requires something more, and that’s where your analysis falls down.
        
        See also the points that a few people have made re: how you distinguish this from any other negotiation where you take a position. It’s hard to see how you think this conduct is criminal and any other termination-related posturing is not. If termination-related posturing were criminal it would prevent quite a large amount of negotiation that goes on all over the shop.
    - JDB says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:33
      
      I’m not on the wrong site, there is plenty of above board stuff on the site of great interest.
      - Patrick Cold says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 18:50
        
        Superb thread!! Thanks JDB.
    - Super Secret Stuff says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 16:34
      
      Thanks, good at getting my point across. Anything is good tbh and it has stopped me cancelling every time. It is doing its job but the card is just lacking the offers to keep me long term until travel returns
      - A says:
        
        19 Jul19 July 22:31
        
        @JDB – you’re missing the all important requirement to make out a section 2 offence – a false representation is not enough (whether intentional or otherwise). It also requires dishonesty.
        
        They are distinct tests. You might want to spend some time (or have the legal professional spend some time) reviewing case law relating to dishonesty in this context. If you’re familiar with the case law you’ll recognise that the fact lots of people here think it’s not dishonest itself lends support to the argument it isn’t dishonest.
        
        If you criminalise this you potentially criminalise any commercial negotiation where you threaten to exercise a contractual termination right to obtain a benefit/price reduction . Just take stock and consider if you think that’s a rational position. Clue: it isn’t.
        
        This is absolutely not something that’s going to be prosecuted as Fraud.
Karl says:

19 Jul19 July 16:33

Retention-offers related, has anyone tried to get anything out of Amex for BAPP or Marriott Bonvoy cards? Obviously there is likely to be less scope that for the Plat with the much lower annual fees but I suppose if you don’t ask you don’t get.
- Super Secret Stuff says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 16:35
  
  “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”. I think you answered your own question…
  - Harrier25 says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 16:53
    
    I’m really going to push this and attempt to get a retention bonus on my Green charge card when its time to pay the £60 annual fee again, which isn’t until early 2022. Preferred Gold comes first in November. As you say, if you don’t ask you don’t get. 😀
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 17:54
  
  Even pre Covid I used to be offered 1 extra point per pound. Haven’t heard of anyone getting a one off lump sum though
- JustLetMeFlyAgain says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 18:01
  
  Extra point per dollar for three months is what I got. Better than nothing
  - Harrier25 says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 18:31
    
    Was that for Green retention? Which sounds okay to me for a card I’m only paying £60 a year for to get an additional 1 years warranty on my household white & brown goods and to be honest, the offers available over the year make me more than the £60 annual fee anyway.
    - JustLetMeFlyAgain says:
      
      19 Jul19 July 18:55
      
      @Harrier, no it was for BAPP sorry
- Memesweeper says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 19:24
  
  Nothing offered on my Bonvoy when I called to close it. So I closed it.
Ross Parker says:

19 Jul19 July 16:47

LHR terminal question. Both the airport and BA say that my August flights to GIB and PSA will depart T3. Are they not still at T5? Short of turning up, what is the most accurate way of finding out. I want to book the best car park.
- AJA says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 17:53
  
  I think it’s a fairly safe bet you are flying from T5. BA restarting at LHR T3 will be major news, no doubt covered extensively by HfP.
  - Rob says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 18:19
    
    It’s not happening. For some reason BA is only telling people a week or so before departure though.
    - Ross Parker says:
      
      20 Jul20 July 08:08
      
      Thanks. I can’t understand why every “official” source insists the flights will be T3 (the airport site, the BA site, the BA hotline) when everyone who actually flies these routes says they are in T5 for the foreseeable future. T5 is great news for me, as the lounges in T3 are all shut, I think, and because I can use the First Wing in T5.
Eppleby Green says:

19 Jul19 July 16:50

This is the manner in which BA informed us that we had been downgraded from First to Club World, no mention of cabin change only that our seats had been changed,. Is this BA’s normal method of passing on the bad news?

Your seats have been changed
Dear mr xxxxx Booking reference: xxxxxx
Your seats have been changed
For operational reasons, we had to change the seat(s) you had selected on one or more of the flights in your booking.
We have done our best to ensure that the new seats you have been allocated are of the same type as your original seats or a suitable alternative where this has not been possible.
Next steps
You can view your new seats in Manage My Booking where the affected flights will be highlighted in red. If you are unhappy with the seats we have chosen for you, you will be able to change them.
- Anna says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 17:12
  
  Doesn’t surprise me. What cabin class does your booking say now, F or J?
  That said, are you sure BA hasn’t just changed the type of plane to one with a different layout in F? They have been moving to smaller F cabins for a while now.
  - Eppleby Green says:
    
    19 Jul19 July 17:27
    
    The new equipment doesn’t have a First Class section.
AL says:

19 Jul19 July 17:24

The MAN check-in experience for BA travellers continues to get worse. There is no clear signage, they’ve moved the check-in desks, there are no Club Europe desk signs, when you ask you get told “they’re at the other end” (which turns out to be the exit lane for the adjacent Etihad desks, whose staff were happy to extol the virtues of Etihad Business on me whilst I waited!), and then when you do get to the desk after a 20min wait after they’ve checked in many others, it turns out that they can’t process bag drops properly for EC members and they have no Priority labels because “they never check for any in stock”. Checking in at T5, however, an absolute pleasure. Are other regional airports as much of a sham?
- Jonathan says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 18:44
  
  Sounds like a shambles but FYI the priority labels count for nothing apart from potentially advertising your case as having higher value contents to a thief.
  
  In the very few situations where BA actually provide priority baggage handling it’s coded on the printed bag tag barcode.
- Blair says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 19:42
  
  It’s been absolutely abysmal at MAN for a year now. For a long time there was no CE desk at all and just 2 desks open dealing with all the baggage of those connecting at LHR. It was also confirmed to me that during covid, with people bringing more luggage for longer trips, point to point passengers just doing the MAN to LHR leg were liable to have their bags unloaded for space/weight purposes and sent down on a following flight. I had assumed my and others experience on my flight was isolated but no, apparently BA in MAN had been working with a constant lag of bags belonging to passengers from the previous day. Just bafflingly poor service. Thank god for AF/KLM presence at MAN.