The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 20th July

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• Richard says:

  20 Jul20 July 10:49

  MBNA Horizon Card terms are changing. “From 15 October 2021 … Some transactions will be treated as Cash instead of Card purchases. Certain cash-like transactions, such as sending money orders or wire transfers, buying digital currency, online trading, topping up digital wallets, and paying fines, will be treated as Cash transactions.”

  Sad times!

  • Youllnever says:

    20 Jul20 July 10:53

    Wow! Looks like everyone is tightening things up!

    • marcw says:

      20 Jul20 July 11:10

      Do you think they are stu-pid?

      • Youllnever says:

        20 Jul20 July 13:10

        Never said they were?

    • Andrew says:

      20 Jul20 July 11:32

      It’s probably being driven by Visa and Mastercard clamping down on misuse.

      I’m curious about how they will differentiate between Fines and other transactions though. When I’ve paid a Parking Fine (local Council, not random “invoice”), it’s gone through exactly the same terminal as I’ve paid for a parking permit.

      • Anna says:

        20 Jul20 July 12:14

        Andrew – it’s a bit late now but if you get a fine from a council in future there is a 56 page document detailing the measures they have to put in place before they can charge for parking – I guarantee they won’t have bothered with most of them! My local council tried to “fine” me for forgetting to swap my expired gym parking pass for my new one but when I challenged it on the grounds that they had failed to meet the most basic requirements for charging (e.g. displaying the actual charges!) they folded immediately.

  • xcalx says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:21

    Gutted, I have a mid four figure sum accross 2 accounts. I will not hit my end of year target if NS&I gets pulled.

• BuildBackBetter says:

  20 Jul20 July 10:56

  Poor service from Billhop. After the money was charged to my amex card, they send an email asking for more documentation. They had 2 weeks since the set up of the bill payment.
  And why do they need 5 days to complete the bank transfer? How often do amex payments fail before settlement?

  • Anna says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:32

    It’s always 5 days for Amex transactions, I assume there’s more admin involved because payments are to companies which don’t actually accept the card.
    It could be the payee who has asked for more documentation at the payment end, sometimes they ask to see an invoice or similar before they will accept the payment.

  • Andrew says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:34

    From Amex Merchant Services:-

    “When we pay you… We pay most Merchants within five business days, from the date we receive the charges.”

    So they are paying on the day they receive the money from Amex.

• TheInsiderFly says:

  20 Jul20 July 11:28

  Please can someone remind me – I’ve got a BA booking where they’ve cancelled the outbound (twice). Do I need to have made a decision whether to rebook for another date or take a refund before my new suggested outbound departs or can I leave it my later before I decide what to do with it? TIA

  • Sam G says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:30

    You can wait

• Travel Strong says:

  20 Jul20 July 11:37

  Avis(corporate)/Nexus total failure last night. Can’t deliver you the hire car you booked weeks ago, so we are just cancelling your booking 1hr 45m before rental is due to commence.

  I am certain if given proper warning I could have sorted it myself – but this was much trickier when only informed after the local rental offices had all closed for the day!

  Also suspicious about the lack of any pending charge in previous weeks, when Avis have always put a hold on immediately before – almost as if they knew they were not going to fulfil the booking. 🤔

  So much for avis preferred.
  Avis preferred not to bother.

  • Lady London says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:11

    do you think the Avis branch just dumped your booking because it’s so easy for them to sell your booked car for much more now?

    I live in fear of this as to achieve the point of most of my journeys, I need a car. I wouldn’t even be able to reach a lot of my hotels without a car as they are far from the airport and often zero public transport

    So if Avis did that to me I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d probably just have to get the next plane home losing all the hotel bookings and everything else I”d booked.

  • JDB says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:17

    I had this with Avis Preferred at Catania airport in June. They telephoned me two days before to cancel my booking (made about a month earlier) owing to shortage of cars. As it happens, BA had cancelled the flights a week earlier and I had cancelled the car hire (for which I had an email confirmation) but that cancellation hadn’t been communicated to the local office.

• Bigmaggot says:

  20 Jul20 July 11:41

  Package holiday just cancelled with Tui for Sunday and moved 200 miles to LGW and flights are 10 hours later (also happened the previous week)!

  I noticed they pulled the flights last Thursday.

  Grandparents cannot fly due to illness so good in one respect as hassle with insurance solved.

  I can book a new booking and claim EU261 or should I take their 20% rebooking incentive?

  Thanks all

  • Bigmaggot says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:47

    Sorry to mention can I claim hotel/car park etc as going to have to pay parking and hotel?

    Investigated this previously but couldn’t find a clear answer. I know if this was just a flight I could get them to reroute and costs but not sure on package holidays. Argh

    Just trying to phone and don’t want to be fobbed off

  • Anna says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:52

    EU261 doesn’t cover package holidays so you need to check the Ts and Cs of your booking closely. You’re entitled to a full refund within 7 days but Tui would not be on the hook for a more expensive re-book. A 20% rebooking incentive might be good, but only if they haven’t inflated the prices to go with it!

    • Anna says:

      20 Jul20 July 11:53

      Any other costs would have to be claimed back via insurance, but it sounds like you might not be covered.

      • Bigmaggot says:

        20 Jul20 July 12:01

        Thanks for confirming Anna 🙂

• Yuff says:

  20 Jul20 July 11:46

  Had an email from BA yesterday saying our cabin had changed fir operational reasons and we’ve been re-booked in CW.
  It’s unlikely to go but perhaps I should re-book in F for Easter 2022!

  • Lady London says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:18

    you know what to do Yuff. covered enough on here.

    take the J flight and after, claim 75% downgrade compensation. As in 1.6p*75% of avios paid, for each seat imcluding the 2nd seat on a 241, and 75% of the YQ cash ie 75% of the cash you paid for ‘taxes’ less the real taxes part of that. That gives you 75% of most of the cash too.

    open and shut mcol claim if they refuse your claim once you’ve flown it.

    • Yuff says:

      20 Jul20 July 18:25

      LL
      Don’t want to fly in CW unless it’s club suite I haven’t checked yet.
      My preference would be re-book at Easter in F.
      I can probably book J on Etihad for October half term.
      I know what I’m like, I I won’t go through a claim plus Mrs yuff will stop me and give me no help with it and get angry when I ask for help 🤣🤣🤣

• Roberto says:

  20 Jul20 July 11:51

  If most of these credit cards are starting to treat everything as a cash transaction?
  What’s the fee?
  And if paid off the same day do u still get charged?

  • Jonathan says:

    20 Jul20 July 11:59

    Anything that’s treated as a cash advance by a credit card company isn’t worth bothering with at all, apart from emergencies only. The amount in fees you’ll get with quickly outweighs any benefits. Reward credit cards nearly always exclude cash advances from reward spending, etc.

    So on summary, don’t use a credit card to get hold of cash unless you’re desperate! (some credit cards that specialise in overseas withdrawals are exempt, but only in those circumstances, and carefully read over everything before putting your card in an ATM

  • Andrew says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:02

    They are starting to correctly process cash or cash equivalent transactions.

    The fee will depend on the specific T&Cs of the card you hold.

    Maybe. It depends on the value date of the payment method and how it’s applied to the account.

  • JDB says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:10

    It varies from card to card, but often there is a % fee (could be say) 3% for anything considered as a ‘cash advance’ and additionally they charge interest from the date of the transaction, not the statement or payment date.

  • Blair says:

    20 Jul20 July 12:16

    I tried a £1.50 cash transaction on Solihull and paid off immediately. The interest charge was £0.04. That was enough to put me off for life.

    • Ryan says:

      20 Jul20 July 12:22

      Been missing out on a lot because of it!

• Andrew says:

  20 Jul20 July 12:25

  Quality Value Choice…

  20 Nectar Points per £1 has popped up on Nectar Connect this morning. Odd that they’re promoting a direct competitor to Argos.

  It’s also popped up as 10% on MBNA – but it might not stack.

  If you’re interested, save it quickly. Some of the better offers don’t hang around for long.

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