The HfP chat thread – Saturday 24th July

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• Kevin says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:10

  Does anyone know if the Regent Street AMEX offer is cumulative?

  • Biki says:

    24 Jul24 July 10:49

    Yes it is, I used it over a couple of transactions

  • Kevin says:

    24 Jul24 July 12:34

    Yes I got it vis 2 cards via accumulative from 3 shops

• Tom says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:13

  10k points award from the IHG/Creation stay offer landed in my account today. Thanks HfP for raising awareness of this offer.

• Nadeshka says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:15

  £25 off £30 FT spend offer has appeared on my Marriott for any others who were waiting for an offer to resubscribe (as I was).
  1 month digital subscription is £33 and 3 month printed is £50 so works nicely.

• ChrisC says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:18

  BA have given me the hump

  Used the chat function yesterday to check a booking re Berlin for next month. Been showing as red (but not stricken through) in MMB for a couple of weeks. Flight also not on sale.

  Agent told me all OK and flight was still running.

  Last night got the email that it has been cancelled!

  So frustrating!

• Electrofun says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:20

  Received this email from SeatSpy last night:

  Hi ,

  We are writing to let you know about some important changes we are making to our Economy tier. In March of last year, we launched our Premium and First Class services. Despite adverse travel conditions, both of these have been a huge success. As we begin to emerge from pandemic restrictions, more and more people are coming to us to plan travel up to a year in advance with our availability search and alerts.

  In light of the growing demand and volume, we are going to focus on our paid tiers and will no longer offer an Economy tier starting August 7th, 2021.

  Naturally, we would like for you to continue using our services, and we have decided to activate a First Class tier lifetime offer to all Economy tier users. Signing up for this will give you access to all current and future SeatSpy services and search features, for less than £3 per month for life! The offer includes a 14 day free trial, and you can of course still choose to cancel at any point.

  This offers ends at midnight on August 6th, and after that, you will be prompted to sign up for our regular 14 day free trial for our Premium or First Class tiers, just as a regular first time visitor would have to do.

  We do hope the last year of free searches has been valuable, and if you’ve found the service useful up until now we’d very much encourage you to consider First class membership to enjoy unlimited searches and alerts.

  Best regards,
  The SeatSpy team

  • BJ says:

    24 Jul24 July 12:19

    Wrong move at the wrong time I think.

    • Lady London says:

      24 Jul24 July 13:03

      +1 success of monetising / cash grabs depends on market power

    • Rob says:

      24 Jul24 July 13:10

      Don’t want to question your business acumen 🙂 but instead of having 10,000 people paying nothing, they may ever-so-slightly prefer to lose 9,000 and retain 1,000 paying £30 per year.

      Here’s my guess. They assumed that x% of free members would, within a year, upgrade to paid membership. It turns out that this isn’t the case and they find themselves with a huge base of freeloaders.

      My only concern, from a business perspective, is that you need to see SeatSpy in action to understand why it is worth paying for. I assume that the site must keep letting you do free manual searches, at least a small number.

      • Chris Heyes says:

        24 Jul24 July 14:24

        Rob Yes but if “as is” reported on here SeatSpy is down or SeatSpy isn’t accurate the lose 9.000 quickly becomes 9,500 or 9,700 then the business model is under threat ?
        I haven’t used SeatSpy for over 6 months for the simple reason its reported “not accurate”

        • JDB says:

          24 Jul24 July 14:42

          Isn’t it RFF that has been reported as inaccurate rather than SeatSpy? SeatSpy seems to provide accurate and timely alerts.

        • Rob says:

          24 Jul24 July 15:14

          SeatSpy is perfect these days.

  • TJ says:

    24 Jul24 July 13:04

    I originally signed up as a founder member for First Class (£2.99 pm for life). Even during these turbulent times, it has already paid off many times over in terms of securing redemption flights (both BA and Virgin). It’s a great tool for the frequent flyer so will become even more valuable as air travel starts to really open up.

  • r* says:

    24 Jul24 July 13:15

    Why do BA not have a search thats similar to seatspy? Its always annoyed me that they seem happy for thrid parties to make an easy search site but they seem to want to keep theirs as pretty much unusable. Surely its BAs interests for people to be able to easily see availability without having to click each day individually considering the huge amounts of fees they get for each booking?

  • JDB says:

    24 Jul24 July 13:57

    It’s a great product, valuable to many, so they would be mad to keep giving it away for free, and why should they? I signed up for the First Class service on the original HfP offer, use it regularly and am pleased to support entrepreneurs who deliver clever solutions. Just need MyFlights back now.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:

      24 Jul24 July 16:17

      I would pay for it if the introduced the ability to search availability with a 2 4 1 when BA introduce the extra seats for 2 4 1 customers. Until then probably not

      • Rob says:

        24 Jul24 July 16:31

        That should be a doddle to add because all they are doing is pulling up I-class GDS data.

        The reason this is so tricky for BA is that, unlike most airlines, it doesn’t put reward seats into a GDS ‘bucket’ so you can’t just do an automatic call to Amadeus to see what is available.

      • babyg_wc says:

        24 Jul24 July 16:33

        Err just search for 2 seats?

        • Rob says:

          24 Jul24 July 17:45

          Post 1 September, BAPP cardholders get access to extra seats when using a voucher that normal Avios do not. The question is whether SeatSpy will show these.

• Tom1 says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:20

  Anyone have experience with the Swiss Amex cards? Looks like the gold card gives SUB with no spend target. Any ideas if you get prorata refunds (thinking plat) or if any rules about applying too soon after a previous one? Not sure if any referral benefits but if you have one please share and I’d be happy to use.

  (I posted a few days ago but didn’t get any response – hoping the Swiss travellers are reading today,..)

• Crafty says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:25

  Does anyone with an Amex PRG still see the current offer (1 Extra MR per £1 until 6/9) in their saved offers? It’s disappeared from mine.

  • RussellH says:

    24 Jul24 July 10:37

    Still showing in my saved offers. Expires 6 Sept. Extra points posting quickly.

  • Harry T says:

    24 Jul24 July 11:43

    Yeah, I’ve still got it.

    • Crafty says:

      24 Jul24 July 12:12

      Thanks. Hadn’t appreciated the points post semi-live, mine are coming through, so no issue after all.

• Wally1976 says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:32

  Anyone know if the Barclays and HSBC travel insurance policies are still the only ones to cover if FCDO advice for your destination changes (as per this article: https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/06/16/battleface-coronavirus-covid-travel-insurance/) or are there others now? TIA

  • JDB says:

    24 Jul24 July 10:44

    Don’t know about Barclays, but on HSBC my understanding is that if travel was OK at the time you booked but then changed, you may have some cover. The actual text in FAQs is “ If all travel restrictions at home and abroad have been removed when you book your trip, you’ll be fully covered if the restrictions are reintroduced, prevent you from travelling or are forcing you to return home early.”. Unfortunately, I think the first sentence is a bit ambiguous. I don’t believe HSBC covers you for any section of the policy if you travel against FCDO advice, but as ever don’t rely on a random stranger, check your own T&Cs / speak to the insurer. In reality, I think you need to focus on cancellable bookings.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    24 Jul24 July 11:44

    Nearly All, if not all, cover you if FCDO advice changes between booking and the actual holiday.

    Nationwide does for example.

    Issue is when you’ve booked when FCDO advised against travel and it still advises against and you don’t want to go. You’re not insured in most cases. Tbf why should you be as you booked at risk.

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