The HfP chat thread – Friday 20th August

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Gary says:

20 Aug20 August 08:15

Trying to top up Vanguard via Bendy with Beary underlying to no avail. Should one try another underlying card? Or Bendy has stopped working with Vanguard whatever the underlying card is?
- Graeme says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:24
  
  I last tried in April / May and it never worked then so assume that it’s been stopped.
- John says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:33
  
  Anyone had success with fidelity recently? People on here said it worked before, but it took them 3 months to transfer my account and now it just says invalid card when I type a bendy number
  - Toppcat says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 08:50
    
    I have used bendy to top of Fidelity, but not for a few weeks. It worked fine earlier in the summer though.
    - Toppcat says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 08:50
      
      *to top up…
- Genghis says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:24
  
  One should stop trying. Doesn’t work
- VerdantBacon says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 11:46
  
  Have not tried this with Vanguard, but if you really want it to go onto the Virgin card try top up with a card that works behind Curve and then GBIT it to Virgin
  - Chrisasaurus says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 14:39
    
    That won’t make any difference the charge will just fail when you attempt to gbit
- Brighton Belle says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 14:49
  
  Bendy card number is blocked for me
Lev441 says:

20 Aug20 August 08:21

How long are queues at border control coming into the uk at Heathrow at the moment?
- JohnT says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:32
  
  Flew in to LHR T3 Sunday 8th Aug 7.30am. There was no queue for UK passports.
- Keely says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:14
  
  Same as John T . Arrived a couple of weeks ago into T5 around 5pm. Walked straight through
- Blair says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:24
  
  That sounds promising. Twitter reports were suggesting yesterday’s queues were apocalyptic. MAN selling passport fast track FYI. The smallprint says if you find yourself stuck in a long queue before even getting near to passport gates that you should make yourself known to airport staff. That’ll be fun; waving my very important person’s fast track pass like Hyacinth Bucket.
  - Andrew says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 09:52
    
    Twitter does like to exaggerate things quite a bit though.
  - Anna says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 11:04
    
    There was literally no other flight arriving when we landed at MAN T1 last Friday night. We were through passport control and back at our car 10 minutes after our scheduled arrival time. Totally surreal experience for August!
- Heathrow Flyer says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 10:09
  
  I was in the T5 passport hall yesterday – no queues for the e-gates around 3pm. Manual (family) line was probably around 20 minutes.
- Lev441 says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 10:48
  
  Update: Flight landed at 9.15, I’ve been here since 9.30 and she’s still in the (very very very) queue for immigration at 10.45am. Thinks she’s got another 30-45 mins to go at least.
  - Sandra says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 18:57
    
    A friend flew into T2 on Tues from Moscow arriving about 12.30pm, it took just over 3 hours fir her to to get through immigration with no social distancing & a total lack of staff. She has complained but I can’t imagine she’ll get any response other than staff sickness!
    - Sandra says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 18:57
      
      * That’s Heathrow T2!
Andrew says:

20 Aug20 August 08:30

Should combine with PAW (7% for me) or Airtime (7% for me), or Virgin Shops Away! (8pts per £1 for me) or sometimes all three as well as the bank offer.
- JSemity says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:49
  
  all 3 should track. I love these Morrison stacks – incredible buying various gift cards at 20-25%+ off
  - Char Char says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 09:43
    
    I believe its PAW or Virgin
    
    Then airtime as well
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 09:55
      
      No its Virgin AND PAW as Virgin looks at what it charged to your card statement and PAW looks at what was charged to your card number in store
      
      it could be airtime or PAW as they both do the same thing and it could clash but on previous occasions they’ve always stacked
    - Jimmy says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 10:00
      
      Whats PAW stand for please?
    - Andrew says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 10:05
      
      @TGI Loyalty
      
      There’s two different systems though. There’s Virgin Atlantic card linked perks (where I store my BA Amex and MBNA details), and Virgin Money offers – which are exclusively for the Clydesdale issued cards.
    - Andrew says:
      
      20 Aug20 August 10:07
      
      @Jimmy
      
      “Perks At Work” – it’s an employment loyalty thing. If you work for a major firm like Tesco, RBS, LBG, NHS you’re bound to have access to it.
      
      If you’re not sure, just look for the website and try and join up with your company email address.
- xcalx says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 10:50
  
  Same here.
John Caribbean says:

20 Aug20 August 08:33

7% at Morrisons on airtime
- KBuffett says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:03
  
  10% on my Airtime.
  - Jimmy says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 12:14
    
    Nothing on my airtime rewards
    
    @Andrew thanks for the reply – we have a Sodexo portal.
Wally1976 says:

20 Aug20 August 08:48

Looking into booking Avios flights to MCO next August. Tracking availability I can see, to my surprise, that most dates aren’t getting booked up. This has made me wonder why? Are folks thinking we still won’t be able to travel to US then??
- chris1922 says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:52
  
  I’ve used 2 x 241 for 4 seats to/from MCO next year, and couldn’t get my preferred dates or flight. LHR out, LGW back a day early. The actual date and LHR return I wanted was available when I called at 8am, but gone by the time I got through around 10:30. I’m not 100% convinced I’ll actually be going though…
- ChrisC says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:17
  
  In the scheme of things not that many people book so far in advance.
  
  Of course there are a group of people who do book far in advance – like those that are after flights to specific destinations where other than the guarenteed seats BA releases BA rarely issues more or people have limited or restricted holiday periods.
  
  The person on the clapham omnibus rarely thinks about their summer holiday until christmas is over,
- BJ says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:24
  
  I’ve been searching allsorts to explore options for our proposed trip next summer and everything is essentially wide open. Will lock something in when my partner triggers 241 early September.
MarkS says:

20 Aug20 August 08:48

Does anyone know of discounts available for on-site parking at LCY? Have hunted around the obvious places and there’s nothing
- Toppcat says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 08:51
  
  I similarly couldn’t find anything ahead of a trip a few weeks ago.
- Memesweeper says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 11:36
  
  JustPark sometimes offers some extremely close front driveways for not much £
Grimz says:

20 Aug20 August 08:53

Anyone know the free youfirst number to call BA for avios change bookings?
- trader363 says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:10
  
  0800 408 7667
toomanylogins says:

20 Aug20 August 08:57

A quick question on Amex bonuses – my wife hasn’t had any cards for over 2 years so we’d like to sign her up for some new cards. I want to refer her from my BA premium card and to get cards with no fees, if possible.
Is our best bet for me to refer her for a Nectar amex, to hit the bonus on that and for me to then refer her for a Gold card?
I realise that the Bonvoy and Platium cards will yield more miles, but I also expect we will pay at least 6 months of the charges for those to hit the targets.
Thanks in advance!
- Harry T says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 09:02
  
  The best bonuses to hit right now are the Bonvoy, BAPP and Platinum card bonuses. You must do Bonvoy first. It’s worth doing Bonvoy over Nectar because the card is fairly cheap and the bonus spend isn’t high, but the SUB has improved recently.
- SteveJ says:
  
  20 Aug20 August 11:00
  
  Once you get the Bonvoy OR Nectar sign up bonus you become ineligible for the Gold bonus. Only the BAPP or Platinum cards would then yield a bonus.
  
  Of course as referrer you still get your referral bonus, so not entirely worthless.
  - Toomanylogins says:
    
    20 Aug20 August 18:18
    
    Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll need to do some thinking!