Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Saturday 4th September

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

Comments (456)

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

  • jek says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:28

    Is there a way to trigger the Amex IHG £50 back offer by booking a points + cash rate and cancelling it? The points are probably purchased differently and not triggering the Amex offer.

    • Andrew says:
      4 Sep4 September 12:04

      Won’t work. Points are purchased via Points.com

      • ChrisC says:
        4 Sep4 September 13:30

        I don’t think the points and cash rate is the same as buying the points outright,

    • Venturelog says:
      4 Sep4 September 13:51

      No, the payment is taken by IHG in Atlanta, not the hotel.

    • Lady London says:
      4 Sep4 September 17:42

      You end up in a bigger mess because IHG will only ever give you all points back never, ever your cash component.

      This used to be useful but rates vs points as calculated these days mean you are unlikely to be thrilled.

  • Chris H says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:30

    Hi folks. Can anyone give me some advise on the following?
    Last year our flights were cancelled due to COVID and we rebooked for this year (LHR-MIA, ORL – LHR. The Orlando to LHR was cancelled and they rebooked us in a domestic to MIA then MIA – LHR.
    Then, of course, we had to cancel as USA won’t let us in, and got a FTV.
    (There were 4 of us, and we used 2 companion vouchers and AVIOS, and paid the taxes etc.)
    We have just rebooked exactly the same flights LHR -MIA MIA-LHR just decided not to do the internal, but to drive back from Orlando to Miami.
    Here is my question. Have the taxes part of the tickets gone up by £132.73 per person since last year?
    If not, does anyone know why they want to charge us this amount extra per person?
    I just want to have some information before I spend another 3-4 hours trying to contact them and argue my point.

    Thanks everyone for all the help you provide on this site.

    • JDB says:
      4 Sep4 September 12:01

      It sounds a big increase, only a part of which is accounted for by the increased APD, LHR passenger service / baggage recovery charges. The system calculates all the charges, so I fear that BA may be correct. In general, the taxes/fees etc do seem to have gone up by well over £100/person vs bookings made in 2019. To save yourself the hassle of calling BA, you could try a dummy booking to see what the taxes come out at (and look at the breakdown) and see how that compares with your original booking.

    • ChrisC says:
      4 Sep4 September 13:34

      Not sure what point you’d be arguing.

      The poor person on the phone won’t have a clue why it’s gone up and will just basically say “well the price is the price”

      If you wanted to work out the why’s then you’d need to look at the detailed fare breakdown and would include things like changes in APD, airport fees and changes in currency exchange rates and of course the BA surcharges .

      • Chris H says:
        4 Sep4 September 16:50

        My discussion with them would not be the taxes and fees they are charging now. I have that at about £650 each. It is how much they have on my ftv from the previous flights. I remember paying the original taxes, and then at least three times after that they asked for additional taxes and fees. It might be possible to sort through all my old credit card payments, but it would be a nightmare to confirm which ones were for this flight, and which ones were for our other flights over the last 2 years. I just have this feeling that they have not included the extra payments we made in the ftv????

        • JDB says:
          4 Sep4 September 17:28

          Surely you could look through your emails, using the PNR to search? You should have a new e-ticket email each time you made any change. If BA has made a mistake, you need to have the specific evidence, you won’t get them hunting around because you have a feeling they are wrong. As I and others have suggested, the taxes/fees/charges have gone up since 2019 when you booked the original flights. I just looked back at my 2019 booking (travelling 2020) to travel to MEX in F and fees etc were £550 vs my upcoming 2021 booking £695 each, but anyway check your figures to satisfy yourself.

    • Keely says:
      4 Sep4 September 17:01

      Bit late but no one else has replied . We did exactly the same thing a couple of years ago and it was actually cheaper to keep the internal flight as it somehow repriced the others …not sure if that is relevant as it’s an avois booking and ours was cash ….

  • Chris H says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:34

    Another question, but just out of interest as we have a choice of morning and afternoon flights to Miami, and we are flying Club World.
    The morning flight is on a 777.
    The afternoon flight is on an Airbus 380.
    The flight is scheduled for August next year.
    So, is there any significant difference in the Club World experience on these 2 aircraft that might be enough to justify one or the other?
    And, is there any plans we know of that suggest they will be flying different aircraft by this time next year?
    Thanks everyone.

    • Richie says:
      4 Sep4 September 11:35

      One is a noisy headache inducing aircraft and the other isn’t.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      4 Sep4 September 11:46

      777 might have club suites A380 will have CW but as mentioned a more refined flying experience

    • ChrisC says:
      4 Sep4 September 13:36

      Chose based on the schedule and what works best for you and not what aircraft is currently scheduled as its likely to change several times between now and next august.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        4 Sep4 September 14:37

        This is also very true. Especially for a flight in August 22!

      • Chris H says:
        4 Sep4 September 16:46

        It makes very little difference to uor holiday if we fly in the morning or afternoon, tbh. It is on companion AVIOS tickets, so the price makes no difference, so the likely aircraft was the deciding factor.
        Although I do appreciate that they are likely to make changes to the aircraft type before then.

      • Babyg says:
        4 Sep4 September 19:49

        As ChrisC said, go with the schedule that will work for you, think there is very little chance it will be an a380, and the aircraft type is likely to change at least once between now and then

  • Bill Barton says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:38

    Sorry if this is a silly question, but would there be any issue putting my Amex Gold credit card account in credit to pay for a transaction that exceeds my credit limit? And would the points still get awarded normally?

    • John says:
      4 Sep4 September 15:03

      Try and make it go into credit organically by which I mean buy something, pay it off then return it for a refund.

    • AJA says:
      4 Sep4 September 15:03

      Rather than do that why not call Amex and ask for a temporary increase in credit limit? Assuming you have good standing with Amex and the amount is not outrageous they will agree.

      Alternatively is it possible to use two Amex cards to pay for the item?

    • JDB says:
      4 Sep4 September 15:15

      I haven’t tried it with Amex, but some cards won’t actually allow you to spend more than your credit limit even if you have overfunded. Where I have needed to do this, I make a first card max payment, do a faster payment (sorry, I know that’s a really uncool way to pay Amex) that credits the card in a few minutes and then pay the balance and you do get all the points with Amex.

  • Ls says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:38

    Qatar airways seem to still be operating from terminal 5. Will I get to use the first wing as BA gold on economy QR?

    • KP says:
      4 Sep4 September 11:43

      I dont think QR have check in desks at First Wing, but I might be wrong. You can use the security channel though but I believe it closes at around noon or So

  • BJ says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:50

    Ok, some news coming up…

    • SteveJ says:
      4 Sep4 September 11:57

      🤔

    • BJ says:
      4 Sep4 September 12:01

      First, anybody interested in Pride Amsterdam 2022? Hotels are usually hard to come by and very expensive. Anyway, if you book now the weekend (3 nights Friday – Monday) is working out at just over 34k IHG points per night at the Kimpton De Witt. One of the HIX at under 20k/night too.

      Having got that out of the way I’ll make a coffee and turn my attention to the two MS routes that have obviously kept some of you awake last night.

  • Josh says:
    4 Sep4 September 11:54

    Is it possible to use a BA evoucher for a BA holiday? If yes, does it have to be a certain requirement i.e. flights and hotels? Or can it just be hotel only for example?

    Thanks!

  • pauline says:
    4 Sep4 September 12:04

    BAPP – my anniversary date is 5/8. I have been billed the new fee of £250 on 3/9. Is this correct. AMEX chat (2 agents and a supervisor say the fee is dependent on my statement date)

    • TGLoyalty says:
      4 Sep4 September 12:12

      Yes.

    • JDB says:
      4 Sep4 September 12:14

      This was asked last week and the consensus was that the fee is billed at the statement date. That too is my experience on BAPP (anniversary 22 Apr, fee billed statement date 7 May) and PRG similarly. You can check back on your 2020 Sep statement as well.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Learn more on our About page.

VAA

Latest comments

Latest Forum Posts

Get 30,000 points bonus with American Express Platinum

Amex Gold

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.3 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

Get 20,000 bonus points and your first year free with American Express Gold

Amex Gold