The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 8th September

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Mick S says:

8 Sep8 September 11:58

Random Q – I am planning a non-essential trip to Canada next month, and I’m a little confused with what the entry requirements are. Myself and my wife are fully jabbed up. My son, who is 13, is not.

I’m reading that myself and my wife are ok to enter Canada. My son however, will need a PCR test. Is this correct?

and on the way back, with Canada being Green we don’t need to do anything on return?

It’s very confusing 🙂
- Paul says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:02
  
  We’re off next week.At present, you need a negative PCR within 72 hours of scheduled departure, to have booked a day2 return test, and complete a (negative) LFT within 3 days of return flight, and of course a Canadian eTA. Not sure about your son…
- bafan says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:04
  
  I’m going next week hopefully, my understanding re: testing is.
  
  PCR test is required to enter Canada for EVERYONE, regardless of vaccination status.
  No further testing in Canada unless you’re randomly selected at immigration.
  Antigen test required to board the flight back to the UK for EVERYONE regardless of vaccination status.
  Day 2 PCR test required for EVERYONE regardless of vaccination status.
- Andrew says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:08
  
  No.
  
  You and your wife need approved vaccinations completed 14 days in advance and PCR tests pre-departure. Your son needs a PCR test *and* to quarantine.
  
  “Unvaccinated youth aged 12 through 17 must follow all testing and quarantine requirements, whether or not they are accompanied by travellers who qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption.”
- Paul says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:25
  
  and it seems the return to UK test can be just uploading a photo of the test “stick” now, don’t need a zoom call etc., is that right? Chronomics £22.40 here we come…
  - Mick S says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 12:32
    
    I’m going to look at other options i think – its very messy. Thanks for the replies
  - Anna says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 12:32
    
    Yes, worked perfectly for me last week from Mallorca.
- Terri says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:38
  
  I looked into travelling to Canada with an unvaccinated 12 year old. My reading of the rules is that youths aged 12-17 yrs who are unvaccinated are subject to 14 days quarantine and a day 1 and day 8 test. Upon arrival in Canada you need to provide a quarantine plan. If they are not happy with it they can refuse entry. That ended any further interest in a non-essential family holiday to Canada!
Dr MJ says:

8 Sep8 September 11:59

Any ideas on how to find out my current spend towards voucher on a Virgin Atlantic card? Can’t seem to find it…
- Reney says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:00
  
  no trackers, you have to add it up yourself.
  - aDifferentSimon says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 18:16
    
    I find the easiest/quickest way for a rough calc is to sum the relevant points awarded as shown in the red app and divide by your earning rate.
Stu N says:

8 Sep8 September 12:06

We have a trip to the US in just over two weeks’ time with BA which is a redemption in First. The flights have survived several rounds of cancellations and schedule changes already and the equivalent flights are running this week and next week.

Even if US changed rules and would admit us, we can’t go so only reason for keeping it is alive is to try to push back to 2022 if a flight is cancelled. That seems pretty unlikely at this stage so considering just getting on the phone and cancelling for refund (less £35 charge) now.

Any better ideas?
- Anna says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:18
  
  I’d leave it at least another week as you can cancel up to 24 hours before. If BA still doesn’t cancel, you also have the option of a FTV which might help if you were using a 241 which would benefit from extending.
  - Stu N says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 13:53
    
    We are good for 2-4-1s at the moment so that’s not a major consideration, if we can’t rebook I’d rather get my money back.
    
    The other plan was to move it forward to some dates next year then hope we could turn it into something useful as and when availability came available but there’s been no First redemption availability to enable us to do that.
    - Anna says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 14:13
      
      There is F availability to BOS and possibly NYC, we have F booked for the end of March, always assuming we are allowed in by then!
MW says:

8 Sep8 September 12:11

A Q for ExpertFlyer subscribers…

Has anyone had issues with Award notifications not going through? I used to get EF notifications before SeatSpy, now SeatSpy notifies but EF is none the wiser until I search manually.

Any ideas what’s going on?
- JDB says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:22
  
  I have never found EF at all reliable for award seat notifications, but it is fairly reliable for seat notifications and aircraft changes. I don’t know if the failure to alert on award seats (at least on BA) relates to the problem with availability for BA flights if you have USA as your ‘point of sales’ country.
  - Jonathan says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 13:23
    
    Yes, you need to ensure you set PoS to U.K. in the search parameters. Think there’s a warning to this effect on award search page now.
    - MW says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 13:37
      
      That’s to do with Flight Availability, ie bucket display. In any case, award tickets do show up when doing a manual search, just the alert doesn’t get triggered so no email notification.
      
      In the days before SeatSpy (ie RFF), EF was working better than RFF.
James says:

8 Sep8 September 12:12

Was mentioned here yesterday that if my WTP flight gets cancelled and I get moved to QR, that I would likely be downgraded to Economy for the flight. Would I be reimbursed for the difference in flight class if that happened?
- James says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 13:51
  
  In addition, if my CW BA flight gets cancelled, do BA have to honour Business Class with QR as an alternative flight?
- WaynedP says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 13:54
  
  Interesting question.
  
  At the very least I think you should be refunded the higher APD tax you were charged for WTP ticket.
  - James says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 13:59
    
    Hi Wayne. Just managed a very generous cash upgrade from WT to WTP then 60k Avios (30k each) and £103 to upgrade to CW. Very happy, once I finally got through to BA. Now just praying for a change to QR so we can bag the qsuite!
    - Asim says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 14:20
      
      For the WT to WTP upgrade was it online (and if so, how?) or by phone?
      
      Also yes – if youre booked to WTP BA and get moved to QR, you get normal economy. And if you’re on BA business, you get QR business. Both have happened to me on London Dubai flights.
      
      I never asked for a cash refund of the difference between WTP and economy. I was not offered anything voluntarily by BA at the time and didn’t think to ask!
      - James says:
        
        8 Sep8 September 14:35
        
        Hi Asim. It was over the phone. Strangely enough I was quoted a lot more yesterday but was still a price I was willing to pay. Called up this morning and it was £500 cheaper – excellent result! And to then be informed WTP to CW was only 60k Avios and £103 for 2 people, I really couldn’t say no. This is from MLE to LHR by the way.
    - WaynedP says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 14:39
      
      @James sounds like a good result for a long-haul, nice one.
r* says:

8 Sep8 September 12:36

Finally found a number for BA that goes into a queue. Then it gets answered and they wont deal with it as its avios booking so diverts to different number. 70 mins later, the call gets disconned.

Call again and the next agent starts looking at it and says the usual lies that it cant be rescheduled as the dates I want are over a year after the original booking. I tell them that the policy was changed to be 12 months from flight date and they say that BA have changed it back again, then denied that eu261 superceeds BA’s terms 😀

Attempt number 3 and we’re now on hold again after being diverted to the other line again as per call 1.

BA are a disgrace.
- cheng ly says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 13:03
  
  I am also in the same position. My cancelled flight to Tokyo is on Saturday and I am desperately trying to change this before then.
  - Rhys says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 13:24
    
    If your flight has been cancelled by BA then there isn’t such a rush. I had several flights cancelled by BA, but wasn’t able to call up until much later. They can spot the booking and sort it out for you.
    - cheng ly says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 14:25
      
      Thanks all! I managed to change my booking via the online chat – it took about an hour but they were quite efficient. Happy days!
    - MKB says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 14:35
      
      It gets archived after a period (maybe a month), and then they have to recreate the booking again for you. Took the agent about 30 minutes to do mine. She wasn’t happy! I can imagine many agents not knowing how to do this or simply not being bothered.
      - Rhys says:
        
        8 Sep8 September 14:42
        
        Yes, mine were archived but didn’t take 30 mins for them to resurrect it! I had 2 or 3. Call done within 15 mins or so.
    - G says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 17:23
      
      Similar situation for me. Our flight to and from Tokyo were cancelled but BA auto put us on another flight a few hours earlier. On manage my booking, it suggested that we had to accept the changes however all the email reminders made it seem like we were auto rebooked. Managed to get through to BA and the agent told me the ticket has been issued so “ideally” we should change it before our flight this Saturday. She confirmed that we can reschedule up to 12 months out from the original flight and happily rebooked us for March 2022 even though no avios flights were available.
- Mike says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 13:11
  
  BA should have a target to answer all call within a set period ie 5 mins
  - Brian W says:
    
    9 Sep9 September 00:41
    
    To suggest a 5 min target @Mike, you’re obviously in the know! How many staff do BA have answering the phones at any given time currently, and how many inbound calls are they receiving per your suggested 5 minutes @Mike? You’re obviously ‘au fait’ with BA’s average call time to I take it?
    
    Share your methodology please.
- r* says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 13:27
  
  And call number 3 was now disconnected after 63 mins.
  
  Whats the 800 US avios booking number to call via skype?
  - Pete M says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 13:49
    
    +18777677970
    - r* says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 17:05
      
      thx 🙂
Anna says:

8 Sep8 September 12:40

How long before Marriott points expire currently? It’s probably 2 years since I earned any, and and we did a stay on OH’s account last March just before lockdown. I’ve cashed out our 500k stash for the Westin GCM next summer but if I need to cancel this will the points disappear?
Does transferring from MR points extend the life? I am really struggling to do any stays this year. Could grab a night at the Broughton Marriott up the road if that’s the only way.
- Anna says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:43
  
  *March last year, not last March!
  - Anna says:
    
    8 Sep8 September 12:50
    
    Just seen in my account expiration paused until March 2022 – does this mean the 2 year clock resets at that points or carries on from when it was paused?
    - Andy says:
      
      8 Sep8 September 13:44
      
      The way I understood it is, if your points were set to expire say in September 2021, they would now expire in March 2022 unless you have new earning activity which would reset expiry by 2 years. But if your last activity is April 2020, then your points will expire in April 2022.
mr_jetlag says:

8 Sep8 September 12:43

thanks, have booked Eastcheap in October, sounds like a great vibe.
- mr_jetlag says:
  
  8 Sep8 September 12:45
  
  er that was a reply to Rob re wework, chat is extra jumpy today