The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 29th September

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• AJ says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:00

  Quick question. BA Holidays booking remaining balance due in two days. I have a FTV in excess of £1100 which I have requested be applied via the usual email to BAH which was requested a week ago and still not applied.

  Knowing that they are busy and likelihood is that this won’t be actioned in time, is there a way I can get this applied pronto as I would rather not have to pay full balance when I can reduce it by £1100?

  TIA

  • Toby Stanbrook says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:31

    if you are a gold member, call the gold phone line, and pretend that you have a query about your account. The agent who takes your call may help you with this matter.
    This is what I did recently regarding a holidays booking: went straight to account queries and the agent did say that many holidays agents these days are not fully trained for all complexities. I wanted to do an ex-EU holidays booking, and use an FTV which had both cash and a gold upgrade voucher within it. Two calls to holidays people were useless.

• Andrew H says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:00

  Anyone else have problems with Virgin Atlantic + card and Nectar Connect. Have about 4 purchases that haven’t tracked, the most valuable 2583 points from Visio Express – has been 26 days. Have chatted and they’ve raised a ticket, but NONE tracking….

  (The option is to connect Virgin Money bank account OR the credit card. Also Amex – card only obviously – links, so no reason why VA card shouldn’t work)

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:06

    I have had the same problem with my Amex card, raised a ticket and chased them a couple times. It will work its way through to the Nectar Connect team and they will add the points “as a goodwill gesture” if you send screenshots. They said to me to delete the connection and try again but I have not received any custom offers so think it is still broken

• YC says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:17

  How much would you pay/value Marriott Titanium over Platinum in 2022? Can’t decide if to take the 5SNAs or 5 night credit. With 5 night credits, will still need to do some mattress runs to hit Titanium vs I have a few nice stays coming up and tempted to use the SNAs

  • Harry T says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:40

    Depends how much you value having five extra SNAs/one free night voucher. I do think the elite treatment is a bit better as Titanium vs Platinum, but it’s hard to tell. You do earn more points as Titanium and it does add up. You also get United Airlines Silver status, which you may or may not find useful.

    • YC says:

      29 Sep29 September 11:13

      Yeah only real benefits to me is potentially better treatment and more points (and maybe a soft landing). To some degree I do regret not chasing titanium last year as would have made it Titanium again this year. A lot does depend how marriott plays its cards for 2022 requirements. If they do a repeat of 2021, definitely would chase titanium but that was not revealed till January

  • Ikaz says:

    29 Sep29 September 14:29

    I am currently missing 16 nights and have some high value stays next year. I will push for 11 nights either with work or at decent value hotels (cat1 hotel in Aberdeen for 5 nights starts at 30k points, or less in December. Courtyard Oxford for a few weekends) and use the 5 night credits as gift. I have been pre-upgraded at RC Kyoto for cherry blossom season next year (if Japan opens up) based on being titanium

• ATP says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:17

  Morning all, slightly OT. Was in London yesterday and wanted the Jubilee line but had severe delays. Went to Aldgate instead and walked to my destination instead (30+ min walk). How do I claim a refund for this? Rang up tfl who said they don’t do ‘these type of refunds’ over the phone and must be done online, but the online oyster form (I suspect) would reject my claim because tap in/tap out time was fine but ultimately I was still delayed because I had to walk. TIA all

  • Pete M says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:42

    Submit a written complaint via the TfL website – as you say the basic refund form will get rejected. There’s a good chance they’ll reject it anyway, though – they’ve become very very stingy lately (I suppose for a good reason!).

    • Reney says:

      29 Sep29 September 11:06

      Seems like a lot of work for a couple of pounds?

      • Pete M says:

        29 Sep29 September 11:13

        I guess it’s about the principle sometimes and how you value your time 🙂

      • ATP says:

        29 Sep29 September 11:19

        Absolutely Reney. But if I’m honest, its more because service in my area has been abysmal recently and, ironically, was much better a few months ago despite less frequent trains. Given my journey costs about 28p a minute 2x a day 5x a week, the refunds can stack up. I also want to start holding TfL accountable for poor service during peak hours as I am beginning to feel that Covid is used as an excuse too loosely now.

        • sunguy says:

          29 Sep29 September 11:35

          You havent met bad service unless you use the Metline – particularly Amersham/Chesham – one train every 30mins…..often canceled/short stopped(kicked out at Harrow) /short started(i.e. started from a station further up the line than Aldgate)…..etc.etc.etc

          Is it just coincidence – or the other branch to Uxbridge is every 7-12mins and it just happens to be Boris`s constituency ?!?!

        • Reney says:

          29 Sep29 September 11:36

          That’s fair enough. Given I will hopefully be moving back to London soon, I welcome your actions to improve TFL.

        • Biki says:

          29 Sep29 September 11:39

          I use train reclaim to auto claim for delays (although it won’t help with this by the sounds of it). It needs access to your oyster account to track the trains you’ve used and when you tap in/out, I’ve had a few refunds I wouldn’t have even thought about claiming for in the past.

        • Phil says:

          29 Sep29 September 12:35

          https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/tube-delay-refund/ might be of use

        • John says:

          29 Sep29 September 13:36

          Amersham and Chesham have been 2tph for years long before Johnson became Uxbridge MP

        • Lady London says:

          29 Sep29 September 14:19

          Sunguy the other line to Uxbridge, the Piccadilly, is always being cancelled and having to change onto the Met line almost constantly for years and years now.

          It’s so predictable it’s comical. In fact it’s a shock not to have to change onto the Met Line at Rayners Lane or somewhere if you thought you’d boarded a Piccadilly Line train to Uxbridge. Not wonderful with shopping, luggage, pushchair or elderly grandmothers as often requiring to change platforms.

          And meanwhile the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly Line, for which there is a performance guarantee, miraculously seems to grab all the trains leaving everyone else stranded every time there’s a problem

  • HH says:

    29 Sep29 September 13:19

    I’ve never had luck claiming for these situations when I rerouted around the delay. It only ever works if I still got delayed enough to impact the journey you end up doing instead.

    • peter says:

      29 Sep29 September 16:02

      Yeah, no chance sorry. I’ve had that many times that if my tube was delayed I was able to take another line and take long walk which I did few times but then they only look at IN/OUT times and it was all correct. If you want a free journey you must wait until the train actually gets there..

  • Mikeact says:

    29 Sep29 September 16:41

    30 mins? Heck of a long walk..small claims court if you can work out your hourly rate.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      29 Sep29 September 20:24

      30 minutes is a heck of a long walk? Are you American? 😜

• Always_in_the_air says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:18

  Does anyone know whats going on with the BA app…First it wouldnt update and show any new flights in my bookings and wouldnt let me add them manually, then I tried clearing cache and data and logging back in, now I cant even log in to the app (android).

  Looking at flyertalk it seems its mostly an issue for Gold (which I am), does anyone else have any experience of the same?

  @rob maybe time for an article about it?

  • Reeferman says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:41

    Just checked on my app (iPhone) – all is well (Gold as well)

  • Jaime says:

    29 Sep29 September 13:17

    Same problem here, can’t log back in on Android and no way to contact them.
    BA IT at their best again.

  • Sarah says:

    29 Sep29 September 17:58

    I was having this issue (Gold, Android phone) but it’s working fine today.

• JP-MCO says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:22

  Does Capital on Tap (the paid card) award points for HMRC transactions fronted with Curve Metal?

  • Peter K says:

    29 Sep29 September 10:34

    Yes

    • JP-MCO says:

      29 Sep29 September 10:40

      Thanks for confirming.

    • Stephen says:

      29 Sep29 September 12:38

      Any cash advance fees?

      • Chas says:

        29 Sep29 September 13:52

        No fees

• jek says:

  29 Sep29 September 10:33

  It seems that the IHG UK Credit Card Free Night still has not been fixed so that it is book-by and not stay-by. Or does it work for anybody for stays past the book-by date?

  • J says:

    29 Sep29 September 11:05

    Same for me – there was, briefly, a “credit card reward nights available” message on dates into next year, but now it seems to have reverted to how it was before, i.e. book and stay before Dec 31 2021. Annoying.

• Patrick Cold says:

  29 Sep29 September 11:28

  I`m in Rome overnight next week. Landing 10.30pm, fly out 4.00pm next day. Any ideas for a hotel I could maximise sight-seeing opportunities from please? I love the Cavalieri but it`s too far out for a short trip I think. Many thanks.

  • Peter K says:

    29 Sep29 September 13:14

    Depends on what you want to see I suppose.
    The Indigo is quite central, nice hotel.

    Top tip for the Colosseum (certainly pre-covid anyway) was to go just up the road to Palatine Hill and get a ticket for both there. Basically no queue there and you can walk past the queue at the Colosseum.

    • Patrick Cold says:

      29 Sep29 September 14:47

      Many thanks.

  • HH says:

    29 Sep29 September 13:26

    Hotel de Russie is more centrally located and a similar standard to the Cavalieri.

    • YC says:

      29 Sep29 September 14:54

      There is a brand new st regis rome if looking for high end. While location doesn’t look ideal for sight seeing, its near the train station which is handy for transfers in/out of FCO

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