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The HfP chat thread – Thursday 30th September

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Comments (587)

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

  • Rich says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:29

    Revolut card offering 8% back at Waitrose, opt-in. Would be interested to see if it’s for everyone.

    Would probably stack with other in-store cards offers, but I don’t see any anywhere.

  • Metopes says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:30

    My seat wouldn’t recline and was stuck in the upright position in club world for an 8 hour overnight flight home, there were no spare seats to move to. It was a points redemption on a 2-4-1 what sort of Avios should I be getting back?

    • meta says:
      30 Sep30 September 08:42

      Pre-pandemic, I believe you would be offered 30-50k or an automatic upgrade on the next flight and I found that a poor offer. I’m sure they offer less now given their motto is that their only obligation is to move you from A to B and that seats are complimentary.

      I’d be asking for half of the Avios back and take them to MCOL for breach of contract.

    • Blindman says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:11

      Zero

      They flew you from A to B on the date of your choosing.

      if you don’t like it then do not fly BA.

      Why does everyone think they are “entitled” to some sort of freebie if things do not go quite as expected?

      Real world issues that deserve compensation.
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58733292

      • Lula says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:27

        Ah yes. The old “there are worse things happening in the world so you mustn’t ever complain” line. You’re an absolute dream for companies who want to get away with over charging, poor service, or outright failure to deliver.

        Let’s all travel in animal crates in the hold. We’ll still get there.

        • Blindman says:
          30 Sep30 September 09:56

          I did not say don’t complain, wonder what the crew said to him\her when they did?

          If the crew said sorry, we’ll give you some more AVIOS for your inconvenience then fair do’s.

          However the “real World” to Hpfers seems to be that they are the type that stamp their feet, scream until they’re sick and spout DYKWIA in order to get a freebie for “compensation”

          Suck it up-stuff happens.

          Not happy with the service-Go somewhere else.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            30 Sep30 September 12:48

            Are you for real? Suck it up? You’re not paying for A to B ie eco. You’re paying for the extra service and better seat in CW

            Compensation is due. How much is up on the OP

          • Lady London says:
            30 Sep30 September 13:10

            Blindman are you OK?
            I’ve enjoyed your comments over a long period.
            But the past couple of days or so we are getting this kind of thing.
            Have you got some particular struggles going on that are changing your view of the world at the moment?

          • Super Secret Stuff says:
            30 Sep30 September 17:19

            @LL I was pondering the same. I think the user name says a lot to me.

            @Blindman as a fellow VIP if you ever want a chat I am here, life can be a bitch when you can’t see. Just ask for my email 🙂

      • Damian says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:28

        Of course Metopes is entitled to some sort of compensation, the advertised product has not been supplied. Your A to B argument doesn’t hold up with what is advertised. Club World advertises the below:

        ‘Imagine your favourite armchair, your bed, your dining table, and your office; all in one. Our Club World seats are designed for relaxing, sleeping, or getting work done, with more space and privacy.’

        ‘Relax on board in a spacious seat, extending into a fully flat 183cm (6ft) bed when you need to sleep. Your seat also has a fully adjustable headrest and lumbar support.’

        This wasn’t the service provided unfortunately due to a defect. Surely the difference in avios between Club and Premium should be at least refunded.

      • Njb says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:36

        Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells …..

        Your responses are becoming a bit predictable Blindman.

    • Jonathan says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:18

      50k Avios is the standard compensation for this. I’d probably consider that acceptable but if you don’t then it will need legal routes as BA stick to their script on things like this.

      Cabin crew should be able to manually recline the seat for an overnight flight so you can still sleep though.

    • Blair says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:19

      What route was this? I do always check my seat is working when I get on board. If not, I’d personally get off and not be seen to have flown. The lie flat element is a major selling point on the Club World webpage. To not have it is a significant reduction of what you paid for. Surely starting point is to only be charged the points for Economy?

    • Tracey says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:29

      When I had this, the crew manually moved the seat into bed mode and back again at the end of the flight. It did seem a fairly major manoeuvre, so I only asked the once.

    • Metopes says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:52

      Thanks for the replies, something around 30-50k Avois seems pretty reasonable to me. I did ask if they were able to manually move the seat but unfortunately it was apparently fully locked, had they been able to I would have been perfectly happy to be honest. Just think being able to lay flat is a key feature of club, will chase up with BA.

      • Lady London says:
        30 Sep30 September 13:17

        Don’t be fobbed off.
        50K feels right.
        You were transported but in Y conditions.
        Yes some advantages of space and food compared to Y, but that’s counterbalanced by the frustration and disappointment. Lie flat is the key essential feature of why someone purchases J on a flight like this, and you didn’t receive it.

        I quite like Blair’s suggestion of checking everything is working immediately you board and if not remedied, getting off the plane.
        For one thing that would mean your checked luggage would have to be found in the hold or on the trolley and also offloaded. I’d really like to know if, given the likely inconvenience of this to the airline, this could blow back on you.

  • Ikaz says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:36

    Doesn’t look great, but cheap: Marriott offering virtual factory tour for 15k points: https://moments.marriottbonvoy.com/moments/12124/redeem/3c541a72d86e8ea53203855cad5a654e
    I went to the real one a couple of years ago, and the cool part of it was seeing the cars, enjoying a really nice lunch and chatting to some of the directors for a couple of hours

  • TJ says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:38

    I see that the bonvivant web site encryption certificate has expired…still trading I hope?

    • Harry T says:
      30 Sep30 September 08:57

      I’ve spoken to Emyr in the last couple of weeks about bookings and everything seems fine.

      • Rob says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:32

        I will send my IT guy his way!

        • Memesweeper says:
          30 Sep30 September 12:16

          Free certs available from “let’s encrypt”. No catch.

          • Phil says:
            30 Sep30 September 15:35

            A key root certificate expires today and has been predicted to cause issues for lots of older smart devices that haven’t been upgraded recently. Whilst this mainly affects TVs, smart phones and the such like, it also has the potential to take down some other internet services where they have older routers kicking around or older versions of operating systems on computers (such as embedded Windows).

            https://scotthelme.co.uk/impending-doom-root-ca-expiring-legacy-clients/

          • Neil B says:
            30 Sep30 September 17:40

            With this specific problem (which is mainly connected with Let’s Encrypt certs) it’s not the website certificate itself – which could have a perfectly valid expiry date – but the signing chain that it’s part of.

            Older devices/browsers which don’t know about the latest root (signing) certificates will only try to trust the old ones, which expired this week. As Phil says, a lot of smart/IoT devices and older phones, which don’t get updates, are seeing the biggest impact.

            But it’s quite unpredictable because the lack of trust could be present in intermediate servers between websites and their visitors – which is why some quite well-known sites have had some issues.

  • stevenhp1987 says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:42

    To those of you who BA have said duty of care doesn’t apply if cancelled more than 14 days in advance…

    CEDR just found in my favour for this (flight moved by one day back in June). Full payment of additional nights hotel (b&b) and dinner.

    • meta says:
      30 Sep30 September 08:44

      Of course it does. Who said it doesn’t? I’ve won cases on that basis at MCOL. Well, before it went to hearing, BA agreed to compensate.

      • stevenhp1987 says:
        30 Sep30 September 08:47

        I didn’t expect to lose.

        Seen quite a few posts on this recently so thought I’d update when this so they know it’s worth filling in a form or two for!

        • Pete M says:
          30 Sep30 September 08:51

          I think the recent posts were more about compensation, rather than duty of care?

        • TJ says:
          30 Sep30 September 08:52

          Well done. Always good to hear of success stories in this area even if they are expected.

      • George K says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:34

        Well done – I wish I had the stomach for it when it happened to me. Ended up claiming via Amex which took a week to settle.

        What was your timeline like?

        • stevenhp1987 says:
          30 Sep30 September 09:41

          Return flight booked, LHR to MLA.

          4th June: Return due 26th June cancelled. Pushed to 27th June,
          29th June: Attempted to claim from BA extra night hotel + dinner.
          1st July: Final response (citing 14 day notice given nonsense) from BA telling me to go to CED
          2nd July: CEDR case submitted
          29th September: Case won

          Now awaiting payment of £87.25 – not much but it’s more the principle.

          BA really should have just paid out minus the bottle of wine we shared over dinner. Now they’ve got to cover the alcohol they normally would refuse to cover!

          • George K says:
            30 Sep30 September 12:42

            Glad to hear CEDR didn’t take too long, as I feared it would. There have been mentions of MCOL being the better option to start with recently. Well done, again

    • Harry T says:
      30 Sep30 September 08:58

      The posts were saying that you can’t necessarily get EC261 compo at the moment for cancellations within 14 days of your flight, due to covid exemption loopholes. Duty of care always applies!

      • Alex M says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:14

        Thanks for confirming this!

      • ChrisC says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:42

        Duty of care isn’t compensation it’s a reimbursement of costs.

        That’s what you need to ask for just as a downgrade gets you reimbursement not compensation.

        It’s not semantics it’s the wording of the regulation.

    • Swiss Jim says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:17

      What’s the process here? Have an October return from Italy flight moved back one day. I know BA need to cover cost of hotel (4 of us, 2 rooms). Do I just book the extra night and make a (legal) claim (how?). Or do I need to contact BA and get them to agree extra costs (or at least give them the opportunity to refuse!).

      • stevenhp1987 says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:35

        After the fact. You contact BA requesting the additional nights hotel and expenses (extra dinner, breakfast etc.) under Duty of Care – EC261: Article 5(1)(b) which refers to Article 9.

        It must be reasonable.

        If they refuse (as they have recently citing some 14 day nonsense which only applies to compensation, not duty of care) then you can go via CEDR (free) or MCOL (paid). I chose the former.

    • Richie says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:43

      That really is unreasonable of BA. They’ll knowingly continue to play games on this point though.

    • Lady London says:
      30 Sep30 September 13:24

      Well done. I hope you added everything possible to your claim.

      Your claim needs to be bigger if BA forces you to mcol or possibly if you do CEDR. As otherwise, in these cases where it’s open and shut BA is required to pay, but they still put you to all the stress and trouble of pursuing them, then if you don’t make sure you claim everything possible then BA is just laughing .

      Because most people let BA get away with this because they are frightened, lack knowledge or view BA as an authority figure, and BA is just laughing because they keep most people’s money that way and even where mcol or cedr takes place, BA gets to hold onto the passenger’s money for longer.

      • Mikeact says:
        30 Sep30 September 13:57

        Have you ever yet, had a perfect journey somewhere without complaining ? Luke warm coffee on board maybe…

  • Patrick Cold says:
    30 Sep30 September 08:54

    Does “Redeem Ambassador voucher by October 1st” mean make the booking or actually stay at the property? Many thanks.

  • Zoe says:
    30 Sep30 September 09:12

    Whats the cheapest Fit to Fly test out there? London/home preferred

  • Louise K says:
    30 Sep30 September 09:25

    Travelling to Dubai at end of Oct both double jabbed – do we still need a day 2 test for returning?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:30

      Yes. There’s no suggestion day 2 tests are going just that they might be lateral flow you pay for rather than PCR.

    • Zoe says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:30

      LFT most likely

      • JDB says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:53

        An LFT may be more likely, but if it is unsupervised and/or the test result is not centrally notified it will serve no purpose, so not clear what the new rule will be.

        • davefl says:
          30 Sep30 September 10:15

          Unsupervised LFT are just a ridiculous waste of time and money, he says stating the blindingly obvious.

          Just done one for outbound to Croatia, who knows if it was me, my mum or my dog that I swabbed…. if I had a dog. Just an extra flight tax.

          • Chrisasaurus says:
            30 Sep30 September 23:04

            Plus you write the time on the test yourself but apparently have to submit the photo between 15 and 25 minutes after that time…

    • Rob says:
      30 Sep30 September 09:30

      Everyone, from everywhere (except Ireland), for the next few years will need a Day 2 test.

      • Ryan says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:35

        ‘Need’ has a very broad definition based on if you actually want to take one or not…

      • BlueHorizonUK says:
        30 Sep30 September 09:53

        So Rob, what you’re saying is, we need a Day 2 Test? 😂

        I feel like this question is asked on every single article and then every single comment page within the article (including the question about vaccination and kids).

        I think the reply from now on should just be, I refer you to gov.uk as anything we say here can change in any instant.

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