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The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 12th October

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Comments (585)

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

  • Tazzy says:
    12 Oct12 October 08:59

    So on Saturday I called BA to add belfast to Heathrow return onto our St Lucia 241 booking. This incurred a £308 tax increase, which seemed excessive, so I didn’t add on. I called this morning and they are now quoting me £460 extra to add these flights on!

    • Anna says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:08

      I think you posted about this the other day – is the CSA classing Belfast as not UK and therefore not coming up with the RFS fare? Can they explain where this increase is coming from?
      Can you just book the domestic leg separately with avios if you’re getting nowhere with BA? I know that will cause issues with collecting and re-checking luggage but if award availability isn’t great it might be the best option.

      • ChrisC says:
        12 Oct12 October 09:21

        I remember this query from the other day as well.

        Could it be that there has been a change further down the line in the booking that is generating a reprice of some other part of the fare construction?

        Airpoort fees? Any St Lucia government taxes / fees changes? Currency exchange rates? BA Surcharges (not taxes)

        I would call again and ask the agent to refer it to the fares team for them to have a look at.

      • Tazzy says:
        12 Oct12 October 09:23

        Yes I posted on Saturday. No one has a clue as to why the coat is so high. All agents seem to be outside the U.K. and really not familiar with belfast. I just get told “that’s what the taxes are” but it feels like a random number is being generated with no explanation! Collecting luggage and rechecking in is a pain but at least if club world the check in queue might not be too long. Such a hassle!

        • Anna says:
          12 Oct12 October 09:29

          Do they definitely know you’re asking for RFS flights to be added to your 241? It’s very odd as normally you can’t mix cash and award bookings on one PNR so I can’t understand how they are proposing to do this if that’s the case! It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they don’t know Belfast is UK, though. They’re not trying to put you on Aer Lingus or something are they? I think taxes on those redemptions are quite high.

          • Tazzy says:
            12 Oct12 October 09:35

            No they are saying no additional avios needed just the taxes. But the taxes are way higher than a full cash club Europe booking is!

        • Lady London says:
          12 Oct12 October 12:27

          Are they using the code for the domestic Belfast Airport instead of the other one?

    • Harry T says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:24

      Is there a Northern Ireland office you can ring? Or even an Irish one?

      • Tazzy says:
        12 Oct12 October 09:34

        Sadly not

        • Froggee says:
          12 Oct12 October 09:52

          If you can be bothered it might be worth seeing if you can just add the LHR-BHD leg on and not the BHD-LHR one. It might be instructive if that barely moves the price or sees it skyrocket.

    • Anna says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:33

      They’re not trying to route you through BDH (in Iran!) instead of BHD are they?

    • JDB says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:50

      If you do a dummy cash booking you can see the differences. It isn’t totally right because of RFS etc, but gives you an idea. Per person in Club, the carrier imposed charge is £57 higher from BFS, the passenger service charge goes up by £55, the airport cost recovery is £17, plus the APD (without RFS) is an additional £26 which all accounts for a lot of the difference. The taxes are automatically calculated so getting them to vary that is tricky.

      • ChrisC says:
        12 Oct12 October 10:01

        But there won’t be any additional APD to pay as the standard rate is already been applied to the LHR- St Lucia leg and there won’t be any on the return.

        The other charges such as 2 lots of LHR ‘recovery’ and any BFD fees are legit.

        • JDB says:
          12 Oct12 October 10:16

          There is the additional domestic APD if your connecting time is 6 hours+ which many of the flight options are as they involve airport changes in London.

          For what it’s worth, the additional airport charges will also presumably be going up quite a bit for flights after 1 Jan, once the 2022 charges are published later this month.

  • ash says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:01

    Hope this makes sense… Did I hear right that you can no longer book your 241 redemption ba flight in two half’s? E. G year in advance for outbound then call to add return flight a week later when released without paying a load more tax? I’ve done this before with no issue. Thanks

    • Anna says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:12

      It’s still possible to call and get the return added on and the taxes readjusted but there seem to be a handful of CSAs who won’t do it any more. Most people don’t seem to have a problem though.

    • Babyg says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:20

      i did this a few days ago, i added a return leg to an existing 2for1 booking, there was no issue AND there was no rebooking fees, (normally you would be charged £35pp)…

  • Andy says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:02

    Apologies for another travel insurance question! I’m off to Thailand for Christmas and booked flights after the news yesterday on my BA Amex.

    I’m also considering an getting Amex Platinum card. If I did that next month would the included travel insurance cover me for my holiday?

    And as I have an Amex gold card can I upgrade it or have the plat card at the same time

    • Reney says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:46

      Some of the insurance cover requires you to use the Amex Plat to pay for the flights, some of them don’t. You need to check the policy.

      • meta says:
        12 Oct12 October 10:31

        FCDO still advises against travel to Thailand and since you booked during the time when the advisory is in place, you are not covered and you won’t be covered at all even if the advisory is removed. Most insurances will not cover you anyway. But you do need to find this out for yourself. What if I tell you would be covered and later you have a claim which was denied? There are some things you don’t ask on internet…

        • JDB says:
          12 Oct12 October 10:43

          The FCDO “all but essential travel” advice was removed yesterday.

        • GeorgeJ says:
          12 Oct12 October 15:17

          Excellent advice here from Meta. Amex are generally helpful if you call them and ask. Also remember there are several parts to the cover and they behave differently. egThailand has come off the FCDO list and you will probably have medical cover if you travel, however because you booked whilst the advisory was in place you are unlikely to have cancellation or disruption cover (since you knew there was a significant risk of this occurring).

  • Blindman says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:03

    BAAP

    Signed up in August wen the fee was £195.

    Can someone confirm what the bonus was for spending £3k in 90 days?

    Have received 25K-which I think is correct-Or should it have been 40K?

    Thanks

    • Anna says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:14

      It depends what was on offer when you signed up, were you referred, was it targeted, did you click the right link, etc!

    • Rob says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:16

      25k in August.

    • Babyg says:
      12 Oct12 October 09:22

      I got a 25k sign up bonus in August, i remember as I was expecting 0k (bank error in my favour).. but yeah 25k for August

      • xcalx says:
        12 Oct12 October 09:25

        same for mrsxcalx 🙂

        • Blindman says:
          12 Oct12 October 09:36

          Thanks for all the replies.

          At least I got the over charge of £55 back without any fuss.

          • Froggee says:
            12 Oct12 October 09:54

            Yeah the bonus increased the same day the higher fee became applicable. I got my mum to apply at the end of August. It turns out that was an error as 15,000 avios for £55 would have been a bargain.

  • Pete M says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:09

    Morning all! Was just going through my Heathrow Express bookings and noticed that lots of them haven’t tracked through to Heathrow Rewards – it seems completely random which do and which don’t (all of these have been since the meltdown they had). It’s about 300 points for me, so others may want to check if you have also been affected and drop them a note.

    • Damian says:
      12 Oct12 October 10:04

      I contacted them via DM on Twitter yesterday about some missing points from purchases at T5 and was told they can take 30 days to post. They are quite quick to respond.

      • Pete M says:
        12 Oct12 October 10:35

        These range from July to September, so don’t think they will show up on their own unfortunately.

  • Froggitt says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:14

    Whats the cheapest IHG ebook these days? Thanks

  • Rob says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:14

    Quick heads up that we have some embargoed content lined up for 11am (11.01 to be precise). If you’ve nothing better to do at 11.01, pop back.

  • AnotherUser says:
    12 Oct12 October 09:15

    Anyone stayed in Hotel Indigo Edinburgh (York Place) recently? Some July/August reviews talk about cleaning /maintenance issues, but I’m hoping they’ve got things together again now (got a stay booked, though can move it if the hotel has gone downhill).

    • Nick Burch says:
      12 Oct12 October 12:10

      We had no issues there in mid August, got a decent room upgrade as Spire. Cleaning was only on request, but many hotels are right now. Whenever we asked in the morning, the room was cleaned within a few hours

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

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