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The HfP chat thread – Friday 22nd October

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Comments (444)

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

  • Richie says:
    22 Oct22 October 11:09

    BTW there’s a lot of avios flight availability between London and Nice around 15th and 18th March 22. Hotel rates in and around Cannes may be very high though.

    • Jonathan says:
      22 Oct22 October 14:39

      Is it MIPIM?

      • Jonathan says:
        22 Oct22 October 14:41

        If so I’m amazed! Would have thought the property guys will be first sector to get back to business as usual boozing & schmoozing so would expect usual ~£800 for CE.

  • AngryOctopus says:
    22 Oct22 October 11:19

    when does Barclays take £12 for the avios award? I joined at the start of this month however have not paid in my salary or transferred any current account as of yet (to get the 24k avios bonus)

  • Amy C says:
    22 Oct22 October 11:33

    Just perusing the new list of government approved testing companies now we are allowed to use lateral flow form Sunday. What a joke (as usual). Cheapest ones don’t actually exist, only Bristol available as a pick up point in the whole of SE England etc etc. Oh and if I select to look at only ones available to use at my house I get a broken webpage. Fabulous.

    • Aston100 says:
      22 Oct22 October 11:39

      An indication of the credibility of the current government, if they’ve approved this.

      • Pete M says:
        22 Oct22 October 11:41

        Randox appears to be around £20 by post, which is what Prenetics and Chronomics generally are. I expect that may be the going rate as they will want to milk this for everything it’s worth…

        • Lee says:
          22 Oct22 October 11:45

          Randox website now stating the cheap £20 one Not suitable for day 2 testing

        • Anna says:
          22 Oct22 October 11:47

          We’re away in December so looking forward to reading people’s recommendations and experiences.

        • JDB says:
          22 Oct22 October 12:01

          If you believe they “milk this” what are you suggesting might be their net profit per £20 test? Costs of the premises, business rates, utilities, logistics/postage, test kit, staff/CS set up, receiving/logging results, IT/website etc. etc. There are a lot of providers, not sure many have very good economies of scale.

        • JDB says:
          22 Oct22 October 12:11

          @PeteM – bear in mind on your “milking” theory the issue of VAT which is somewhat disputed for travel tests. HMRC’s position is “sales of tests where the test is self-administered and an immediate result provided — these are standard rated” but I there are some grey areas and some providers may get a bit of a shock later. In theory anyway, on your £20 test that includes c. £3.30 of VAT and of course there will be corporation tax to pay on the big profits.

          • Pete M says:
            22 Oct22 October 12:51

            Profit on a £20 lateral flow? Significant. Given that I can go and bulk buy these tests for £2.50 each (e.g. https://ukwholesales.co.uk/covid-test-kits/ and someone like Randox should be getting them for significantly less) even by the time you take off VAT, shipping and packing, warehousing and some website/app costs (which again Randox already has in place) I think you should be looking at profit around £10 per test. Customer service on these should be minimal as people will simply report their result, supported by a photo of the test, and a certificate will be issued without any human input. If Simply Test Me can presumably make a profit selling them for £12 (assuming they arrive!), at £20 you are laughing all the way to the bank.

          • JDB says:
            22 Oct22 October 13:06

            @PeteM I can only assume you don’t run a business. It is inconceivable they are making a net profit of £10 per test from a £20 price. Just looking at the price of the test cost is like looking at how cheap pizza dough is and calculating the net margin/profit on a £12 pizza at £7.50; it isn’t. My point was that these people aren’t milking it; they are trying to make a living/profit but they won’t all be rushing off to the Maldives.

      • JDB says:
        22 Oct22 October 11:46

        Sorry to spoil your story @Aston100, but the providers are specifically stated not to be recommended or endorsed by the government. I think you will find also that these sort of things are compiled by civil servants, not ministers, if you were thinking that Keir and Angie would have put together a better list.

        • Pete M says:
          22 Oct22 October 13:15

          @JDB – you are selectively picking out statements from my post and ignoring that there are companies out there doing it for £12, clearly still for a profit. I have worked for companies with profit margins in the 70-80% mark, it can be done. We can wait to see Randox’s financial results when they publish them next May, I am fairly certain the profits will be eye-watering, as they are pretty much for everyone who has something to do with Covid and testing.

          • meta says:
            22 Oct22 October 16:56

            @JDB and there is also drop shipping. You don’t even have to have a warehouse. You can just order it from whomever and it’s delivered directly to the customer.

            On another note, I also wouldn’t be surprised that someone sets up a business using NHS free tests and shipping them to customers repackaged.

        • Jonathan says:
          22 Oct22 October 14:50

          Are you the PR arm of the financial services, Tory party & assorted developing world dictators or do you just genuinely feel all the above are only interested in providing a good service at a fair price?

          It’s accepted by the government that they had a fast lane for Covid contracts & lots of evidence that being in Ministers’ social circles got you ahead of far more competent established companies.

          Cost of a LFT in bulk will be similar to that of a T-shirt from a sweat shop & there are plenty of firms making tidy profits flogging them for a fiver. If you can access cheap outsourced logistics like Amazon/THG Ingenuity then you can clean up at £20/pop (particularly with couple/family bookings).

          • JDB says:
            22 Oct22 October 17:09

            None of the above; it’s just that there are lots of lazy tropes: rip-offs this, milking it, cronies (of which there are plenty on both sides) etc. that don’t really bear analysis! In the covid world, the people making the test kits, lab equipment etc. are the ones making the bigger money, not these test providers. As someone on here said, in the gold rush, it was the makers of picks and shovels who profited. I wouldn’t invest in these test providers as I don’t think the returns are there; I have invested in a number of different types of covid related companies.

          • Pete M says:
            22 Oct22 October 17:17

            I am glad we’ve fairly conclusively proven to you how you can make a lot of money here, with virtually 0 investment, JDB, but you refuse to accept you could be wrong…

    • H says:
      22 Oct22 October 11:50

      Simply test me are £12 and my two orders went through this am

      • Crafty says:
        22 Oct22 October 12:22

        Can’t find “Simply Test Me” even after a few different Google searches, do you have a link please?

      • Ryan says:
        22 Oct22 October 13:06

        What is stopping someone switched on enough to say.. set up a service whereby you ‘confirm’ someones lat flow result (would have to declare non NHS test) for a few £?

        In this scenario, you would confirm you have your own test and the service is providing your ref number and a PDF on returning

        This would cut the need to even send out a lat flow

    • Anuj says:
      22 Oct22 October 11:51

      I see randox is £25, that doesn’t seem so bad

      • Phil says:
        22 Oct22 October 12:18

        The BRITISHAIRWAYS discount code works and takes the price down to £21.50

        • Sandgrounder says:
          22 Oct22 October 14:10

          Randox £20 for click and collect, which works for me, obviously not for all.

    • Michael C says:
      22 Oct22 October 11:59

      Testing For All seems to be recommended, but “Due to very high demand for our £19.00 lateral flow Day 2 test, we have temporarily paused sales”

      • Jody says:
        22 Oct22 October 17:47

        I bought from there last week, they were selling before the list went live

  • Hugh says:
    22 Oct22 October 12:21

    Can anyone tell me what date the Amex BAPP Spend £5000 for 10,000 Avios was launched. I am trying to work out if I will hit the spend amount and stupidly didn’t make a note of the date it started!

  • Reney says:
    22 Oct22 October 12:36

    Just wondering what cards people tend to hold as their in between amex sign up bonus card? I assume nectar as it is the cheaper option. I am tempted to get the Marriott card as I have an ok pool of avios and like the transferability but not sure I will put through enough spend to justify the fee before eligible for the next BAPP SUB in March as I am also working on HSBC WE first year bonus. And I think the earning rate is lower on a value per point basis. Thinking about it now as want to benefit from the uplifted plat referral which ends soon.

    • Aston100 says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:38

      I’ll be using Nectar Amex once I cancel my MR cards.

    • Harry T says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:54

      Bonvoy if you actually care about status with Marriott (15 nights for £75 makes status easier to acquire). Nectar otherwise.

  • Babyg says:
    22 Oct22 October 12:36

    Does anybody know if there is UK/EU option to buy Hilton Points rather than the US $ option, i would like to buy with an AmEx, but don’t fancy FX the fees and i didnt see away around this?

  • Publius says:
    22 Oct22 October 12:38

    I’m looking at an avois ticket ATH-LHR which has FIRST availability! Also says a320 jet.
    I’m pretty sure this is a mistake, but it seems an odd one for BA to make?
    Any chance this is indeed correct and BA might have swapped in a long-haul plane?

  • Triath5 says:
    22 Oct22 October 12:38

    Following up on a message from @David yesterday (please, a forum soon!) regarding a mattress run in Moxy Aberdeen for 15 nights (thanks for answering by the way!):

    You mentioned: “The 15 nights cost 30K Marriott points…30k Bonvoy points are worth £210 at 0.7p valuation.”

    How did 15 nights cost 30k points? This implies 2k points/night but the lowest category in Marriott is 5k points Off-peak, and the website only lets me book 9 nights max in any case (closer to 70k for the 9 nights).

    Am I missing something blatantly obvious? If you’d (or anyone else!) rather discuss offline my e-mail is tri87hfp AT protonmail DOT com…woke up this morning excited to execute on this but the cost stops making sense…

    Thanks!

    • Harry T says:
      22 Oct22 October 12:55

      Probably just a typo or misunderstanding. Even with fifth night free, 30k isn’t possible for 15 nights.

    • KP says:
      22 Oct22 October 13:34

      Yes I saw the message and started looking too. I need to hit another 3 nights to retain my Plat status so looking for cheapest way to do it in UK.

      Other surprising bit was why OP didnt get Marriott amex to get 15 nights. It would have been cheaper and convenient to do that

    • Dave says:
      22 Oct22 October 14:09

      I noticed that too. I’m sure the cheapest you can do 15 nights is 60k (5k per night with 5th one free). I’d like to know if there is a cheaper way too.

      A few weeks ago I got my upcoming Dec stay at the Aberdeen Moxy cancelled without any reason given. The reward nights were still available at the same cost I initially booked for, so I simply booked it again. Bit odd for them to cancel in the first place. Anyone else experienced this?

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