The HfP chat thread – Sunday 24th October

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• jj says:

  24 Oct24 October 16:41

  After a BA admin blunder, my recent Avios redemption flights were manually re-ticketed. Since flying, I have since received Avios and tier points for the trip, and the flight show as being eligible for the purposes of gaining status.

  Does anyone else have experience of this? Are the tier points and eligible flights likely to be withdrawn?

  • meta says:

    24 Oct24 October 16:51

    It can be withdrawn. I wouldn’t rush to spend them.

  • Rob says:

    24 Oct24 October 16:54

    Always possible but I think BA has more on its plate.

  • Mattb says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:17

    Had this back in 2019, avios flight cancelled rebooked onto Iberia and got avios and tier points, barely any though.

    • BP says:

      24 Oct24 October 18:19

      I h

    • BP says:

      24 Oct24 October 18:20

      I had it with LCY to JFK so a good number of avios and tier points.

  • BP says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:18

    I had the same happen before. I kept the avois, tier points and resulting status.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:33

    It happens now and again and highly unlikely to be reversed.

    • jj says:

      24 Oct24 October 19:42

      Fingers crossed, I’ll probably get to keep them, then.

      Nothing is certain in a COVID world but I should hit Gold this year anyway thanks to double tier points on two holidays, but I’ll get there two trips earlier thanks to this error. Happy days.

• Niall says:

  24 Oct24 October 16:52

  Any favourable fares for Tier Point runs recently, especially with the double tier point holiday options. Briefly checking the FT tier point run thread seems to be all later / non BA holiday offer runs.

  • ChrisC says:

    24 Oct24 October 17:06

    Rob wrote about some routes that would earn you 160 TPs for a return which would double to 320 if you booked as a 5 night holiday

    https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2020/01/23/which-british-airways-club-europe-routes-earn-160-tier-points/

    If you started at another UK airport and flew via LHR you would add another 160 (2*40 flights and doubled)

    • Niall says:

      24 Oct24 October 17:35

      Stupid me! I was thinking but didn’t ask about further away / higher tier point options. Someone mentioned earlier about two MAN to LAS trips to get near GGL. Not really seeing much worthwhile.

      • Nick says:

        24 Oct24 October 17:53

        There are a few SH+ destinations that are available as a Holiday for not much more than £500. If you pick somewhere you’d be happy to go for 5 days anyway, it works out pretty well for 320 TPs. You could perhaps earn 160 more for another £100 or so if careful about domestic connections.

        FT has a few ‘true’ TP-runs ex-EU at the moment, but they tend to have 160+ apex rules so only really work if you want to book ahead for next year.

        • ChrisC says:

          24 Oct24 October 18:22

          Remember Nick that the BA Hols double bonus is only for ex UK departures.

• Ant says:

  24 Oct24 October 17:03

  Any idea what we can do with 3 hours near Madrid airport? Tomorrow need to drop off my parents at 1300 for their flight and then our flight is at 1830. Will have a car. Maybe somewhere for lunch?

  • Richie says:

    24 Oct24 October 17:49

    There are some restaurants near the T1-3 hotel zone.

  • Andrew says:

    24 Oct24 October 17:54

    Go to the Iberia lounge?

• Erico1875 says:

  24 Oct24 October 17:31

  Just booked Edinburgh to NY (EWR) using a 2 4 1 voucher over Easter school hols using 110K Avios + £1380.
  Booked Melia Inside for £725 in a city room view 2 x double beds. (There was no advantage using or buying points in this instance but I will keep a look out.) So a total cost of just over £2K.

  Checked BA Holidays. Equivelent package was nearly ** £14K** !!!
  That’s why I am in this game 😀

  • Erico1875 says:

    24 Oct24 October 17:32

    For my wife and daughter

    • Erico1875 says:

      24 Oct24 October 17:33

      4 nights

  • ChrisC says:

    24 Oct24 October 17:49

    Did you click through to the payment page?

    BA Hols can sometimes throw up some ridiculous prices that get sorted when you go to the payment page.

  • Harry T says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:01

    Plus the £1100 of Avios, if you value them at 1p.

    • Ed says:

      24 Oct24 October 18:48

      Or £880 in nectar, though in Easter holidays I suspect that’s more than 1p per Avios valued

      • Erico1875 says:

        24 Oct24 October 20:39

        I have recently sent 50K avios to nectar. But TBH if you add on the, by my estimate, 20% mark up of Sainsburys compared to Aldi/Lidl, where we do most of our shopping, then I would adjust that comparable to 0.65p per Avios

        • Peter K says:

          24 Oct24 October 21:40

          Of course, that valuation depends on Lidl/Aldi actually stocking what you need/want. In my case they mostly don’t so my nectar valuation is higher.

          As with anything in the points game, you need to work out your own individual value to the points.

  • tom1 says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:19

    On Melia, don’t forget that you have 3x 20% off vouchers – i think they are from being gold through Amex if that applies to you.
    You have to go to the promotions tab after logging in to your melia account, choose the relevant offer and click through that link, only then does it show the discount.

    • Phil W says:

      24 Oct24 October 22:05

      These work really well because they also apply to B&B, Half-Board, Full Board, The Level rates as well.

• J says:

  24 Oct24 October 18:12

  Hi all,

  Hit the spend for the BA Companion voucher this morning. How long does it take to show up in my BA account for use?

  Do I need to wait for a statement? (I havent received my first statement yet as this is a new card)

  Thanks

  • SteveJ says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:15

    No idea, buts that’s some impressive <1 mth spending!

    • J says:

      24 Oct24 October 18:37

      it was an expensive hotels.com booking that i’m going to cancel/ refund eventually..just needed the voucher ASAP.

      • Mark says:

        24 Oct24 October 19:31

        So you’re basically stealing a 241?

  • Rob says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:20

    2-3 days after the charge that takes you to £10k (excluding the card fee) hits your Amex account.

• Amy C says:

  24 Oct24 October 18:37

  Oh I do hope not!

  https://www.travelgossip.co.uk/latestnews/chancellor-tipped-to-announce-massive-rise-in-air-tax-on-long-haul-flights

  • J says:

    24 Oct24 October 18:40

    I really dont understand this policy objective.

    Why would you want to disincentivise long haul travel where there is NO alternative, and incentivise short haul travel where there are more efficient alternatives?

    Make flying to france more expensive so people take the Eurostar?

    This cannot be an environmental focused policy surely?

    • JDB says:

      24 Oct24 October 18:51

      I thin k the £554 figure in the article is a red herring – that is the private jet rate. It sounds as though they might (re)introduce a third band for the longest flights; did they use to be over £190? They merged the bands and took a figure between the two, but I doubt on this occasion they will reduce anything. It’s a tax on the rich wrapped in green.

      • ChrisC says:

        24 Oct24 October 19:10

        They used to be 4 bands which went down to two.

        Band depended on the distance between London and the capital of the other nation. So whilst west coast USA would have been in Band C because of distance it was in Band B because of the London-DC distance.

        • JDB says:

          24 Oct24 October 19:29

          Thank you, @ChrisC – so looks like that is an obvious target/anomaly correction coming our way. In 2014, bands C & D were £170 and £194 or about £205/£235 in today’s money!

  • Craig says:

    24 Oct24 October 19:02

    If it does end up being as high as that then it will kill long haul from the UK. It’s marginal as it is but with this kind of change the vast majority will fly to the EU and then onwards to save the tax.

    • JDB says:

      24 Oct24 October 19:12

      I think you will find there are a great many people who really don’t want the faff/extended journey times; the majority will suck it up. If there is a re-introduction of more bands, I doubt the new top one will be so much more than the existing £180 that is going up to £185 anyway.

    • Aston100 says:

      24 Oct24 October 19:19

      “the vast majority will fly to the EU and then onwards to save the tax.”
      I very much doubt it.

      • Mikeact says:

        24 Oct24 October 19:28

        I don’t know about the vast majority, but certainly many more will give it a go. We’ve done it for the last few years, pre pandemic, total no brainer.
        Obviously not for the feint hearted, but probably more for those of us who’ve managed to book multi carrier awards based on mileage, with all the stress that can involve !

    • Craig says:

      24 Oct24 October 19:25

      If it goes from £180 to £200 then I agree they won’t, if it goes to £550 I bet they will.

  • Paul says:

    24 Oct24 October 19:13

    what a total bunch of clowns these so called conservatives are. I’m not happy I played a part in voting them in. Whatever happened to less tax & smaller state. Trying to tax our way back to the black is not smart right now. May as well let the hyper inflation coming hurtling down the tracks inflate our way out of debt, it’s going to happen either way!

    • Red Flyer says:

      24 Oct24 October 19:37

      You reap what you sow…

      • Rachel Robinson says:

        25 Oct25 October 00:52

        +1.

• Cabal of rabid baboons says:

  24 Oct24 October 19:40

  Great call Paul, remind us where you gained your Economics degree?

  • AngryOctopus says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:13

    LSE

    • Harrier25 says:

      24 Oct24 October 20:21

      Inflation won’t be an issue when we’re all locked down again at Christmas because the government failed to act again in a timely manner to manage the increase in covid cases.

  • Erico1875 says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:24

    I dont think you need an economics degree to realise that the man in charge is the equivelent if the village idiot.
    The ecomoy is moving forward despite of him, rather thsn because of him.

  • kitten says:

    24 Oct24 October 21:14

    In the Weimar Republic

• Cabal of rabid baboons says:

  24 Oct24 October 20:37

  How very insulting to the vast majority of the English public to suggest they voted for the village idiot?

  • Harrier25 says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:45

    😄 Unfortunately the English public weren’t given much of a choice. It was either the village idiot or the pantomime villain. 😦

  • Richie says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:46

    er we don’t have compulsory voting in England and vast amounts of the public don’t take part in voting.

  • Memesweeper says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:47

    Even in England it wasn’t the vast majority.

  • Jimbob says:

    24 Oct24 October 20:57

    Not sure that 43% counts as a vast majority?

  • Patrick Cold says:

    24 Oct24 October 21:10

    This is, of course, utter nonsense.

  • Harry T says:

    24 Oct24 October 21:27

    The British public vote for their local MP, not the prime minister. And what’s wrong with calling the majority of people a bit dim?

    • Harrier25 says:

      24 Oct24 October 21:36

      Yes Harry, but who ends up in number 10 influences many people’s decision to whom they vote for locally.

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