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The HfP chat thread – Friday 29th October

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General

Comments (484)

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

  • MKB says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:08

    I have given a hotel in the Maldives my first name and last name for booking a domestic flight as part of the transfer arrangements. My partner thinks I should have given my middle name too as my full name will not match my passport.

    I have never known an airline ticket not work with just first/last name, and I was worried that given a middle name might complicate matters if the hotel wrongly entered it as a two-word surname or something. Missing out the middle name on an airline booking is never an issue, is it?

    • Rhys says:
      29 Oct29 October 12:14

      I’ve never heard it to be an issue.

    • MW says:
      29 Oct29 October 12:43

      The only “middle name issue” I’ve had recently was with my wife’s middle name missing from her NHS record (but present in her passport). The PLF did not validate the vaccination cert automatically so have to jump through some hoops. Removing the middle name then worked.

      (Actually cannot remember whether this was PLF or Verifly, but just a heads up.)

    • Anna says:
      29 Oct29 October 13:16

      Middle names are irrelevant as some people have several which wouldn’t even fit on a ticket! I travelled MAN-ATL-GCM-ATL-CDG-MAN once with my middle name actually spelled wrong on my ticket as I refused to pay Delta £60 to amend it. It was the one and only time I’ve let my OH book our flights 🤦‍♀️

    • Laura says:
      29 Oct29 October 13:30

      Is it Maldivian airways? They don’t even care if your first name matches in my experience.

      A local agent once booked a flight for me with my name as “Noora” and my surname was a U instead of a A and I got on fine.

      YMMV though as I had a work visa and residence permit and so it might have been a bit more lax.

    • John says:
      29 Oct29 October 14:51

      It’s only ever an issue for people from Hong Kong and various Chinese Singaporean/Malaysians, who usually have two-syllable given names but for some reason leave a space between the syllables.

      Take Gok Wan as an example. His full name is Kwokhyn Wan (pronunciation of the character “kwok” is closer to Gok as an English speaker would say it, hence the nickname I guess.)

      If he had been born in Hong Kong and used the typical format his name would have been spelt WAN Kwok Hing. When HK people come to the UK the transliteration of the second character of their name is regarded as their “middle name” even though it’s nothing of the sort. British Chinese know this and so they tend to put a hyphen or just omit the space.

      A problem arises because it’s a common practice to give siblings the same first character in the name. True to form Gok Wan has a brother called Kwoklyn Wan (in Hong Kong style would be WAN Kwok Lin).

      So if the middle name is omitted it’s quite possible for some Chinese siblings to be viewed as having the same name – especially because the limitations of transliteration mean that many different Chinese characters are Romanised into very similar spellings. As the NHS covid pass doesn’t show middle names, there is potential for abuse.

      Airlines can usually tolerate 3 misplaced letters in a name – but for Hong Kong people 3 misplaced letters could be a completely different person. This is why Cathay does not accept omitting the “middle name” for Chinese people who only have a Chinese name, and is the only instance I know of where the full name on the passport must be in the ticket.

      Of course some people have other issues such as being mononymous, or having 2 surnames but no given name, or numbers in their name, etc.

  • AngryOctopus says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:15

    Couple of airtime reward codes

    HALLOWEEN £4/£20 spend
    SCARETIME £3/£20 spend

    Not sure if they stack, shameless referral code if anyone needs NWM87QEG

    • AngryOctopus says:
      29 Oct29 October 12:28

      +I’m sure people are aware but can get amazon gift cards through Tesco and boots gift card etc…

      • ben says:
        29 Oct29 October 12:46

        Tesco aren’t on Airtime – do you mean Asda? Re stacking – not sure – I now have both HALLOWEEN and SCARETIME active but maybe the newer one disables the previous one.

      • Andrew says:
        29 Oct29 October 13:32

        If you’re going to buy Boots Gift Cards, buy them with Barclaycard and Airtime for an 18% rebate.

  • CH says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:28

    Bit of a random question, and hope no-one has happened to ask today as haven’t managed to read all of today’s comments yet:

    Is PayPal’s method of sending balance to bank account via a debit card (it even allows one of my credit cards(!)), rather than standard bank transfer, frowned upon by the receiving bank*. Comments on here have made me wary – such as those of orphan refunds (where original purchase was made on another card), and fintech companies not playing ball with anything they (eventually!) decide they don’t like.

    *”proper” full frills bank at that, I don’t have enough trust with Che and the like!

    • SteveJ says:
      29 Oct29 October 13:15

      You mean their Xoom service?

      • CH says:
        29 Oct29 October 14:19

        No, when you have a PayPal balance, but then wish to withdraw it to a bank account.

    • John says:
      29 Oct29 October 14:52

      That is similar to how I often buy things on Amex and return them to a debit card when the store cashier doesn’t notice.

      I suppose there is a risk that a bank will not like it if it happens too often.

      • CH says:
        30 Oct30 October 01:52

        Yep, I thought as much, in that there’s the risk that the bank might not like it very much.
        I suppose I’m just reluctant to give Paypal even more data (account numbers) when it already can do what I want it to do, with the existing linked debit (or credit…) card numbers.

  • Young L says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:30

    Not sure if this has been mentioned, I can request refund for my cancelled Avios flight online now.

    • Rhys says:
      29 Oct29 October 12:33

      Nice to see that after 18 months they have finally reinstated that…

      • Anna says:
        29 Oct29 October 13:19

        If BA has cancelled it, you’ve been able to do that for a while now. Presumably this is cheaper for them than re-routing, unless that’s just me being cynical?!

        • Rhys says:
          29 Oct29 October 13:22

          Wasn’t it that you had to call up to get a proper refund? (Not voucher)

          • Rui N. says:
            29 Oct29 October 13:27

            No, there has been a form for many months now that you could fill out to get your refund (either cash or avios booking). It wasn’t as simple as the pre-covid system where you just had to press a few buttons.

          • Sam G says:
            29 Oct29 October 13:43

            The “live” refunds buttons for actual cancelled flights seems to come and go – I had one work and one I had to call – both simple Avios bookings

            What is still annoyingly missing is the ability to online cancel a non-cancelled flight (though these are rare for me at the moment…)

  • Mikeact says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:33

    I’m looking to use one of my Hotels.com reward nights at Heathrow (T5) before a following morning flight…any particular recommendations….doesn’t have to be a 10* hotel, just a room for the night.

    • Andrew H says:
      29 Oct29 October 13:05

      Why not Sofitel right at T5?

      About £150 a night – can then check in the night before

    • John says:
      29 Oct29 October 14:53

      Sort by price and choose the one that is just above the value of your reward night

  • Laura says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:36

    Booked a LFT through SimplyTestMe and will report back how it goes. Surprisingly, they take AMEX!

  • Ros says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:37

    Just got the beardy through, thanks Rob. Any problems using this through bendy for HL?

  • Alan says:
    29 Oct29 October 12:46

    HL?

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

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