The HfP chat thread – Sunday 31st October

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• Craig says:

  31 Oct31 October 12:53

  Thanks for the motivation earlier, managed to get round the Lincoln 10k swim. By far the worst weather I’ve ever run in, it was wet until 7k then the heavens really opened. The irony was the sun coming out and a rainbow as I walked back to the car!!

  • Gruntfuttock says:

    31 Oct31 October 13:03

    You’re welcome, well done. Only 203 comments to catch up on 😁

  • Mike says:

    31 Oct31 October 13:08

    Well done – if it’s finished now at least the roads will have opened and I can drive to my house !

    • Craig says:

      31 Oct31 October 13:17

      Watch out for the flooding!

  • Froggee says:

    31 Oct31 October 13:58

    Come on now. What was your time!?

    • Craig says:

      31 Oct31 October 13:59

      1:14:22, 10 minutes quicker than 2 years ago and 8 minutes slower than my PB.

• Greg says:

  31 Oct31 October 13:16

  Has anybody tried booking a flight to Paris recently ? I fancied 2 days away (7am departure 9pm return next day) but Economy is coming up with £500, Club £1100 – for an hour flight.

  Avios is equally insane 62,000 +£1

  In the end I managed Air France with Virgin points. So much better value despite the 2 hour call.

  • lumma says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:16

    Currently available, fly out tomorrow morning and back late Tuesday afternoon. 9500 avios + £35

  • Peter K says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:29

    When you go to the final page you get to choose a variety of Avios plus money options. 62000 avios +£1 is only one of those.

    However, if you’re happy with what you have now booked, then good for you.

  • ChrisC says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:32

    Avios – looks like you didn’t click on the ‘more pricing options’ link

    CDG has gone from 10 or so flights down to 3 at the moment so that also drives prices up

• Paul says:

  31 Oct31 October 13:47

  Any answers from Creation yet for those who haven’t received their points (‘0’ Points Transferred) from their last statement?

  • Char Char says:

    31 Oct31 October 13:50

    Can’t get any sense out of them for the closure. annual fee or free night voucher, the points not posting are the least of these concerns 🙁

  • SteveJ says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:07

    A variety of answers it seems. Many being told no more points will be transferred from now until account closure (unsure if they mean they will then transfer in one go at the end). One has reported CS told them it’s a known IT issue and being worked on to fix. Take your pick which customer service representative you believe.

    • Roy says:

      31 Oct31 October 21:35

      I would hazard a guess that the delays that many people had in received their points a few weeks ago were due to an IT issue – namely, implementing the changes to their IT systems needed to allow them to withhold points with “0 points transferred”

  • Colin MacKinnon says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:10

    Don’t poke the grumpy bear! Shoot it with a high-powered rifle!!

    So I am unworried about the un-transferred points – it’s only a few weeks until D-day.

    If no points, no free night and charged £99 – I’ll be firing with both barrels.

    Poke the bear now and they might just cancel my card, which I feel would make my case much more difficult.

    Ps Any gun references are metaphors! No animals will be hurt.

  • will says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:25

    Well I can’t even log in to creation today. Says my login details do not exist.
    Creation being creation. No points since September statement here.

    If they don’t honour points/free night vouchers/annual fee refunds in some combination then surely it’s an easy enough case and enough of us on here to take some joint legal action against them.

    Frankly cancelling the cards, ok fine their card their rules, but they can’t issue cards under certain terms, taking an annual fee and then unilaterally decide not to issue the benefits. The points should be non negotiable, for the free night, it’s either the free night or a refund of the annual fee the way I see it else they’ve breached their agreement.

    • BP says:

      31 Oct31 October 15:42

      I expect a pro-rata refund AND the free night. A full refund doesn’t cut it as they have had my money for almost a year.

      • Char Char says:

        31 Oct31 October 16:14

        Yes exactly!

    • Char Char says:

      31 Oct31 October 16:18

      I would forget the joint legal idea I don’t think this situation warrants that, but individual claims should suffice.

      Even though a particular person on here suggests its not a simple case leaving us being victims without justice, I find it hard to believe anyone would find Creation’s behaviour to be reasonable.

      They have given no reason to the cancellation of the cards, so not refunding the fees, free night and points is just trying their luck and hoping people are too afraid to take action.

      • Lady London says:

        31 Oct31 October 16:43

        Unfortunately individual claims will be far, far more tiring for Creation. You should be ashamed of yourselves for even thinking of doing it and sharing information on here.
        As various individual cases will be different, this will cost Creation admin resources as given court deadlines they will have to ensure they respond timely to each claim. I hope you are not all thinking of putting poor Creation to this trouble.

        • memesweeper says:

          31 Oct31 October 17:52

          I was thinking of popping my probable MCOL in on the day of closure. Maybe I’ll hold back a week …

        • JDB says:

          31 Oct31 October 19:26

          It will be interesting to see if they decide to go down the easier route of paying up; today’s reports re s12 closures, if taken at face value and there isn’t any sting in the tail, seems to bode quite well. If they do fight individual cases, it will be messy! One of the people to whom I think you were replying was, if my intel is correct, one of (the two) straws that broke the camel’s back so once the other side of the unfair story is told, that case may go less well than others.

  • Graham Walsh says:

    31 Oct31 October 21:40

    Sent them a message today once logged in. They’ll respond in 5 days. Glad they are so responsive.

• HH says:

  31 Oct31 October 13:55

  If I use an Amex offer on the last day (and can see the pending charge hit immediately), there should be no issue in triggering the offer, right?

  • the_real_a says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:10

    Yes its fine – there is a transaction date sent across, and this is what AMEX uses for the offer date. Settlement date is no longer relevant. (I often use offers on the last day).

    • HH says:

      31 Oct31 October 14:19

      Thought so, thanks. Finally got around to using the Selfridges offer today.

• JM says:

  31 Oct31 October 14:05

  Did I see something recently about Hilton points bonus when buying points? Can’t find it now…

  • Rob says:

    31 Oct31 October 14:21

    Still running – https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/2021/10/15/virgin-atlantic-boosts-south-africa-flights/

• Pete1968 says:

  31 Oct31 October 15:11

  Jab championship – I’ve had 4 Pfizer jabs so far, can anybody beat that?

  Planning on getting my 5th Pfizer roughly mid-March. Or I might go for AZ/ Moderna for the 5th, as apparently the immune system responds well to a bit of mix & matching.

  • Delbert says:

    31 Oct31 October 15:17

    What’s the Jab championship top prize, a pin-cushion?

    • Pete1968 says:

      31 Oct31 October 15:21

      That’s pretty much what my arm felt like after jab #4 – went in painless but that evening really painful and a lovely immune reaction from the old bod.

      • Pete1968 says:

        31 Oct31 October 15:30

        Saw this in the Sundays – 2021 vs 2020:

        Evidence now suggests a doublejabbed individual is around 80 per cent less at risk of infection, and they are around 97 per cent less at risk of hospitalisation or death – instead of a recurrence of the fearsome spikes of yester-waves, this winter will likely be a gentle knoll.

        Against the backdrop of vaccination, we now also have antivirals, monoclonal antibodies and dexamethasone. Data from Icnarc, the intensive care national audit and research centre, also published on Friday, show that fewer critical cases are dying; survivors are recovering quicker; the number of people needing advanced respiratory or cardiovascular support is dropping; and even when these chronically ill patients do need such interventions, they spend less time on organ support.

        • davef says:

          31 Oct31 October 15:49

          Latest Pfizer study on 10,000 says 96.5% prevention against actually catching it after 3rd jab. Quite remarkable if true.
          Mine’s due in 3 weeks.

        • memesweeper says:

          31 Oct31 October 17:55

          Great if you can get it. An unjabbable friend of my son has just died, aged 50-something. I know there’s not a lot of sympathy for the unvaccinated who get ill, but it’s not always through choice that people are still at risk.

        • Pete1968 says:

          31 Oct31 October 18:07

          memesweeper – I think we all have immense sympathy for the unjabbable & immuno-compromised. They are not the unspeakable anti-vaxxers who are basically persuading the easily-persuaded to put their lives at unnecessary risk for no logical reason.

          Having said that, my 16YO daughter won’t get jabbed – doesn’t have more logic to her reasoning than: she’s not much at risk if she got it/ too soon to know if jab has long-term ill-effects/ risks out-weigh benefits.

          True enough: stats say she probably already got it and has good antibody count. So won’t kill her Grandpa.

  • Crafty says:

    31 Oct31 October 15:33

    Why are you doing this – pure selfishness, or some medical rationale?

    • Pete1968 says:

      31 Oct31 October 15:39

      Both, I guess. Looking after self healthwise plus protecting my family from adverse outcomes.

      OK, I’m sorry if I denied Covax one jab (that was – yes – selfish of me but selfishness just comes down to self-interest). Somebody should set up a charity to fund free or subsidised jabs for poor countries – I’d be happy to send (say) £500, but it would have to be an at-cost vaccine ie AZ/ Oxford.

  • Char Char says:

    31 Oct31 October 16:20

    Wow 4 jabs, congratulations!

    In other news the average age of Covid related deaths is 83 years old.

  • Tracey says:

    31 Oct31 October 16:57

    I’d be interested in the gaps between vaccine and if you had any anti body tests pre vaccine.

    I had anti bodies prior to my Pfizer booster, my second AZ being 6 months old. I still took the jab as who knows when those anti bodies would have waned.

    I thought the results are suggesting that a booster jab should keep anti bodies at a high level for a long while.

    • Pete1968 says:

      31 Oct31 October 17:13

      I had some funny stuff going on Jan 2020 (before the epidemic panic) and had a bank of tests over 3 weeks on NHS. I couldn’t breathe properly and got exhausted doing simple exercise. They found nothing, said I was fine; I know I was really unwell. I reckon I had an early case of Covid-19, as I’d been flying in Europe a couple times in Dec/ Jan & could easily have caught it. They took blood sample at the time but later, in July/ Aug I suggested they test it for Covid-19 antibodies and they said it had been destroyed/

      Timing: got my first 2 jabs with 8 weeks’ interval early 2021, got my next 2 with 3 weeks’ interval September. No point taking unnecessary chances & in September UK was saying over 50’s might not be entitled to booster jab.

  • Andrew says:

    31 Oct31 October 18:06

    A friend has had two AZ in Scotland under his Scottish NHS number and has had the standard double plus booster in England under his NHS number.

    • Pete1968 says:

      31 Oct31 October 18:11

      I’m 2nd in this race, then

      • Peter K says:

        31 Oct31 October 19:26

        Seems you are, H.

  • Bearing up says:

    31 Oct31 October 23:55

    Hmm,
    I have no idea whether you’re entitled to be having 4 COVID ‘jabs’, or you’re medical circumstances, but I, personally, find it repulsive that you’re lauding it as a competition when I know quite a number of people who would relish a booster jab given their medical condition.
    Probably better to have kept your thoughts to yourself.

• Sammy says:

  31 Oct31 October 15:47

  Airport lounge access query. OH has Amex Platinum and will get +1 with him. My supplementary didn’t arrive in time and there is nothing Amex can do till I receive the card they said. What’s the extra cost of taking an extra child in (12 years old)? Do we just scan the Amex for the extra person or does the lounge charge the price?

  I have one lounge pass left on my Amex Gold. Wondering if it would be the same cost for OH to take an extra person or for me.

  Trying to access Diamond Lounge in Abu Dhabi Airport.

  • Sammy says:

    31 Oct31 October 15:49

    Forgot to mention we are a family of 4. Happy to pay for 4th person as three of us can get in but not sure if we should pay lounge (charging almost 35gbp) or is there a fixed charge that Amex charges?

    • Pete1968 says:

      31 Oct31 October 16:07

      additional visits will be automatically charged to your American Express Gold card at the rate of £20

      So not as bad as £35. But can you get the PP for your supp card, not a physical card as not enough time, but the digital version? It has probably already been issued, you just need to speak to some people to prove credentials and access it digitally.

      • Sammy says:

        31 Oct31 October 16:09

        Thanks for the prompt reply. Is that possible without me having received my card physically?

        • Pete1968 says:

          31 Oct31 October 16:23

          They are quite quick to issue the physical PP cards when you get the supp Plat card (and therefore access to digital app version). It would depend on when you applied for supp Plat & issued. The problem is possibly proving your ownership of the Plat supp and the consequent entitlement to the PP card. I don’t know if name/ address etc is enough for PP people to give you access to digital app version – quite possibly a yes.

• Jonathan says:

  31 Oct31 October 15:50

  I have an existing avios booking with BA for 4 seats in 2022. I have just called them as I want to apply a FTV which has 2 Amex 241 in it and £70. The BA rep tells me this cannot be done since the tickets have already been issued. Is this right?

  • Jonathan says:

    31 Oct31 October 15:58

    Update – Upon speaking to their manager, apparently they’ll refund the FTV (avios’ and two 241’s) then apply the two 241’s to my new booking but the £70 will be forfeited. This doesn’t sound right either to me, are BA correct?

    • ChrisC says:

      31 Oct31 October 16:51

      I think they are correct

      They have taken your FTV and disolved it so that both the avios and voucher are back in your account and charged the £35 admin fee per person to do that.

      Same as if you had called to cancel the original booking they would still charge the admin fee.

      • Jonathan says:

        31 Oct31 October 17:10

        They haven’t done it yet, I wouldn’t let them. The FTV is still in tact but they are telling me that’s the only thing I can do. Surely not?

        • John says:

          31 Oct31 October 17:52

          Is there anything which says FTVs can be applied to existing bookings?

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