The HfP chat thread – Friday 5th November

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• HBommie says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:16

  Good news, do we know when the A380 is due to start on the route? December?

  • HBommie says:

    5 Nov5 November 10:16

    …to Cheshire Pete

• Lee says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:22

  BA FTV question
  Thinking to switch my Dubai trip to Maldives, will have to downgrade from first to PE/CW with 2 for 1. What’s my option?
  1. call youfirst to change destination with refund for both avios/fees with change fee
  2. get FTV then book new trip with it, where will the outstanding avios/fees go?
  3. any other suggestion
  Thanks

  • Anna says:

    5 Nov5 November 10:32

    I don’t know what the change policy currently is, but unless it’s been cancelled by BA you will need avios availability to MLE which can be hard to find.
    You have to call to use a FTV, I believe they issue another voucher for the remainder, or cash if it’s a small amount.

    • Lee says:

      5 Nov5 November 10:40

      Thanks Anna, found availabilities to MLE. Just not sure how FTV works with remainder

• Grimz says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:31

  Anyone got a successful BA executive club phone number that they are getting through on ? I have just been quoted a validity date on my ticket for a change due to a cancellation and not my outbound flight date. This booking has been changed twice but both times due to a BA cancellation. Am I right in standing my ground to get a year from outbound flight date and not ticket validity date? I don’t want to waste my time if I am not correct and I should just take a FTV.

  • Anna says:

    5 Nov5 November 10:34

    If you’ve accepted a change you’ve effectively given up your EU261 rights, or are you saying the new flight has now also been cancelled? If so you are entitled to re-routing as per the daily discussions here!

    • Grimz says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:06

      No I haven’t accepted any change and I have informed BA that I will not be taking my outbound flight (It was my inbound that was cancelled). I want to rebook just under a year from my outbound flight date but BA are stating that I can only rebook from validity date on my ticket and not a year from outbound flight date. I have seen loads of discussions on this but I am confused what is correct?

      • Anna says:

        5 Nov5 November 11:34

        If BA has cancelled and you haven’t agreed to any changes then you have your full re-routing rights, regardless of what BA might tell you!

        • Lady London says:

          5 Nov5 November 11:57

          Ie governed by EU261 and its equivalent UK statute which override BA’s policies. EU261 states no date limit for you to choose to reroute to. BA’s wishes and inadequacies do not override this greater freedom. Which is fair enough as it’s BA messing you around and cancelling your flight. Many people might lose prepaid costs due to BA’s cancellation that BA is not obliged to reimburse you for. So the statutes quite reasonably give you a free choice.

          Having said that, always have reasonable reasons if the date that’s convenient to you to rebook is further out than BA’s trying to get. There is no sense in being unreasonable and giving airlines as a group any reason to challenge the legislation itself based on people being unreasonable.

        • Lady London says:

          5 Nov5 November 11:59

          PS if BA has any worrues about this then they can easily just reticket. Don’t accept any claims by BA that this is in any way difficult

• Kai says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:42

  With Creation dead, is there any card left which can be used to top up Revolut? I have MBNA Horizon, Hilton and Virgin. Thanks.

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:20

    Which card would you like closed?

  • Andrew says:

    5 Nov5 November 12:14

    Your Virgin Money debit card should work just fine.

    • Youllnever says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:19

      Any debit card should be okay to be fair.

• HAA says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:05

  Wondering if that’s a new low: Applied to Barclaycard and been given a limit of £120 for a salary >£80k. There was no indication whatsoever during the application that the limit would be that low. I actually would be happier if I’d just been rejected instead.

  Called customer services to increase limit, told that they can’t and needs to be done online. And now computer just says no.

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:16

    Do you have a very high total limit from other cards?

    • HAA says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:27

      Not very high, 5 cards, just under £60k total.

      • ChrisC says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:45

        That’s 80% of your salary so could be a factor.

        • HAA says:

          5 Nov5 November 13:51

          Could be, that actually reminded me of something I’ve noticed during the application. I wasn’t asked what the household income was. My wife has a salary of £50k, but doesn’t have any cards in her name, just using a supp card of mine. (She dreads applying for credit cards)

          Anyway, thank you all, I’ve decided to take the hit on the credit report and cancelled the card. That’s a lesson for me not to touch any Barclays products from now on while there are other alternatives.

  • Dan says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:27

    You can pre-pay the card. Not sure if it is frowned upon – they may go Creation over this!

  • Anna says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:37

    All I can think of is do a few spends and keep paying them off, then apply for a larger limit if you can be bothered! I got an increase from £8k to £11k and earn nothing like you do so payment history is all I can put it down to. Other cards very similar, so it’s not about credit limit

• Richie says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:10

  Planning a trip to Central America, would you avoid returning to the UK via the US or would via Madrid be less risky? January 22 is the idea, any thoughts appreciated?

  • Yorkie Aid says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:44

    Personally I would say USA would be lower risk. The WHO have said the Europe is turning back into the epicenter of the pandemic due to the stupidly low vax rates in place like France and Germany who should know better. Spain is much better but obviously the whole region does tend to get lumped together. So although I think restrictions on entry to the UK would be unlikely from either place I would feel more comfortable transiting via USA personally.Doubtless there will be plenty of other opinions.

    • Rhys says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:10

      France and Germany have virtually the same vaccination rate as the UK…

      • B89 says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:24

        According to Bloomberg vaccine tracker – double jabbed: UK 68.5%, FR 77.3%. So much for their ‘stupidly low tax rates’.

      • Norm says:

        5 Nov5 November 12:50

        And I’d classify the UK’s as “stupidly low” as well…

        • TGLoyalty says:

          5 Nov5 November 13:05

          These are some of the most vaccinated countries in the world especially when you consider over 18’s only.

      • meta says:

        5 Nov5 November 15:07

        And Spain has higher rates than all of them…

      • Yorkie Aid says:

        5 Nov5 November 16:27

        BBC News – Covid: WHO warns Europe once again at epicentre of pandemic
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59160525

        I told you there would be lots of other opinions but I haven’t just made things up. Read it for yourself.

    • Richie says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:19

      So the UK gov could possibly perceive Spain as redder than the USA in January 22?

      • Yorkie Aid says:

        5 Nov5 November 17:31

        Richie, as I originally said I doubt there would be new restrictions from either destination but if it were me I’d err towards the transit in USA over Europe. For some reason that bugs some of the lefties on here. Don’t know why.

        • Justin says:

          5 Nov5 November 20:39

          The US vaccination fully vaccinated rate is 57.5% EU average is 65.4%. The countries you mentioned have higher or similar vaccination rates than the UK. AFAIK you can visit all European countries now with proof or vaccination or PCR test. Until recently it wasn’t possible to visit the US at all! Your reasoning makes no sense. Pointing this out doesn’t make someone a “lefty”. You obviously have some tedious political axe to grind.

    • John says:

      5 Nov5 November 14:31

      Err… and the USA’s vaccination rate is?

      Since the US does not allow a true “transit” at all it’s always a bigger risk to transit the US than anywhere else that does allow a true transit.

  • GeorgeJ says:

    5 Nov5 November 18:34

    Personally I would say neither and my preferred transit would be Mex or Cun. Mexico has had open borders throughout the pandemic and tends to get ignored! Its cases are currently low but they dont do much testing either!

• trader363 says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:22

  Planning a trip to South east Asia for January. Any recommendations?

  Me and MrsTrader363, 30 years old, no kids and have already done Kuala Lumpur, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Must include Singapore so will probably do LHR-SIN if/when availability pops up on BA.

  I tried looking at Laos but seems like there’s literally no flights without 2-3 stopovers and 48 hours long.

  TIA for your advice!

  • Shaw West says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:36

    We flew to Vientiane on Lao Airlines from Bangkok. An hour flight.

    You could try Malasia and Indonesia

    • Shaw West says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:36

      Burma and Indonesia.

  • Craig says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:46

    I recommend that other parts of Asia open up first! Singapore for a few days, loved Vietnam, due back that way in Feb but not making too many plans yet.

  • Andy says:

    5 Nov5 November 12:25

    Laos is shut afaik?

    • trader363 says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:42

      That explains where there’s only flights from Seoul (BKK to VTE has stopped)

      • John says:

        5 Nov5 November 14:34

        Interesting, that’s like there only being flights from Dublin to Frankfurt but not London.

  • Sam G says:

    5 Nov5 November 15:12

    Note that coming back into Singapore except for airside transit on one single ticket from nearly all of that region currently isn’t possible so book your return trip carefully.

    Personally I’d go to Thailand and do something different to what you did before

  • Clive says:

    5 Nov5 November 16:56

    We did Lombok a couple of years back and had a really relaxing time. You can also visit other Islands and split time between the North and South of the Island.

• AndyGWP says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:25

  🙄 can I be that guy re: EC/UK261?

  Article 8 section: 1b and 1c mention re-routing as follows
  (b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their
  final destination at the earliest opportunity; or
  c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their
  final destination at a later date at the passenger’s convenience, subject to availability of seats.

  Neither specifically mention re-routing on alternative carriers.

  On initial talks, Virgin are being useful in trying to re-route me on their services, but absolutely useless on re-routing me on a Delta service (which would then connect me to a Virgin service) 🤦🏻‍♂️

  • Richie says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:31

    Correct, it is silent on other carriers. It also doesn’t expressely say ‘… re-routing on the operating air carrier’s flights only..’ Start talking about re-routing on AA, BA, UA as well as DL. It’s your convenience that’s expressly detailed not their’s.

    • AndyGWP says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:40

      Thanks Richie – the response I got as to why I can’t use Delta is that:
      “There is no points tickets available on our system. Also we cannot re-protect on codeshare sorry as per current policy”
      (not sure what that second sentence means – assume it’s autocorrect and they meant re-route?)

      • Richie says:

        5 Nov5 November 11:55

        261 applies, that twaddle doesn’t.

        • Lady London says:

          5 Nov5 November 12:06

          Other carriers are mentioned in EU261 to the effect that if the carrier that cancelled you doesnt have their own flights they are expected to book you on another carrier.

          EU261 and its UK equivalent are quite readable you might want to have a squizz.

          The key thing is that if a seat paid with points/miles etc is on a flight that’s cancelled the airline is not allowed to insist that there has to beban award seat available in order to reroute you. Any seat in same cabin that’s available, you have a right to. Also stated quite specifically in the legislation.

    • meta says:

      5 Nov5 November 15:13

      It’s explicit under term comparable transport conditions. So if the direct route is only available on X airline, you have the right not to want to transit although you have to be reasonable. Same with class of travel.

  • LakerDC10 says:

    5 Nov5 November 12:15

    I had the exact same problem (on a reward booking). Call Centre refused point blank to reprotect me on a DL domestic (citing the same no availability on points blah blah). I escalated it Customer Services who have been delightful! They full acknowledged that the Call Centre were wrong and offered me the right reprotection. I suggest to ask to escalate it.

    • AndyGWP says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:25

      Thanks again Richie

      LakerDC10 – really appreciate that (and I had just done requested this is escalated, so fingers crossed!)

      Thanks also Lady London – I had read up on the act myself, but had been struggling to see anything in relation to them booking on other carriers

      • AndyGWP says:

        5 Nov5 November 13:00

        Sorted – had thrown the legislation at them and asked for it to be escalated and less than an hour later, it’s all done…. thanks all

        • Louie says:

          5 Nov5 November 14:37

          And that’s the difference between BA and Virgin. BA you can quote legislation until you are blue in the face and the response is to the effect that we don’t give a toss about the legislation.

  • memesweeper says:

    5 Nov5 November 18:41

    This *isn’t* silent on the question of alternative carriers:-

    https://www.caa.co.uk/uploadedFiles/CAA/Content/Accordion/Standard_Content/Our_work/Annex%201Reouting%20under%20Regulation%20EU261%20and%20the%20CAAs%20view%20on%20compliance.pdf

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