The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 9th November

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idrive says:

9 Nov9 November 10:30

HI! I was reading the article on the Seatspy subscription a few days ago here on HFP.
I am wondering what about Rewardflightfinder, any using it anymore, pros and cons vs Seatspy?
- Phil says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 10:33
  
  This is worth a read – https://www.seatspy.com/news/seatspy-data-copied-by-other-sites
  - idrive says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 14:32
    
    HI Phil, i remember something from the article in late summer, was wondering what people nowadays were doing
Phil says:

9 Nov9 November 10:34

Any views on which Marriott properties potentially offer extra-super value for Suite Night Award redemptions in the UK or US?
- Rob says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 10:39
  
  Flyertalk’s Marriott forum has a list of hotels which have a good reputation for honoring them. Apart from the list of brands which don’t accept them full stop, certain hotels in the participating brands are more welcoming than others in terms of releasing rooms for upgrade.
- David says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 10:49
  
  St Regis Bal Harbour or St Regis NYC.
  - Phil says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 11:09
    
    Good arrows on Ball Harbour David. We’d been looking for something in Miami anyway, but not spotted that property.
    - John says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 12:43
      
      Stayed 10 times at St Regis Bal Harbour in last 10 years. They have never allowed a suite night award to an actual suite!
Paul Pogba says:

9 Nov9 November 10:37

The BA Shopping Portal has a Christmas promotion running between 8 November and 31 December. The first ten transactions over £30 are awarded a bonus of 100, 200, etc increasing with each transaction. Full details visible when you log in.
- Andrew says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:55
  
  A shame for nearly 5 days of the promotion the site will not be useable due to the BA IT shut down.
  - Dave says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:22
    
    It does not say the BA Shopping Portal will be down, so i don’t expect it to be effected.
    
    “From the afternoon of 13 November 2021 until the morning of 17 November 2021 (GMT), you’ll be unable to log in to your Executive Club account or spend your Avios. But rest assured, you will continue to collect Avios during this time.”
- Gary says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:09
  
  Aer Lingus/avios shopping portal offering the same
- Lyn says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 16:26
  
  Thank you for this. Useful for a few smaller purchase.
Britbronco says:

9 Nov9 November 11:02

I was surprised to see that Creation have transferred the Marriott points from my November statement (a couple of days ago). Looks like they are just playing hardball with IHG cards for some reason. I got the letter for both cards. I was only due a few hundred Marriott points though, as I’ve been concentrating spend on IHG white card in the hope of reaching Spire.
- FFoxSake says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:39
  
  Ditto here. Points received in Bonvoy account.
  Both of my Solihull cards (white IHG and MB) had earlier got the letter.
  Tried Che last month and very first topup using Solihull (MB) was declined. Was unexpectedly called by a Solihull rep the next day to confirm it was a genuine transaction attempt by me. Expected some difficult questions about earlier spend but they couldn’t have been nicer. Card was unblocked while on the phone and subsequent Che topups have worked fine.
  After reecent IHG comments I really didn’t expect points to be transferred to MB this month, so pleasantly surprised. Will try to hit it harder for the final month then…
Rui N. says:

9 Nov9 November 11:07

Any hotel points in Madeira? Any recommendations in general? Not top luxury, but not an hostel either.
- Rui N. says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:10
  
  Also, can I use a BA Amex 2-4-1 with a lap infant? I’ll finally get a 2-4-1 and now there’s 3 of us!
  - Anna says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 11:21
    
    Yes, you’ll need to book for 2 adults then call BA to add the infant.
    - Rui N. says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 11:30
      
      Fantastic. Thanks Anna!
  - Ron says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:05
    
    Congratulations on your new addition to the family! Everyone’s different, but since our first child, we found it so much easier with villa type of accommodation, rather than hotels. You get Avios with Airbnb if that helps.
    - Rui N. says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 13:18
      
      Many thanks Ron! Only travel so far was to an hotel which was OK-ish, but I’ll look at all the options available 🙂
- E says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:29
  
  There’s a Melia but I don’t think there are any other chains.
- Navara says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:31
  
  Porto bay group hotels
- Tracey says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:25
  
  Recently stayed at the Belmond Reid Palace, but that would fall into the luxury category unless there is an offer (booked with BA holidays, so maybe worth a look).
  The Cliff Bay was recommended to me as a v decent 4*. Savoy Palace is an enormous luxury hotel, they have so many rooms there maybe deals to be had.
  - Rui N. says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 12:35
    
    Many thanks Tracey 🙂
    - Navara says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 17:06
      
      Eden Mar is ideal with a baby all rooms have small kitchen area
RLS says:

9 Nov9 November 11:09

Hi Rob and Rhys,
Thanks for the continues excellent articles.
I’ve been giving more thought to my family’s carbon footprint, and am looking into how I can offset the emissions when I fly. Do you have any tips?
I appreciate this is not the site’s ‘core’ area, but as an organisation (or individually) does HfP do anything to minimise your impact from travelling? I would love to see an article on this – I think it would be interesting to many of your readers.
Thanks!
- Youllnever says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:14
  
  VS has a tool to do so, although I haven’t looked into it in detail: https://corporate.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/sustainability/carbon.html
- StevieKicks says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:32
  
  Chooose is a decent one to look at, they partner with a lot of companies like Skyscanner https://chooose.today/individual/
  
  Also, easyJet offset all of their flights by default
- Sean says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:42
  
  On the bottom of yesterdays article about Rhys’s flight to US mentioned that they had made a donation to the woodland Trust.
  - Andrew says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 11:56
    
    And you can collect 20 nectar points for every £1 you spend on Woodland Trust membership at the moment!
- Andrew says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:58
  
  Just give up certain things.
  
  So say you were flying from London to Edinburgh return. That’s 164Kg of CO2, the alternative is to take the train at 24Kg of CO2. So you need to net off the 140Kg. All you have to do is switch 180 pints of beer for 180 glasses of water.
  
  Job done.
  - TGLoyalty says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 12:20
    
    Sober weekend in Edinburgh .. what a waste.
    - Guernsey Globetrotter says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 16:55
      
      180 pints – what a weekend!!
- Rich says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:24
  
  I’m always a bit dubious about offsetting. I’m never convinced it’s actually contributing to a genuine reduction elsewhere, and it does feel sometimes like a guilty conscience tax. That said, my energy supplier, Octopus, has an offsetting scheme and it’s very easy, and of all the offsetting companies, I trust them more than most.
  
  We all make our choices. I have no children, drive an EV, am already cutting down on meat – particularly beef. I take the train domestically, and increasingly in Europe. None of that is particularly hard.
  
  I can’t bear the thought of no travel, so I’ll still fly, but more thoughtfully
  - Anuj says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:12
    
    I feel the same and I feel it’s better to workout your carbon footprint for flights and then offset it locally. I.E plant a tree In your garden, insulate your house, get a electric car, switch to renewable source gas and electric. Many of these trees that are planted don’t even survive.
    - John says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 15:00
      
      Why haven’t you done these things already? Why do you need to take flights and then feel guilty about it before going “green”?
  - Alex M says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:33
    
    Ev are not greener than normal cars, if you consider batteries’ production/ disposal.
    - Rich says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 13:51
      
      They are. Even considering the batteries, they’re already greener whole of life than ICE. And will get more so with more renewable electricity. And make the air in cities cleaner.
      
      Cars are still pretty terrible for the planet and your neighbourhood in all sorts of ways, whatever propels them.
      - Definitas says:
        
        9 Nov9 November 15:58
        
        Volvo just issued a statement to say you need to drive an EV for 9 years before it becomes greener than standard ICE vehicles when carbon produced during manufacturing and eventual battery replacement is taken into account. There is also the, as yet, undisclosed carbon associated with electricity imported from Europe, some of which is produced by burning brown coal
      - Rui N. says:
        
        9 Nov9 November 17:19
        
        9 years is a BS metric, but in any case it’s an achievable breakeven point. Most studies, and there have been a few of them already, put the breakeven point at somewhere between 20 and 50k km, mostly depending on where the electricity comes from. There is no question whatsoever that, for a comparable vehicle, the EV will have less overall GHG emissions (I don’t think anyone would question local air pollutants, but again you never know). Like Rich said, all cars are still pretty terrible environmentally (and health-wise, congestion-wise, etc.). But from a GHG emissions standpoint, EVs are the least worst option.
      - Rich says:
        
        9 Nov9 November 18:03
        
        Even if that were true, do cars typically last longer than 9 years?
        
        Yes.
        
        Problem solved.
        
        You realise there’s a carbon cost in making ICE cars? And in exploring for, extracting, refining and transporting oil?
- Ste C says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:37
  
  Every year I use this site:
  
  https://www.goldstandard.org/
  
  You can pick where you want your money to go as well.
- Rob says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 13:12
  
  As we mention at the end of all articles that involve flying, we make payments to the Woodland Trust.
  
  You need to understand that most carbon offset schemes are corrupt. Some, for example, simply pay money to anyone who asks who has a tree, as long as you agree not to cut it down in the next year. This isn’t what most of us see as carbon offset. I’m pretty sure others just pocket your cash. Woodland Trust was the most ethical we could find.
  - memesweeper says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:32
    
    I don’t know about ‘most’ being corrupt Rob, but many pay to avoid or reduce emissions in ways that aren’t really engaging in carbon capture.
    
    There are a couple of very good ones though, one is doing direct air capture in Iceland for geological storage, and another is buying industrial carbon release credits on the European market and then shredding them. I don’t think this sort of thing is available to end consumers though, I think the funding is large corporates looking to go neutral with a copper-bottomed audit trail.
    
    Two decades ago I bought an acre of rainforest in Belize, to stop it getting felled. It’s still standing, being useful to us all, and it cost peanuts. The Woodland Trust takes a similarly good approach.
  - Tomgold says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 17:53
    
    And just as with current landfill crises and plastic in the ocean etc. Where will all those batteries end up?
    conveniently, we hardly hear anyone talk about it, but will it boomerang one day and pollute land all over the place with the toxic materials contain within?
    - Rich says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 18:13
      
      They’ll get a second life in domestic power storage (where energy density isn’t as critical), then hopefully they will be recycled when technologies improve at the end of that life.
      
      EVs are not some panacea to cure all evils. They still have an impact. Just a smaller one than ICE.
    - Alan says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 21:48
      
      You are just parroting the FUD that the fossil fuel companies spend hundreds of millions a year promoting.
      
      Battery reuse/recycling is going to be a huge and lucrative business, after a first life as an EV battery they will either be used as storage batteries or recycled to provide materials for new battery pack.
      
      If you care to look you will find plenty of people are talking about it and investing huge amounts in the companies that are developing technologies that will enable 100% of the battery packs to be recycled.
- Roy says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 19:53
  
  As for offsetting, I’d recommend looking at Gold Standard https://www.goldstandard.org/ All the projects not only offset carbon, but do genuine social good, mainly in the developing world
  
  Make sure you use a realistic estimate of CO2e that you need to offset. I use the figure of 0.25 tonnes per hour of flying time from carbonindependent.org
  
  If you use something else reputable, fine. But beware of sites that underestimate. And make sure that whatever figure or calculator you use takes account of radiative forcing by other means such as water vapour, etc. Standard figure is to adjust by a factor of 2 (i.e. calculate the carbon and then double it!)
  
  A factor of 2 is included in the figure of 0.25 tonnes per hour from Carbon Independent so if you use that, you don’t need to apply a further adjustment. (Interestingly, it was recently revealed that the Cabinet Office also uses a factor of 2 to allow for radiative forcing when offsetting ministerial travel – so I don’t think the need to do this is particularly controversial!)
  
  Happy offsetting!
  - Roy says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 20:09
    
    Oh, forgot to say, that’s for economy class. You then need to apply an adjustment for the increased space (and therefore reduced passengers) carried by premium cabins. I did come up with some figures for this from various sources but I don’t have them to hand. Maybe it was 1.5 for Premium Economy and 3 for Business Class, I think?
    - Roy says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 20:21
      
      Obviously the Business multiplier is for long haul – for short haul business class products I’d use 1.5 like PE (but why are you flying short haul when you could take the train 🙂)
      
      Never figured out what to use for long haul First in four-class cabins – maybe 4?
WearyTraveller says:

9 Nov9 November 11:43

Platinum Amex holder here. Is there any way to request physical membership cards for each hotel Amex offers gold tier for? I looked at HH, MB, RR and Melia and none have any info about it they just mention digital membership cards.
- Youllnever says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:54
  
  To be fair, it is a waste of plastic. I’ve just added all of mine into my Apple Wallet app.
  - Babyg says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 12:01
    
    It is nice to a box full of old tickets, membership cards etc… i have lots of flyers from concerts etc… its going to be a sad sad world when everything is digital.. i couldnt even get my daughters first BAEC silver card because they have gone digital …
  - Ste C says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 12:43
    
    Have you ever needed to show it anywhere? I have always pre-booked so they know my tier.
  - Roy says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 20:29
    
    Hotel loyalty schemes have largely stopped issuing them AFAIK. Certainly, long gone are the days where you got a card automatically through the post, just for joining the loyalty scheme (even if only a cardboard one).
    
    A few loyalty schemes still allow you to request a physical card if you have elite status – Accor springs to mind – but most of them have dropped the option AFAICT
BillersJ says:

9 Nov9 November 11:48

Just FYI – creation have re-opened their credit card application webpage for the IHG club credit card. I applied and am waiting a decision.
- Youllnever says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:53
  
  Was your account going to be closed? If so, they’ll simply close your new card again.
- Char Char says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:53
  
  After they way they acted, I don’t see why people would risk bothering
  - TGLoyalty says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 11:59
    
    It’s pretty useless without Applepay support or curve support
    - Roy says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 20:46
      
      Not useless. But it did prompt me to buy a new wallet, given I can no longer use Creation with Google Pay via Curve, and am disinclined to use Virgin in that way.
      
      Ended up buying an Aviator Slide wallet – German competitor to the much-advertised Ridge minimalist wallet. https://aviatorwallet.com/
      
      Would suggest the double-height coin drawer- I’m doubtful if British pound coins will fit in the standard version…
      
      Very happy with it so far. Opted for the aluminium frame, too, FWIW
- stevenhp1987 says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:54
  
  There are reports that some people who applied after receiving the 60 day notice, but before the page was pulled, had their cards arrive, and subsequently cancelled by Creation.
  - Jim says:
    
    9 Nov9 November 13:41
    
    Yes, I was one of them.
    - Froggee says:
      
      9 Nov9 November 15:02
      
      me too
- SteveJ says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:57
  
  I was also one of those in their cancellation period to have received a credit limit increase letter. Such a laughably poorly run company.
- Anna says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 11:58
  
  Black or white? I’d be tempted to apply just for more evidence of Creation’s incompetence.
- Andrew says:
  
  9 Nov9 November 12:04
  
  All very sloppy.
  
  On their main page, they give details of an account opening offer that according to the notes expired on 31st March 2020. It also still provides details of the Black card.
  
  The T&Cs of account operation on the opening page are also still dated 2019, and I’m sure updated ones have been issued since.