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The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 17th November

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Category

General

Comments (445)

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

  • Nigel W says:
    17 Nov17 November 09:30

    Can you upgrade to the BAPP card via the Amex online chat or do I need to call up?

  • A says:
    17 Nov17 November 09:41

    is it very poor value to exchange the HSBC points for Amazon vouchers? I can get about £400 worth of vouchers for 120k points (60k avios equivalent).

  • David says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:03

    “Amazon will stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK from 19 January… due to high credit card transaction fees.” (BBC)

    Anyone know how Amex fees compare to Visa CC?!

    • David says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:05

      Oops, sorry, didn’t refresh page before posting and now seen other discussions!

    • Rob says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:17

      Amazon and Amex are well integrated remember – you can spend MR points directly on the Amazon website and they issue the Amazon Business credit cards in the UK.

      • Harrier25 says:
        17 Nov17 November 10:24

        But why would Amazon stop accepting Visa cards sighting high fees, if all credit cards are capped on what they can charge? Surely it doesn’t cost anymore for Amazon to process a Visa transaction over MasterCard transaction?

  • Paul says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:04

    I would like to use £400 Platinum restaurant credit this saturday evening in London. We are a family of 5 with kids aged 10, 12, 14. The kids are fine with fancy restaurants. I have looked at the list and don’t know anything about any of the restaurants. Can anyone recommend any that would be family friendly but also be likely to be bookable at this short notice? Thanks in advance.

    • Graham Walsh says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:42

      How about The Ivy, check which ones are on the list. I’m sure there is better, but plenty of choice there.

      • Andrew says:
        17 Nov17 November 10:46

        You’d struggle to spend £400 in one sitting at the Ivy for a party of 5, 3 of whom won’t be drinking.

    • Can says:
      17 Nov17 November 11:02

      I though the credit was £200 per card.
      The only option would be Ivy, there are many locations.
      Did you try the restaurant booking engine in the Amex App for Plat?

    • MrDr says:
      17 Nov17 November 11:37

      Best in London is Hélène Darroze at The Connaught imo and its on the list.

      Very fine dining tho. In all probability ivy and an expensive bottle of wine the the way to go.
      One point is to always ring if no availability on line. Often can accommodate despite being full due to cancellations etc.

    • Sarah says:
      17 Nov17 November 11:43

      It will be hard to get a booking for this Saturday evening at a lot of those restaurants, particularly for 5 people, so you may have to start with where can you actually get into. You may have more luck looking at restaurants in the City, but I think you can pretty much rule out any of the well-known restaurants on the list. The D&D restaurants such as Sartoria, Quaglinos, Skylon or Angler might be your best bet for availability. They’re generally nice without being anything special. Check out D&D website for availability.

  • Therooster says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:18

    I am trying to work out if we can enter India from the Maldives & also apply for a tourist Visa.
    Does anyone know if as UK citizens we are able to?

  • Shaw West says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:39

    LHR-BKK return for £1070. 560TP too

    • Shaw West says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:40

      440TP

    • Andrew says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:47

      Which airline?

      • Shaw West says:
        17 Nov17 November 11:18

        AY. No checkin baggage or lounge access. This was posted for £780 from Stockholm. £300 for the privilege of departing from UK

        • Andy says:
          17 Nov17 November 13:36

          That’s not too bad actually…out of Stockholm Finnair competes with SAS so they need to be aggressive. Not much point in competing out of London, so 300£ is not too bad for a 2.5hr business class return.

  • Aston100 says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:43

    I see there is a switching offer from Santander.
    I normally ignore these kind of offers as I feel the hassle is usually greater than the reward.
    However, the equivalent of £150 reward is getting me interested on this occasion.

    Do people generally setup a dummy account with their current bank and then use that for switching?
    Does the new bank (the one offering the incentive) check how long the account has been open for?

    I don’t really want to switch my main current account.

    • Andrew H says:
      17 Nov17 November 10:46

      I’ve had 3 or 4 accounts so it’s easy to switch lower importance ones

      Have recently switched a second Lloyds to Virgin and a Santander to Barclays Premier

      • Babyg says:
        17 Nov17 November 10:52

        agreed, dont switch your main account, also i found switching bank accounts seems to have a bigger impact on my credit score than signing up to new credit cards, so ive stopped switching….

        • Andrew says:
          17 Nov17 November 12:06

          My main bank accounts and credit cards don’t appear on any Credit Agency report.

        • John says:
          17 Nov17 November 13:10

          The credit score that you can see is a made-up number which is not used by credit card issuers when deciding whether to approve your applications.

      • John says:
        17 Nov17 November 13:12

        Yes you can, there is no catch. Santander has no way to know how long your donor account was open for or whether you used it at all.

        The catch is that your current bank may not be too happy if you do it repeatedly (it was discussed here a month or two ago when Lloyds banned someone for making too many accounts and switching them away).

        • Aston100 says:
          17 Nov17 November 16:46

          Thanks John, and duly noted about the churning. I do recall the conversation on here about that – the silly chap did a bunch at the same time IIRC.

    • Rui N. says:
      17 Nov17 November 11:25

      I’ve created a Monzo account to switch to Virgin Money and it worked fine. (Shame for the extra costs for Monzo, but it’s not my fault banks create this promos requiring a formal switch)

    • SteveJ says:
      17 Nov17 November 12:54

      I thought it was £130? I have a joint account to switch and annoyingly we need to go in branch, only reason I’ve not done it yet!

  • CH says:
    17 Nov17 November 10:49

    My wife recently signed up for Amex PRG. While the card has been used for approximately 3 weeks, no promotional offers have yet appeared. Another (supplemental – on my BAPP) card is registered in the same one account, and does receive promotional offers.

    Are there any current bonus offers for adding a supplemental card to PRG? I have not yet seen one, but am on the lookout.

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

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