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The HfP chat thread – Thursday 18th November

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Comments (431)

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

  • Oh! Matron! says:
    18 Nov18 November 08:56

    Morning all from Heathrow t3

    KLM: bedlam checking in although used the Sky Priority line (gold with virgin). Status was recognised, which was nice. Directed to lounge F (no1) Which had a lovely placard outside saying lounge at capacity, only pre-booked for cards… We still half asleep, so left to get a Pret breakfast before I realised it wouldn’t of been a card entrance!

    Security was busy but Swift. Probably 8 minutes.

    Tube was full of people not wearing masks, but, surprise surprise, everyone was wearing them in the terminal.

    Flight is only half full to AMS so have the row to myself.

    • Rhys says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:11

      Mask wearing on the tube is getting worse and worse these days. TFL just don’t enforce it.

      • Pete M says:
        18 Nov18 November 09:23

        Mask wearing on public transport clearly makes a huge difference to number of cases, as we have seen throughout this year in Scotland (where they have been mandatory throughout and their caseload has been similar to England) or indeed Germany where despite requiring FFP2 masks they have some of the highest numbers ever…

        • Colin MacKinnon says:
          18 Nov18 November 09:34

          I know you were tongue-in-cheek, but perhaps there is a link to public transport?

          In Scotland the roads are jammed and the trains empty!

          In London, perhaps the tube is jammed? In Germany, I don’t know.

        • PerkyPat says:
          18 Nov18 November 09:34

          Mask wearing leads to a 53% reduction in transmission according to a recent study. Maybe Germany’s cases would be even higher without masking.

          • Ian M says:
            18 Nov18 November 09:44

            Yeah, just look at Belarus, no lockdowns, no masks and hospitals have been overrun since the start of the pandemic right? Nope 😂

          • John says:
            18 Nov18 November 11:14

            No. Wearing masks was *associated* with (NOT “leads to”) 53% reduction in incidence of covid-19 (NOT transmission).

            They pooled the results of 6 studies (3 from China, Denmark, Thailand and US) to come up with this figure. The 95% CI is 25%-71% reduction in incidence. 4 of those studies had moderate risk of bias and 2 had serious or critical risk of bias, according to the authors.

            To find out what is actually meant by “mask wearing” you’d have to read the original studies, which I haven’t done. However I highly doubt that the type of masking done in June 2021 in England is comparable to China in early 2020.

        • meta says:
          18 Nov18 November 10:02

          How many of those wearing it actually wear it/use it properly? Amongst other things, not taking it off at all, not touching it to adjust, not reusing the same mask over and over, etc.

          • Sandra says:
            18 Nov18 November 10:28

            If you think the tube is bad you should have been on one of the match day Twickenham trains last Saturday crammed, as usual, cheek by jowl. In our carriage I reckon maybe a dozen were wearing masks and 3 of those were us!

          • Worksop Dave says:
            18 Nov18 November 10:40

            Only a moron would believe Belarus’s reported numbers or hospitalisations

          • Gavin says:
            18 Nov18 November 11:37

            Someone on the tube yesterday clearly had a heavy cold (or something else!) and kept pulling down his mask to sneeze and cough into his hand. I was quite thankful when he got off after one stop!

          • Rhys says:
            18 Nov18 November 12:11

            I’ve had this before. It’s absurd….

          • Ian M says:
            18 Nov18 November 13:56

            @Worksop Dave

            I live in Minsk and can tell you that the hospitals have never been over run, they’ve been very busy a few times. The busiest they’ve been was just recently through October this year. But considering the fact we’ve not locked down once this country clearly raises huge question marks about the approach taken by the rest of Europe.

          • Lady London says:
            18 Nov18 November 18:08

            My favourite is the repeated violent cougher that never bothered to turn his head, did not cover with elbow or tissue just straight up coughing into his mask straight ahead over and over. Filth

      • Amy C says:
        18 Nov18 November 11:41

        How can they possibly enforce it?

      • Anuj says:
        18 Nov18 November 12:46

        Mask wearing on the tube is still miles ahead of transport outside of London

    • Ollie says:
      18 Nov18 November 12:28

      I think anyone still thinking masks (as worn by the general public, i.e. damp blue rag hanging off the chin, not properly fitted/filters changed medical grade masks etc) make any difference whatsoever still, after two years of real world data needs their head examining!

      It was only ever about keeping people “aware” there was a pandemic happening (see the Sage notes), seems to have worked!

      • Patrick C says:
        18 Nov18 November 17:26

        I mean even a simple look into the breathtaking decline of colds etc should give enough proof of how effective masks are. not even a topic of discussion really (Asian countries are a lot smarter on that and it is the main reason they are so successful in containing covid).
        Obviously, if you wear the mask on the tube and then go with the same people in an overcrowded pub with no vaccine check, you might as well not wear it on the tube…

        Anyhow, get an FFP2 mask and reduce your pub sessions if you want to reduce your covid risks over the winter.

        • Ollie says:
          18 Nov18 November 22:15

          Nothing to do with people keeping their distance from each other, reduced contact in virtually all ways of course. Must be the masks?

          • Michael says:
            18 Nov18 November 22:57

            @Ollie Distancing and reducing contacts are the best ways to reduce spread. Masks are only mitigation if those not possible.

            I’m still amazed when people express surprise when we ask them to come to healthcare appointments alone (unless they need a companion for medical reasons). If I was a patient’s relative I would prefer not to make contact with their doctor or nurse unless absolutely necessary in order to reduce my own risk!

        • Michael says:
          18 Nov18 November 22:52

          Most of the usual respiratory viruses including influenza have a much lower R0 than covid, so masks and distancing reduce their R further and wiped them out last winter. That is still helpful as much of the current hospital pressures relate to covid on top of usual winter respiratory disease (back with a vengeance) and trying to deal with a huge backlog of normal work.

          I work in healthcare in a devolved nation. We still have a policy of masks and 2m social distancing. While we are literally on our knees in my hospital in terms of covid pressures we feel completely undermined by the UK Governement’s “fingers-in-ears” stance.

          The main problem in the UK is that we run the NHS at >100% capacity in the good times so we have no spare capacity to deal with pandemics!

  • Mike says:
    18 Nov18 November 08:57

    Just tried to log into to BAEC website it is still saying “The Executive Club is temporarily unavailable while we make some planned improvements. Everything should be back up and running for Wednesday 17 November” (clearly its now a day later) – is there an update from BA as to when it will be accessible again

  • Liz says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:07

    Finally got my £55 refund for my BAPP which renewed in Aug and was billed £250 in Sept. After 2 months and 3 calls and eventually a call back from Amex I was told this was being done as a goodwill gesture – I was told the refund should only have been given to new customers who applied in Aug with the first statement posting in Sept and not existing customers – not what I was told on the first phone call but it has finally credited to my account!

  • Oh! Matron! says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:08

    To all those still frustrated with BA.

    Migrations like this are not easy, and takes weeks, if not months of planning. Some migrations can take a year (if you’ve ever done on Orem exchange to office 365, for example)

    Whilst the planning will incorporate much in the way of testing, it’s impossible to have contingency for everything. Some migrations may also need a rollback before starting again

    I don’t have any sympathy for BA, but I do have sympathy for those doing the migration, given the chronic underinvestment by BA. And I have understanding as to why it’s taking so long.

    Testing!

    • Jack says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:15

      The work-around was successful for me about an hour ago (8am). Start a booking for cash then login to BaEC and switched to avios booking. After completing the booking I was able to browse through my BAEC account as normal. Also received email confirmation of the booking

    • bsuije says:
      18 Nov18 November 10:25

      Well said! 🙂

  • Spurs drive me mad says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:15

    How many people took screen shots of their BA avois accounts and balances before they started this work?
    I actually remembered to do it.

    • Anna says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:18

      I did! Lol, my phone is full of pictures of points balances at the moment …

      • Spurs drive me mad says:
        18 Nov18 November 09:20

        Haha me too Anna. I thought I’ve worked too hard collecting those points over the years for them to be lost in a IT cock up.

    • peter says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:33

      I’ve moved them to Nectar, so happy if they replace my <250 Avios with anything else 😀

    • ChrisC says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:46

      Well rather handily BA sent me a marketing email yesterday which has my avios balance, current TPs and lifetime TPs all included within it.

      And the figures also matched the spreadsheet I keep.

    • Sam says:
      18 Nov18 November 10:34

      Relying on awardwallet here

  • Dave says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:28

    Have got 250 Golden Circle points expiring at the end of December. Seems minimum points for a dining/drink voucher is 500. However seem to remember reading that you can use them directly to spend in a Shangri LA hotel bar. I’m off to Bangkok next month so that would work nicely. Am I mistaken or is that something I could use the 250 points for? And if so how do i go about spending them? Thanks in advance..

    • Will says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:30

      I just produced my membership card at the shard high level bar and paid with points. Can’t speak for other locations though.

      • Dave says:
        18 Nov18 November 09:39

        Thanks Will, I’ll prob contact the Shangri La hotel in Bangkok to check the process…

        • Anuj says:
          18 Nov18 November 12:50

          If you have jade, then unless the hotel is excluded like the shard, you get 1.25 of value per point. You can still use in shard but you only get 1 per 1 point. If you don’t have 500 points you can just pay using virtual card at time of bill.

  • Will says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:29

    Anyone yet seen the 750 Clubcard points post from hotels.com and Tesco credit card promo this summer? Subject to a complaint for a few weeks now and Tesco still unable to fix it for us. For such a trivial issue it seems mental not to just manually post them and if someone gets it twice then good for them.

    • Tom says:
      18 Nov18 November 11:40

      I had 7 genuine stays during the period (+20 or so for hostels that i may or may not have turned up to) and have received 0 points post. Tesco said i need to speak to hotels.com and hotels.com say i need to speak to Tesco… How many stays did you do?

      • Will says:
        19 Nov19 November 07:25

        You need to speak to Tesco bank on a specific number (which is on the offer terms and conditions page 0345 300 4278) and then select the option for Clubcard. You can’t access this person dialling Clubcard directly. You then spend 30 mins whilst they check the information and they will request the points (no length of time specified to actually receive them). As this is a bank and you have a regulator, I decided to raise as a complaint to ensure it is actually dealt with eventually and was offered £25 compensation after the complaint was filed. Until this is resolved there didn’t seem any point in accepting the offer which I expect to be increased depending on the time to resolution.

  • George K says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:30

    Apologies, I’m sure it’s been asked before, probably even by me, but I’m trying to figure out how does the monthly Addison Lee credit work for platinum card holders. Is it one per statement month, or one per calendar month, or something else? If statement lands on the 25th of each month and you’ve had a ride on the 20th, can you have another one on the 28th and get the next cycle’s credit too?

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