The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 24th November

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• Mark says:

  24 Nov24 November 11:49

  Had a hotel booking with alpha rooms which turned into a credit note due to covid, booked on BAPP. Alpha rooms have now gone bust can I claim on the BAPP section 75 even though I no longer have the card?

  • Lady London says:

    24 Nov24 November 12:02

    Closed card does not stop you claimin but there are relatively short time limits within which you must claim as calculated from the date you first became aware of your loss

    Section 75 only on UK credit cards otherwise you claim chargeback from card or, if a type of card from Amex with benefits that might cover it, you can ask to exercise that with Amex.

    • Mark says:

      24 Nov24 November 12:13

      Thanks only got my liquidation notice today. Will call Amex, thanks for the help.

  • Jonathan says:

    24 Nov24 November 12:35

    There’s usually time limits on things like Chargeback, but it’s usually waived with things like hotel bookings and flight reservations

  • Can says:

    24 Nov24 November 14:44

    I sued them.
    Before going bust, last summer they messed up with my pretty expensive resort booking and demanded more money after I paid all my balances. On top of it, I’ve got food poisoning in the resort [I know, not their fault].
    I am glad they’ve gone bust.

• Nigel W says:

  24 Nov24 November 11:56

  Just to confirm, the Amex x Addison Lee credit only works by paying with the main cardholders card?

  • Michael says:

    24 Nov24 November 12:12

    Correct

• Jon says:

  24 Nov24 November 12:00

  Just a quick update on my BA/MH/CEDR 11-month epic saga per Saturday’s chat thread.

  Had a good call with CEDR on Monday morning – they’re very friendly and approachable, so if anyone has any questions about the process, do give them a call. Re my case, not a lot more they can do as they’re not an enforcement body, but they said they’d get someone senior at CEDR to follow up with BA, and I asked them to impress upon BA that I am now preparing to move on to legal proceedings.

  Maybe that prompted action, or maybe someone at BA read Saturday’s HfP chat 😉 I received an email from BA on Monday evening saying that they are in the process of cancelling the original booking and “using the value towards a brand new booking”…. Apparently their Sales team is going to contact me to arrange the new ticket.

  I note that’s Sales and not, say, Ticketing… I think I can guess what’s coming next 😉 I suspect I’m going to be quoting the CAA’s interpretive guidelines at them, about re-route being provided at no additional cost to the passenger.

  So I’m now waiting to hear from Sales, and in the meantime I’m preparing my Letters Before Action, and a letter to the CAA to raise the issue of BA’s repeated non-compliance with the CEDR ruling. I’ll be posting them if the whole thing isn’t fully settled, ticket in my hand, by end of play on Friday…

  • Amy C says:

    24 Nov24 November 12:06

    Good luck, you might actually be getting somewhere. I’m waiting on CDER but feel it’s hopeless. Just got off the phone with Amex after attempting to Section 75 BA as a last resort after their refusal to re-book me past validity and they say as BA have refunded me back to my cancelled card (without even asking me) then I cannot use section 75 against them.

    • Lady London says:

      24 Nov24 November 12:15

      Amy you are being told rubbish by your card. Send them a copy of whatever you sent BA advising them that you reject BA’s refund as EU261/UK261 give you the right to choose refund or reroute and you have exercised your right to reroute therefore you reject BA’s refund which you pointed out categorically was made without your agreement

      IIRC you also told the card so, and told tbe card to return the money to BA at the time but your card said that wasn’t technically possible. Doesn’t matter, you’ve previously told both card and BA you reject that refund which is good enough, the rest is just logistics. Don’t spend it though. If I still used cheques I’d have sent the amount back by cheque by signed-for post with a note attached rejecting it as above.

      • meta says:

        24 Nov24 November 12:58

        I’d also be inclined given that Amex refuse to entertain your S75 claim to put them as a party to the MCOL claim.

        @AmyC I am sorry to say this, but you should stop wasting your time on the phone with Amex or BA. You need all this in writing. They will say anything just to get you off the phone!

      • Amy C says:

        24 Nov24 November 14:30

        Thanks both. So I will send this off to Amex Brighton HQ then, to confirm I have not requested the refunded money from Amex and won’t be doing so yet. @Meta, I’ve not yet started MCOL as I read the fees and freaked out a bit. Plus I then read I could be liable for BA’s costs (however unlikely) and freaked out some more. Don’t know if my stress levels can take much more. I wish BA legal dept would respond to my letter. So far I have just had a combined rejection from customer relations and the group that works on behalf of Doyle. Not sure if I should be expecting anything separate from BA legal or not. They should at the very least be offering me 3 million Avios and 1000 tier points to make up for this! 😉

        • meta says:

          24 Nov24 November 15:44

          Is your claim vexatious? No! Only in that case can the court award the costs. The only thing you might be liable for if you lose is the court fee.

        • meta says:

          24 Nov24 November 15:48

          @Amy C just to add… You should really stop worrying about it as this is exactly what BA wants you to do – to give up that’s how they roll. Also take all the emotion out of it, it will be great and your message will be heard clearly! You can do it.

  • Lady London says:

    24 Nov24 November 12:06

    You are correct BA must provide you a ticket for the re-route at no extra charge or fee whatsoever. Regardless of what the new travel would cost to purchase. If BA cancelled a flight on you.

    Worth noting as Virgin agents have also occasionally been reported as incorrectly asking passengers for extra charges or fees when arranging a re-routing

  • Jon says:

    24 Nov24 November 17:12

    Further update – BA called just now and… all sorted 🙂 New ticket issued, Malaysia Airlines, Business Suites, on my preferred dates, all good. And they explicitly mentioned no extra cost to me – I wonder if they read this thread? 😂

    Top marks to Alison in the Sales team who was brilliant, and a welcome change from the “computer says no” attitude I was regularly encountering before. Honourable mention also to Craig in YouFirst. Now if BA could just fix its systemic issues re no-one apparently having a clue about statutory rights…

    Amy – in case it’s of any use to you: while I don’t know exactly what prompted BA to finally get this sorted out at long last, possibly it was me making clear to them (directly and via CEDR) that I was about to issue Letter Before Action. The threat of a threat so to speak (very meta – sorry @meta! 😉 So possibly worth you emailing them to the effect of “You’ll be getting an LBA from me next week if you don’t sort it out first.” Good luck in any case.

    Huge thanks to Lady London, Meta, Blenz, JDB, and anyone I’ve missed, for all the comments and advice on Saturday and today.

    It almost seems a shame not to be taking BA to court after all this 😂 I was prepared to, and I think I’d have quite enjoyed it 😉 But equally, glad not to have the extra hassle.

    Now then, what’s next, an email to Creation I think… 😂

    • meta says:

      24 Nov24 November 17:59

      Excellent result Jon! So pleased for you.

    • Amy C says:

      24 Nov24 November 19:32

      Brilliant! So pleased for you. 👍🏻🎉
      Unfortunately I already sent BA a LBA 3+ weeks ago and they basically replied to me saying tough luck.

      • JDB says:

        24 Nov24 November 21:01

        Unfortunately, receiving the refund complicates matters considerably. As advised at the time, you need to get a recording of the telephone call following which they refunded you – make this a formal request under DPA 2018, not just asking. You need to be certain that you didn’t unintentionally agree to a refund. If you didn’t, you should then proceed with a new LBA and you would also need to tell Amex to return the refund. I don’t think you can successfully/safely proceed further with Amex or BA until you are certain of what you did or didn’t say on the call.

• JL says:

  24 Nov24 November 12:15

  Have seen from the comments that a few HfPers are watching the possibility of a late December trip to Austria. We are in that camp, but still need the ‘rules’ re 12-15 year olds to be finalised so we know where we stand with one member of our group. (Appreciate there are lots of moving parts as to whether the trip is practical). Has anyone seen anything concrete on this yet? (Still seems to be TBC but likely some sort of regular testing)

  Thank you in advance.

  • GeorgeJ says:

    24 Nov24 November 16:25

    Nothing announced as yet, to be honest the Austrians have bigger issues as the domestic vax program has failed and they need to get hospital admissions down before anything will open up.

• John says:

  24 Nov24 November 12:45

  I’m (hopefully) off on a cruise next year and hope that the insurance on the Platinum Amex will cover me (I’m checking if it covers medical evacuation at sea and cancellation due to COVID). I’m trying to download a copy of the proof of cover, however there seem to be two issues:

  – I can’t enter more than one country for the trip
  – The e-mail address section won’t take any special characters except a full stop

  Does anyone know how to get around this and would I need to contact Amex or Axa (the form to obtain the insurance cover is on an Axa website)?

  • Anna says:

    24 Nov24 November 13:29

    IIRC cruises need special insurance, especially since the pandemic started, but you definitely need to speak to Axa and check.

    That is rather odd about not entering more than one country though; many people do European holidays where they would pass through a number of countries or combine the US and Caribbean. Our own travel insurance doesn’t have this requirement.

    • John says:

      24 Nov24 November 15:21

      I thought it was odd, but when you complete the online form to obtain the proof of cover through the Amex Insurance Portal you can only select one country from a dropdown list.

      The e-mail situation is bizarre – I’ve had the same e-mail address since 1997 and never had a problem with using it until now!

  • Reney says:

    24 Nov24 November 15:02

    I went on a cruise in the summer. Although I think the policy covers cruise it doesn’t mention it anywhere in the paper work. If there is a risk that you won’t be allow to board without specific wording then I would be careful.

    • John says:

      24 Nov24 November 15:25

      I’m travelling with P&O Cruises who state that I have to show proof of insurance before travel otherwise they can refuse boarding with no refunds if they aren’t happy with the cover level – I don’t want to be stuck in Southampton trying to arrange travel insurance on the dockside!

      P&O recommend Holiday Extras through their website and they quote around £50 for the week – might be worth it for the peace of mind!

      • Doogie says:

        24 Nov24 November 15:36

        Remember that in the event of a claim, you’ll likely have to split it between the two insurers, unless your existing one explicitly doesn’t include cruises or similar terms – buying a second one is will potentially simplify boarding, but complicate claiming.

        • GeorgeJ says:

          24 Nov24 November 16:28

          That isnt actually the case, the Amex cover is secondary to any other cover. Just make sure the the additional cover doesnt have this exclusion.

• Mick S says:

  24 Nov24 November 12:47

  I’m going to be doing a few domestic flights within Australia in the next year or two. Any thoughts on whether to withdraw my Amex MR to BA and book reward flights via the BA website. Or whether to withdraw to Qantas.

  would booking a cash flight, say Sydney to Brisbane on the BA website and using Avios to upgrade be a valid option, also get Tier points with BA?

  • John says:

    24 Nov24 November 14:21

    You can’t book a paid SYD-BNE flight on the BA website nor can you upgrade it with avios. Unless you actually don’t care about money there is no good reason to upgrade. You wouldn’t get J TPs on a redemption upgrade anyway

    Award flights are definitely better value with avios as they use a 1 MR to 1 QFF rate… QFF points I would value at 1 Australian cent if you value avios at 1p

    • Louie says:

      24 Nov24 November 15:45

      I’m a bit rusty on this (got to book some myself so will be looking soon though) but transferring MR points to Etihad and using them to fly Virgin Australia beats (or at least used to) both BA and QF on some routes so it depends where you are flying to and from. Otherwise BA redemptions are usually much better value than QF ones.

      Would disagree with John that’s there no reason to upgrade though. Unlike BA’s CE (total waste of money in my view), flying business class internally is a delight.

  • Paul Pogba says:

    24 Nov24 November 15:44

    SYD-BNE is 467 miles on GCMap, that would require 6,000 Avios or 8,000 QF points – I’m not sure what the taxes look like. You don’t earn tier points on BA award flights, you do earn QF Status Credits on QF award flights if you’re a member of the Points Club (requiring 150k points).

    • Paul Pogba says:

      24 Nov24 November 15:54

      Apologies I misread your question about tier points, as John said you can only upgrade BA (and possibly AA/IB) flights with Avios. The Qantas site is showing BNE-SYD flights for 8000 QF + A$46 each way, no idea what the taxes are on BA as the website isn’t isn’t showing availability on the same dates – I assume this is due to the “upgrade”.

• Andrew H says:

  24 Nov24 November 13:04

  Soon be looking to book Virgin from NY to LHR in Upper Class.

  Doing a dummy booking for 2 weeks earlier, I see they fly 3 plane types: A330, A350, 787-9. The only one sold out (for points) in UC is the A350 – the only one with the new cabin: I will have to get in quick in 8 days time, but not wanting it as a return should help (same as the old BA 355 day trick booking single flights). It is a Saturday evening..

  Question – a 241 booking has to be done by phone? is that correct?

  • The cyclist says:

    24 Nov24 November 13:13

    Your likely to be asleep in UC, so does it really matter?

    • Andrew H says:

      24 Nov24 November 13:56

      Yes; if I’m paying that much (it’s $1400 in “taxes” etc), I would like the best…

      And the A350 is supposed to be better as well

      • Shaw West says:

        24 Nov24 November 14:24

        Not according to the Virgin Stewards. They say the 350 seats are smaller than the 789.

  • Shaw West says:

    24 Nov24 November 13:41

    Yes

  • Jonathan says:

    24 Nov24 November 18:18

    Note that Virgin don’t guarantee any availability in any class so ringing at midnight at T-330 will likely be fruitless.

    They generally release award seats later when they have an idea of how well a flight is selling.

• Oh! Matron! says:

  24 Nov24 November 13:04

  QQ: How long normally for Finnair points and tier points to hit BAEC?

  • davefl says:

    24 Nov24 November 13:17

    Mine hit today from a flight on Friday, so 5 days.

    • Oh! Matron! says:

      25 Nov25 November 08:42

      Thanks!

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