Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 1st December

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

We are running this daily chat thread on Head for Points during the coronavirus outbreak.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the de facto repository for random comments and questions.  With the news flow being lighter, we are running fewer ‘Bits’ articles.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind.

Please only comment under the main articles on the site if your comment is directly related to the topic of the article.  This has long-term benefits as it keeps the commentary relevant for people who read those articles in the future.

Old chat threads are hidden from the HfP home page.  If you want to look for something in an old thread, click here.  This brings up all the articles in our ‘General’ category which includes the chat threads.

Comments (493)

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

  • Chris says:

    Has anyone received their 50x nectar points or the base points from Fridays eBay offer?

    • Tariq says:

      Not so far.

    • Now more informed says:

      Up to 28 days after the purchase.

    • Andrew says:

      But I did get my 5x points from a subsequent purchase made on Sunday – which is the usual timescale for eBay bonus offers to land in your account. So it seems the bumper Friday offer was either overwhelmed by demand or they are manually checking them all for gaming or whatever as they are large sums.

      • John says:

        Well guess I’m going to be banned from ebay yet again if that’s the case

    • Scott says:

      Nothing here either.

      • Froggee says:

        You should at least be able to see it waiting in the nectar section of your eBay account

        • Cranzle says:

          Mine hasn’t tracked corrrectly. Has anyone had success challenging them?

          • Jpa says:

            Raised a case on chat, but as usual when you challenge them the always say it will be fine and then turns out not to be….

            They confirmed order at 12:55, have paypal email payment timestamped at 12:57. Have final page screenshot with 50x points. In my ebay nectar section used my 5x point offer…. Order shows as 13:03 in my ebay. Then the next purchase I made should have had the 5x offer, but had nothing extra as used it up when it should have been the 50x one.

            I would suggest going on chat. The more that we do it, hopefully they notice they have a problem…

        • Pete M says:

          Thanks, Froggee. Didn’t realise there was a Nectar section on eBay. Of course the item I bought didn’t qualify for Nectar points… Grrr!

    • Walty says:

      Got them today, around noon!

      • Tariq says:

        Same, appears in the balance but can’t see it in the transactions list yet.

  • Anna says:

    Still no easyJet winter 22 schedule! Surely they need the money?

    • Andrew says:

      Or they’ve just given up.

    • Bill says:

      Was mid December last year

    • Travel Strong says:

      If they don’t launch it soon, business will start to be lost to those that open up bookings +355 days out. I’m already looking at BA for this time next year, because there is no easyjet schedule.

  • Super Secret Stuff says:

    Someone has a sense of humour, although I may have mucked up the Web address 🤣

    https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_and_monitoring_activ#incoming-1926750

    • SteveJ says:

      Rob will not be pleased! Wonder if the fact that the foi is for .co.uk whereas thensite redirects to .com means they’ll just bat away the foi.

      • Super Secret Stuff says:

        I emailed Rob last night, he said it’s not a concern of his but all readers are welcome to do it. So I did. I might resubmit

        Always good to keep people in employment, plus will settle the debate about weather they read the site

    • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

      FOI request from ‘Ernie’ Anderson – nice touch! 🤣

      • Cranzle says:

        I wonder if one can ask for Paul’s internet surfing history…..

        Or a copy of all emails sent and received by him

        • Super Secret Stuff says:

          Well I am hoping that they provide a record of internet traffic to the site but think that might be a bit unreasonable!

      • Super Secret Stuff says:

        Why thank you.

        Also the surname is a joke as well, there chairperson is Ed Anderson. So Ernie’s brother! Hahaha

      • Super Secret Stuff says:

        Can I just say took you lot a while to notice! Poor form today

  • Magarathea says:

    I had a £150 credit balance on a BA Amex card a few weeks ago and after just having got back from holiday was going to ask Amex to refund this to my back account using the chat. Surprised this morning to find it credited to my account automatically. I know some credit card companies are getting jumpy about credit balances. Do Amex now do automatic credit refunds?

    • Jpa says:

      They do it a DD is in place, otherwise you have to request it refunded or moved to another card.

  • Anna says:

    Hastily cobbled together a Plan B for Edinburgh next month just in case the Kimpton doesn’t work out 🤦‍♀️. The Glasshouse is £228 pn night (w/o breakfast but obviously there are plenty of other options), this sounds quite reasonable? Current reviews are a bit mixed but quite a few places are sold out that week. Would prefer to stick with Hilton or Marriott to earn points. Also looked at the Sheraton but that’s more expensive for our dates!

    • Anna says:

      Apologies, it’s this month now!

    • Luke says:

      Why is the Kimpton looking flaky?

    • Harry T says:

      I had a very mixed stay at the Glasshouse. Recent reviews have also been a mixed bag on flyertalk. Price isn’t bad for Edinburgh at the moment.

      • Anna says:

        Quite, decent options under £250 pn are obviously few and far between for late December now. I’d be considering pulling the plug altogether by now due to Omicron (and Nicola may yet do it for us) but I’ve booked various attractions now.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          Might be worth waiting a couple days i noticed lots of Marriott points options opened back up for a mid Dec stay in London Im sure other tourists will be cancelling weekends away.

          • Anna says:

            Thanks, yes I’ll keep checking, it’s still 3+ weeks away. Fortunately Marriott seems to have good cancellation policies even on the decent rates.

    • Tracy says:

      Stayed at the glasshouse on Saturday night. I like it. Location is great. As platinum, I got a good upgrade, free breakfast, 2 premium drinks vouchers (double g&ts don’t mind if I do 😂), £8 f&b voucher (yes another g&t 😊). There was a fire alarm (some idiots vaping apparently) but luckily I was out at the time. There was an event on until midnight but I heard nothing….

      • Tracy says:

        Forgot to mention, don’t know if it’s specific to room type but there were free drinks in the fridge too – 2 beers & 4 soft drinks 🙂

    • Phil says:

      +1 for the “mixed stay”.

      The hard offering is a little tired. I used a SNA and the room itself was huge and had a lovely view, but tired (leather sofa very scuffed, etc) and frustratingly poorly designed – sofa in the room faces away from the view and TV faces the enormous window – so you have to draw the curtains to watch it 🙁

      I’d go “garden” room next time.

      Service was pretty poor and I would have complained had I been paying cash. But service seemed to be poor everywhere in Edinburgh when I visited.

      Breakfast was ok, but not good enough if you’re paying for it. There’s a good Italian cafe about 30m down the hill though.

      Good location and saying all of the above, I’d stay there again. I’d pay £228 – especially if you have status. Suites are around £1,000 and most definitely not worth that.

      Not advertised very well until you get there – you get free use of one of the gyms/pools in the building below.

      • Tracy says:

        I paid £89 for the Saturday night stay so my view is probably favourable compared to had I paid £200+…

  • Roberto says:

    I’m no conspiracy theorist but find the Avios-Nectar route getting shut down at a point just before Christmas as new travel restrictions appear a tad suspicious.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      You’re not wrong…

    • Paul Pogba says:

      I’d bet BA IT cock up rather than conspiracy. I still don’t think they’ve got Oneworld partner redemptions back working yet either.

  • Andrew says:

    Indeed!

  • NSL says:

    Frustrating event on a late-year Marriott mattress run. I’ve was walked from a Marriott hotel and was given points and a free night in an alternative hotel. It appears that, as the stay was free, there’s no invoice and, therefore, no elite night. Should I apply for a “missing night”?

    I shouldn’t moan about a freebie but I have no Marriotts nearby and this stay was purely to tick over from 49 nights to 50.

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