Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 7th December

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Comments (553)

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

  • Neil says:

    Random non-covid query! Apologies if it’s already been answered.

    I have a few Avios Reward Flights booked on my BAEC account, some on BA metal, others not (Qatar and JAL) Prior to the BAEC website update, all flights were shown on the “upcoming flights section” ….however now only the BA flights show. When you try to add the flight using your reference, it’s only willing to add the flight of it’s a BA flight!

    It doesn’t even show up in manage booking. The only way I can find the flight is by finding the Email booking confirmation and following the manage booking link in that email!

    Far from simple or straight forward. Does anyone else have this issue?

    • Yorkieflyer says:

      Yes same here my JAL Avios booking not visible, can be seen on Check my trip

  • Steve says:

    Collinson testing update: no results yet from my Sunday day 2 test at St Pancras, so I’ve requested a refund (they’re advertising results by end of next day). A message popped up as I was doing so saying “Some of our labs are experiencing delays due to a high volume of tests, these should be caught up by tomorrow morning (Tue 7th Dec). Please bear with us, we are trying to work through these as quickly as possible.”

    They say that refunds take up to 14 days, presumably if I don’t have the money back by then (which seems not unlikely given recent reviews of them) I should contact Amex? (Paid on Amex Plat, haven’t ever done a chargeback with Amex but I’m guessing it’s easy?)

    • bigdave says:

      Super easy, barely an inconvenience. Just follow the article here on getting a similar refund on a cancelled airline ticket Rob posted some time ago.

  • Idontflymuch says:

    Got a free lateral flow test in Madeira yesterday for return to the UK and received a pdf certificate without passport number on. Is that ok or does it need my passport number? Thank you

  • Benilyn says:

    FC to HH – sent on 10 Nov still not here yet… eeek… anyone else ?

  • Jordan D says:

    I have three IHG free nights via the credit cards (two for my wife, one for me) expiring on 31 Dec.

    Am I right thst that is a book by date, rather than a use by date?

    • Anna says:

      I think it depends whether they were extended – on the extended ones the date is use by. Ordinarily it’s book by.

      We also have 3 free credit card nights but they are being withheld by Creation just now!

      • Maciek says:

        Wait, what?! How?

        • Anna says:

          The cc closure saga…

          • Maciek says:

            Oh, for some reason I thought you meant they crawled back the ones already in your account. I shouldn’t post before having my morning coffee…

      • Yorkieflyer says:

        Not surprised you’re in the naughty corner Anna if you’ve three vouchers out of pocket

    • Steve says:

      I had a voucher that had been extended (expiry 31/12/21) , along with a current voucher (expiry March 2022?)… last week I booked for a weekend in June 2022 and it went through ok. My understanding is that if I cancel between Jan-March I will only have the second voucher refunded.

  • Mick S says:

    The Amazon/£20 hack – after 10 days or so, including several placed orders I’ve still not seen any sign of the free cash. I’ve removed all cards except a Visa credit card.

    I suspect its because Amazon know I have the Newday Amazon Mastercard. can anyone disprove my theory? 🙂

  • Kathy. M says:

    Superb customer service from EasyJet. BA could learn a lot.

    I gave up trying to contact BA to use my future travel voucher for next years holiday ( my phone package cuts me off at 60 mins) and decided to book an Easyjet holiday instead. I wanted to add an extra seat on the flight. It took three phone calls to fix it, but each time the phone was answered by a person within 5 minutes, and any subsequent holds were just due to staff trying to find out how to do it (obviously not regular query).
    Incidentally the extra seat is in the name of Mr Comfort, which I think is rather nice.

    • Anna says:

      Agree easyJet (and Ryanair) have put BA to shame in terms of customer service throughout the pandemic. I just need EJ to release the winter schedule by Thursday but it looks like it’s not happening 😫

      • Pete M says:

        I sent a complaint to FR in July (no food loaded onto plane despite it being prepaid). Nothing back until September when they emailed to say a long time has passed, so they assume I don’t want the complaint dealt with anymore. I replied I do. Nothing until last week when they sent me another email saying a really long time has passed, so they’ve closed my complaint again. Total jokers…

  • Mark says:

    As the Covid test requirements have changed , what are the best options for a pre-depature (return to UK) test and Day 2 test?

    I understand the return to UK test does not need to be supervised, and have found Qured at £22 or Simply Test Me £15.60. Qured says test 48 hours before depature and will provide a certificate within 2 hours. STM says test 2 days before departure and test will be validated in 28 hours. Our flight back to the UK in on Sunday 26th December, so appears doing the test on Friday 24th is a must.

    For the Day 2, Biograd does a self test at a clinic or Hotel for £20

    TIA

    • OP says:

      Chronomics is £18.99 and is ‘within 30 mins’ AKA instant (it’s just some image recognition software on the test cassette).

    • Sandgrounder says:

      Randox is a similar price to chronomics if you click and collect, results came back straight away for me.

    • Nick Burch says:

      Klarity, £9.95 for a “Basic Antigen COVID Certificate”, you need to supply your own LFD

      You’re not supposed to use a NHS one for that, but it’s unclear how well that is policed…. LFDs available pretty cheaply to buy in most of Europe though, and much of the world.

    • Yorkieflyer says:

      Project Screen (Virgin) for £17

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