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The HfP chat thread – Sunday 12th December

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Comments (314)

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

  • Mrs_Fussy says:
    12 Dec12 December 07:47

    So we are flying to Tenerife on Saturday and I am now having second thoughts owing to all the scare mongering wondering if government will impose further restrictions on travel. What are others doing ? Continuing travel over Christmas as planned ?

    • blenz101 says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:17

      Community transmission will now see exponential spread domestically, there is zero benefit to imposing travel restrictions. You have to feel for the people locked up spending thousands of pounds for hotel quarantine just based on their travel history whilst the virus circulates freely outside their window.

      • BJ says:
        12 Dec12 December 08:35

        There is political benefit and that’s what matters most to the government (apart from Xmas parties, quizzes perhaps).

      • Ian M says:
        12 Dec12 December 08:39

        ‘ there is zero benefit to imposing travel restrictions’, sadly however this doesn’t mean there won’t be further travel restrictions.

      • Super Secret Stuff says:
        12 Dec12 December 12:25

        Zero benefit is a bit harsh, there is some benefit to stopping new lines of transmission but yes its now a bit ridiculous. Just get g4s to knock on people’s doors at home

    • Anna says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:22

      If the trip was for at least a week I would definitely go. I can’t see hotel quarantine being extended due to hotel capacity, as in the summer when there were self-isolation requirements for some parts of Spain. Anything under a week though I’d say not worth it because of the 2 tests pp currently required.

      • SamG says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:25

        No way hotel quarantine will extend, what is the point, we have a big outbreak now. Same for travel restrictions , it doesn’t help anything (apart from destroying those businesses) unless it’s part of a general lockdown which I just can’t see happening.

        The biggest (and only?) risk currently is getting stuck there positive. For me I’ll be taking my work laptop and worst case scenario I’ll be working from there. I’m doing a collinson self-test so any positive test I shall be making careful arrangements to get myself somewhere with a patio for the 10 days so no carting off involved. my OH has recently had COVID so he can go back to look after the dog.

        Sounds rather nice actually 😂

        What I would not be doing now is going anywhere that has arrival PCR testing – especially with risk of imprisonment

    • Geoff 1977 says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:35

      If you think it’s scare mongering why are you thinking of cancelling?

      Who specially has been saying that there might be more travel restrictions?

      • Mrs_Fussy says:
        12 Dec12 December 08:43

        Thank all ! The news this morning talking about plan C

        • Yuff says:
          12 Dec12 December 09:01

          Can’t see how they can justify further restrictions currently, deaths are the same level as end of September and we have had poor weather and a hugely transmissible variant in that time.
          The facts don’t support further restrictions currently, but I’m sure that won’t stop the media scaremongering or going on about parties 12 months ago……🤷🏻‍♂️

        • Mikeact says:
          12 Dec12 December 09:59

          If Mrs Fussy is that fussy then she should stay at home…

        • Jerry says:
          12 Dec12 December 18:51

          Currently in Fuerteventura (since Monday) for 2 weeks on a Tui package (very un HFP). Hesitated about coming and Tui would have let us reschedule even the day before departure. Came anyway and loving it. Canaries covid restrictions are sensible and very well observed. Testing is pointless and a pain but tolerable.

    • Sandgrounder says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:57

      Get away now, it’s always possible we will be locked down and travel banned.

    • Jody says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:06

      We’re due to go for 6 nights on the 28th and are seriously thinking of cancelling. If transmission is so high I don’t fancy getting stuck out there for 10 days (not sure if you get carted off to a quarantine hotel or facility out there).

      Also 4 days after we get back I’ve got a weekend away booked in London as a surprise for my husband for his Christmas present. Got 2 shows booked along with other things. Don’t want to risk missing that weekend (although I guess we could be back in lockdown then!) so thinking sacrificing Tenerife might be safer.

      No definite decision made yet, but that’s what I’m thinking at the moment.

      • Anna says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:06

        Jody, you don’t get carted off, you would be expected to quarantine in your hotel – and your insurance would hopefully cover the extra cost. In the unlikely event of a positive test (presumably you’ll be doing lfts beforehand), if your accommodation is cramped you could look for a self contained apartment with a large balcony or terrace (Royal Tenerife Country Club would be ideal for this, units are like mini villas) so you could isolate in comfort.

        • Anna says:
          12 Dec12 December 10:13

          Though yes would be a bummer to miss your weekend away and shows, though I think I’d rather be in Tenerife than masked up in a theatre in the British winter!

          • Jody says:
            12 Dec12 December 11:03

            It’s the hassle of rearranging everything. I managed to get good seats at a reasonable price for The Cursed Child, which my husband has wanted to see for a long time. I bought them when reopening was just announced, so there was quite a lot of availability, but I think I’d struggle to get similar seats now for a good few months.

            Wearing a mask in a theatre doesn’t bother us.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’d love some winter sun and have been looking forward to Tenerife. But if I had to choose one over the other it would be the London weekend. So, just need to weigh up the risk and if we’re willing to take it or not.

          • Elguiri says:
            12 Dec12 December 22:39

            The weather is definitely better, we had 23 degrees here at lunchtime, and currently 18 outside.
            Although we did drive to the north across the mountains and it went down to about 16 degrees whilst in the clouds.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:07

        Why would you be more likely to test positive in Tenerife than in the U.K.?

        You’re more likely to catch it in a local setting than you are abroad.

        • Jody says:
          12 Dec12 December 10:13

          Airport, plane etc.

          If I didn’t have plans the weekend we get back I wouldn’t be so worried. But I desperately don’t want to miss that.

          As I said above, final decision hasn’t been made so can give it a bit more time and see how things are going.

          And thanks Anna!

    • Michael C says:
      12 Dec12 December 10:27

      Tenerife changes to “level 2” at midnight tonight. Limited capacity and group size inside and outside restaurants, all fiestas etc. cancelled.

      • Elguiri says:
        12 Dec12 December 22:35

        Have you read the details of level 2?
        I did, and decided that bars closing at 2am, and group sizes limited to max 8 didn’t affect me, and in fact makes me feel more comfortable in restaurants without big groups.

    • Russ says:
      12 Dec12 December 11:42

      We’ve cancelled all our overseas plans as I have a dodgy ticker. I haven’t heard anything inherently bad about the new variant but I don’t want to be stuck behind a long queue for a foreign hospital if anything untoward happens.

  • ianM says:
    12 Dec12 December 07:49

    Just got my Creation letter asking for more time and saying absolutely nothing about the complaint itself, nor about whether or not they have actually closed my account.

    Should I go ahead and close the black card if it has not already been done by Creation?

    WHat have others done – referred the matter to FOS?

    Rather than just block Curve, this approach must be costing them a small fortune.

    • Anna says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:24

      You have to wonder what their end game is!
      Surely your card has been closed by now though, if you got the letter?

    • Rui N. says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:26

      Why wouldn’t your card be cancelled already? Did you ask for them to reverse their decision? What does your online account says? Have you tried using the card to see if it is active?

    • BJ says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:38

      Cancelled my card and forgot about them.

    • SteveJ says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:05

      If you have something owed to you (free night voucher, decent sized points balance) you’d be crazy to voluntarily cancel IMHO.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:34

      There’s an easy way to tell. Your card won’t work and your app will show you have limited functionality ..

    • Lady London says:
      12 Dec12 December 16:14

      Do not close card yourself just leave it and see what happens.

      I’d give Creation 2 extra weeks from date of their request (or from 8 weeks after your complaint if earlier)then file a FOS complaint. 24th Dec would be my target date by which I’d file my FOS complaint if the time lapse worked.

    • ianM says:
      12 Dec12 December 16:24

      I tried to login to account and was successful to the point where it says my account has limited functionality – so it looks like it has not been closed as promised/threatened by Creation.

      I wasn’t wanting to close it myself as I feel that gets them off the hook. Renewal is not until April so no risk of a £99 fee coming off.

      • Anna says:
        12 Dec12 December 18:36

        Your account is limited, your card is very likely closed. Everyone’s account says this, it’s so you can see your statements and pay off any balance.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:12

    Cryptocurrencies are something that I’ve really never paid attention to (although perhaps if I had bought a small amount of bitcoin many years ago rather than dismissing it as a fad I’d have done quite well) but one of my friends is thinking of (or maybe got by now) one of the crypto.com pre-paid cards and it made me wonder as some cards come with lounge access.

    From my reading the card with a €3,500 stake gets you lounge access via loungekey (plus free Netflix and Spotify) and you must keep this money deposited for 6 month. It seems that if you remove your stake after 6 months you still keep the lounge access but lose the free Netflix and Spotify and the cashback is halved.

    So the question is – if you’re willing to risk the fluctuations in the crypto market for 6 months – is this a way to get lounge access going forward or is there a catch?

    I’m thinking it might be worth a look. But just like bendy I fail to see their business model. It’s important to note that it does carry risk, how much I’m not sure.

    • Paul says:
      12 Dec12 December 10:26

      yes, it does work well. I took their Royal Indigo card out last year and had to put something like £1500ish up front to get it. Along with free lounge access and 3% cashback and other perks, the value of my initial stake has gone up multiple times. Best card I’ve had! You used to be able to pay HMRC etc with the card and get 3% cashback.. those were the good days, they’ve stopped that now. I managed to amass nearly £2k equivalent in cashback.

      If anyone is keen, here’s a referral code: vxz4lznqj7. Link: https://platinum.crypto [dot]] com/r/vxz4lznqj7

    • Thywillbedone says:
      12 Dec12 December 10:33

      Sick of these blatant attempts to market this RUBBISH to readers….(or poster is a crypto bug doing his/her bit to pump the market)

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:
        12 Dec12 December 11:43

        Nah, I was just curious, I have my doubts on the whole thing. I was just wondering if there was any benefits to it. Has there been any attempts to market it on here before? I noticed when I posted my question it was originally moderated so I had wondered whether people had spammed this topic in the past so it was banned.

        Now I need to ask, does it work with bendy? 😁

      • Paul says:
        12 Dec12 December 11:45

        the ‘market cap’ of the CRO coin is around $15Bn right now, it’s not going to be influenced by a few punters on HfP.

    • Kevin says:
      12 Dec12 December 11:44

      If you take your money out after 6 months, which you are perfectly able to do, you will receive access to lounges until the end of your card expiry date – 6 years from start date. After this point I presume you will have to stake again if you want to keep lounge access.

      I can confirm Paul’s experiences – an added bonus is of course that the token has increased by 1000% since last year, so many will have been able to upgrade to the next tier (5% cash back, amazon prime and lounge access +1 guest).

    • Dr Tom says:
      12 Dec12 December 19:12

      Yes, works well and a sound investment. You also get 10% interest (in CRO) on the stake (£3.000 in the UK). The risk, of course, is in CRO devaluing, but even if you lose £1000 (unlikely), you still have a very good deal for five years of lounge access (which also comes with a lot of restaurant accesses which are blocked on the Amex Priority Pass).

      This is not trying to peddle this. If anyone reads this and doesn’t believe this is a good financial choice for them, I would quite understand it. But there is massive financial backing for these banking alternatives. They make money themselves when CRO goes up, through transaction fees and through other services. Early adopters (this is still very early) are getting rewarded well as they grow the user base (no difference to how companies like Uber established a massive market share).

    • will says:
      13 Dec13 December 00:28

      CRO is a ponzi scheme, if you’re new to crypto look at bitconnect and see how that ended and what it’s supposed marketcap was.

      People will make money until insufficient new money comes in, no one knows when that will be.

      Ask yourself this, why do they need your “stake”, why does it need to be locked in for a period of time and where do you think such high rewards and interest are being generated from?

      Any reasonable company will be able to answer those questions with evidence.

      If they can’t assume it’s a ponzi scheme.

  • Wally1976 says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:27

    Has anyone else tried withdrawing money from Ernie and received a message saying they have to phone up? Looks like it might be some kind of account review. I have cycled money through there but kept it to small amounts and thought I’d flown under the radar!

    • blenz101 says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:36

      You certain you have to call, one of their security features is them calling you and you entering the code shown on the screen? There have been reports on here of people getting letters telling them to pack in the recycling. How much are we talking? Was Curve involved?

      • Wally1976 says:
        12 Dec12 December 08:39

        I’ll try again later but yes, it clearly tells me I need to call. Yes I was using Bendy and more recently Che (are we still using the codewords?) to put through 2 or 3 transactions a week, each sub £300.

        • Jonathan says:
          12 Dec12 December 08:47

          Leaving the money in or taking it out again within a month?

          They’re obviously very aware of MS now so relatively frequent deposits & withdrawals of any size will generate scrutiny. 2-3 per week would fall in my definition of frequent.

          • Wally1976 says:
            12 Dec12 December 08:49

            I’ve been withdrawing money every few weeks but always leaving some in. Maybe I’d have been better paying in larger amounts but less frequently. Who knows!

        • blenz101 says:
          12 Dec12 December 09:00

          Seems a bit odd at that level. Nothing wrong with using Revolut but cycling with Curve may have got you flagged.

          I’ve been doing £30k+ a week and never had an issue but never used Curve with the account.

          NS&I are not known for being heavy handed so you will likely just have to satisfy them you aren’t up to anything too dodgy when you call. They will tell you to pack it in using credit card to fund the account but won’t close you down straight away.

    • Yuff says:
      12 Dec12 December 08:56

      Go back and log in later.
      It happens quite a lot and sometimes if you are abroad and not using a VPN

      • Wally1976 says:
        12 Dec12 December 11:24

        I’ve just tried again and it’s still not letting me withdraw. The exact text of the message I get is “An error has occurred. Please call us with your NS&I number and password to hand.”

        • blenz101 says:
          12 Dec12 December 11:30

          In that case my guess is just some kind of technical glitch on your account. Those who have been told to pack it in were just told directly. NS&I aren’t going to claim an error to trick you into calling for an audit.

          Obviously the agent may spot an odd pattern on your account when you call but I wouldn’t worry at a few hundred pounds a week.

        • Chris says:
          12 Dec12 December 12:50

          This is the same error message my wife got just over a year ago when she tried to withdraw her funds from NS&I Income Bonds after NS&I significantly reduced the interest rate. Her experience was that they are an extremely inefficient organisation; she phoned them several times over a few weeks and the problem still didn’t get fixed, despite their assurances and it only got resolved after the involvement of the Financial Ombudsman. The problem started in November 2020 but she didn’t receive her funds until April 2021 with significant loss of interest over this period. The FOS did get her some compensation however, but the amount of hassle involved just to retrieve her funds was substantial. There was no MS or use of ‘bendy’ involved, just straightforward BACS transfer from her current account. NS&I aren’t a company I’d put any faith in. I sincerely hope your experience is better.

    • MingTheMerciless says:
      13 Dec13 December 07:40

      I’ve had this. Kyc check.

  • Alastair says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:33

    Shout out for a Easy Jet.
    BA cancelled our morning flights to Faro so agreed to fly EJ.
    Managed to book front seats both ways and outbound flight great.
    The plane was clean, on time, no issues.
    We decided to come back early and moved the flight from today back to Friday. A call from Portugal to their customer service transferred everything including booking seats, thought not the front.
    Again flight was fine as was the plane.
    Easy Jet have clearly raised their game.
    Now in Limbo waiting for Randox to let me go free.

    • Travel Strong says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:39

      8 x EJ flights last month, all faultless as you describe. But I wouldn’t say they have raised their game – as i’ve had a consistently good experience for many years!

      • Alastair says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:20

        Good news as an alternative. Certainly raised their game since I last used them.

      • SamG says:
        12 Dec12 December 10:27

        Agree. I’ve flown easyjet countless times and it’s always a smooth experience.

        To be fair I’ve had to fly Ryanair a couple of times recently and that has also been fine – no militant checks at the airport, flights usually not packed out so pretty comfortable and most importantly they’re going where I need to get to when I need to without cancelling, unlike BA!

    • Anna says:
      12 Dec12 December 10:16

      I have 4 trips booked with EJ next year. Decided that the limitations of LCCs are nothing compared to the manure-show which has been BA CS for the past 18 months!

  • Yuff says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:35

    Go back and log in later.
    It happens quite a lot and sometimes if you are abroad and not using a VPN

  • Andy says:
    12 Dec12 December 08:55

    Do you need a covid cert to fly domestic with AA in the states?

    • AL says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:00

      Didn’t get asked for anything on AA and DL these last few weeks. Wear a mask and that’s it.

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:
      12 Dec12 December 09:13

      Confirmed. Airports and airlines have compulsory mask wearing even if the state doesn’t but you need no proof of vaccine or test results to travel.

      • Andrew says:
        12 Dec12 December 09:21

        Can confirm this too – flew MIA to JFK with AA, nothing required apart from a mask in the airport, lounge and onboard even though Florida is blissfully mask-free. AA have also brought back glass and China in first class from end of Nov, although the champagne is Prosecco.

  • AL says:
    12 Dec12 December 09:00

    Data point: Collinson Premium Day 2 PCR at LHR. Tested 11am Saturday morning. Results at 10:50pm by email.

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