Chat thread – Tuesday 14th December

[Rob]

Please do not post here until Tuesday 🙂

This is today’s chat thread. We have moved the daily discussion from the main HfP news feed into the new forum. We hope you get used to it.

If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.

[Tarmohamed]

Good morning from Karachi! – it’s Tuesday here.🤐

[GaryE]

Does anyone know if BA have decided to stop flying to Gran Canaria for the summer season 2022. No direct flights after end of March although the BA timetable suggest that there should be a twice weekly flight from LGW. Could it be that they have not decided whether the flights currently from LHR will stay at LHR or move to LGW – but you cannot book summer holidays currently with a direct flight.

[TimM]

Morning from Antalya – returning to Manchester today 🙁

[AndrewF]

No idea but interested in the answer as we have flights booked for our family holiday in the summer holidays. Shortly after we booked, the flights were pulled from sale. We were hoping it was to enable a shift to LHR. This was at about the time of BA’s deal with BALPA falling through and their announcement of closing their LGW operation. Obviously things have moved on since then and LGW remains, but still no news on LPA as far as I am aware.

[scottishwolf]

Morning from Dubai.

Breezed through the airport this morning and now checked into Al Maha for 5 nights.

Long live Head for Points and the community, without which I wouldn’t be here. Instead I’d be miserable in a cold Scotland wondering what new restrictions there would be today and whether I’d be allowed to open my office or not…

[LizJ]

I know this has been asked many times, but I can’t track down a previous thread.

If I’m looking to cancel a 241 avios redemption (sad times as was also 50% off) am I better of taking FTV or paying the cancellation fee? This is for an old style 241 so wanting flexibility to use those avios with the premium plus voucher instead. If I take FTV, can I later get this converted to avios (and tax refund)?

Thanks very much!

[Yuff]

scottishwolf wrote:

Morning from Dubai.

Breezed through the airport this morning and now checked into Al Maha for 5 nights.

Long live Head for Points and the community, without which I wouldn’t be here. Instead I’d be miserable in a cold Scotland wondering what new restrictions there would be today and whether I’d be allowed to open my office or not…

Dubai seem to have got it pretty right at the moment, especially for tourists.
Abu Dhabi on the other hand 🤔

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Yuff. Reason: Original Quote missing

[PaulC]

Really hope we can get to Dubai 13th Jan. It has been 3 years since we last visited as we changed our annual January visit back in 2019 to Hong Kong and booked for Oct that year instead which obviously got cancelled.

[Dominic]

Not sure if things changed, but Abu Dhabi was very smooth when I went in September. Test on arrival, go straight to hotel, result in 5 hours. No further issues

[NorthernLass]

BA have moved our return flight in July to the following day. We’ll need an extra day’s hotel and car hire – can I claim these back under duty of care? We’re currently booked into the Kimpton Seafire (on points!) which is over £700 pn, I assume they would expect us to move somewhere cheaper for the last night?! The cheapest option would be about £400 pn.

[Thegasman]

Yes, you can liquidate FTV into Avios & cash at a future date for usual £35pp fee.

(This was meant to be a reply to Liz).

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Thegasman.

[Andrew J]

What a mess this new chat page is – you can’t seem to reply to a comment without it pasting the whole comment again or just replying after it so it doesn’t continue the string. What a shame that things had to change – daily chat worked just fine.

[JimBurgessHill]

I’m a happy chap this morning! Got BA flights to San Diego in June. Just checked seat map to find that aircraft is now A350-1000 with Club Suite as opposed to 777 non-suite!

Any tips on how to avoid paying a staggering £380 (two of us) for pre-assigned seats!

[Andrew J]

Of course 6 months is plenty of time for another aircraft swap, so don’t be too excited. No way to not pay seat assignment fee unless you have BA or One World status – but if it does stay as Club Suite it matters little as all seats are pretty equal.

[Paul]

imBurgessHill “Any tips on how to avoid paying a staggering £380 (two of us) for pre-assigned seats!”

Yes, just keep your credit card in your pocket

[To dare is to do]

We are hoping to go on the 14th as well, but if they don’t drop the Test for return flight we will be cancelling … again. I’ve lost count how many trips I’ve cancelled.

[cinereus]

Andrew J wrote:

What a mess this new chat page is – you can’t seem to reply to a comment without it pasting the whole comment again or just replying after it so it doesn’t continue the string. What a shame that things had to change – daily chat worked just fine.

You can edit the quote if you want. Do agree it was a very odd decision to avoid using any software that supports proper hierarchical threading though.

What’s really making things difficult is the over zealous moderation of comments and the slow response to the moderation queue which emsnd conversations sometimes take hours to be contextualised.

[To dare is to do]

That was supposed to be a reply further up thread re Dubai. Clearly I’ve not got hang of new forum yet.

[Crafty]

The quotations (apparently) not appearing in a different format is making things confusing.

[cinereus]

Actually I take it back the thing that’s annoying me the most at the moment is that pressing the quote button doesn’t give the user any feedback like on all other forums where focus is moved down to the reply box which means on mobile you often end up with the same quotation repeated multiple times.

[Barraclough]

The forums and new chat line are settling in and it will take time. I do think we need to give it a chance, especially as it’s only been found for one day, and provide feedback with suggestions on how to improve it, as requested by Rob and Rhys. The old chat line had a lot of repetition, grumbles from the regular posters who disliked certain topics, and it was difficult to search. I’ve found in life that changes can take about three weeks to get used to so let’s hang on in there!

[AJA]

@ Andrew J I though replies were nesting or is this a bug? Edit: seems to be a bug, the nesting has disappeared and the only way for continuity is to quote the post you are replying to. Odd!

As for paying for seats on the A350 why bother? Firstly if you’re on the same reservation BA will put you in seats next to each other which probably means the middle pairs on the A350 (unless you want window seats one behind the other?). And secondly, and more importantly, you run the risk that the aircraft will change before you fly then you have the hassle of getting a refund or trying to get BA to recognose your sear selection fee and change seats to your preferred one’s on the new aircraft.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by AJA.

[Louise K]

Good morning,

Can anyone advise then number for the Bremen office, thank you.

[Harrier25]

I agree. It’s not the easiest read. I keep trying to keep up to date but in the end just have to give up.