Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

If you missed my interview on CNBC on Wednesday

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I am assuming that the majority of Head for Points readers were in front of the TV and watching CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ at 6.30am on Wednesday.

Just in case you weren’t, you missed me talking about the current state of the frequent flyer business.

If you are reading this via our Thursday morning email, the video below probably won’t work. You need to click:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000541927 for part 1 and

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000541926 for part 2.

For everyone else, you can watch the segement in two parts here:

and here:

PS. I didn’t ask to be called ‘CEO’ on the caption! My suggestion was ‘Editor’ ….

Comments (67)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Peter K says:

    I didn’t even get to the video. Hilton free Wi-Fi not good enough to stream the ad even! I did get an update tho to an exec room

    • Brian says:

      Are you Diamond? You should be able to use the Premium service for free.

      • The_Real_A says:

        The last few hiltons in Scandinavia did not offer premium even to paying customers.

        • John says:

          I’m usually given the “premium” wifi but it’s rarely any good.

          • Genghis says:

            +1. Cutting out all the time for me this week

          • Mr Dee says:

            If using a laptop use an Ethernet cable much faster if you have poor wifi speeds, usually…

    • Fenny says:

      Probably still better than the “premium” wifi at the HI I stayed at in Rome recently. I refused to pay for it on check out and the Reception staff completely agreed it was worse than rubbish!

  • Will says:

    Excellent little snippet, well done.

    Just in case anyone has forgotten you can still book Moscow in F as a reward flight saver.

    That was my first ever BA companion ticket redemption!!

    • AndyR says:

      I don’t think they fly F to Moscow, do you mean J?

      • Genghis says:

        I believe there is still one flight a day offering F, CW service on RFS.

        • Genghis says:

          That should read ‘offering a long haul service’

        • Andrew says:

          Not every day. One flight on Mondays and Fridays are scheduled to be 777 operated. Not spotted any other discernible pattern.

          Other flights are mid-haul A321s so no PE cabin if looking to upgrade WT-CW.

          Reward availability generally good too, in my experience.

  • LaineyLing says:

    O/T: Cancelled flight from BA – help requested
    BA have cancelled my return flight on Christmas day 2016 from Frankfurt to London (one that I booked through a travel website GoToGate). Their alternative is via Madrid which will not work for me as I want to be home for Christmas lunch. The travel agency have said BA will not offer partial refund; only a full refund (but I want to keep the outgoing flight), BA have told me they can do a partial refund and to contact GoToGate.

    I have now spent 4+ hours on this mostly on hold telling each party what can be done. The BA call centre say they cannot make calls or send emails, GoToGate claim BA tell them no partial refunds and the team that deals with clients can only take incoming calls.

    I am at my wits end to know what to do as no one is willing to take responsibility. The money is no longer the issue but I am persevering for the principle. As salt in the wound the customer service number line simply goes dead as they are at full capacity and the customer support complaint line is only after you fly (or in this case won’t fly).

    Really tempted to stop flying BA, their service is disgraceful.

    • harry says:

      On FT they say to avoid the call centre and go direct to more helpful customer service people based in UK. I think you just use the phone lines intended for the top echelons of BAEC. Probably worth googling FT with specific search terms such as ‘escalating complaint’ etc

      Or others here might be able to tell you the best phone number straight away.

      Otherwise I would take the full refund and find another flight.

      • LaineyLing says:

        Thanks Harry, I will do as you suggest. My fault for using GoToGate; at least it was a cheap flight so minimal cost for this lesson learnt! 🙂

      • The_Real_A says:

        Its a travel agent ticket, so can be amended only by the travel agent themselves. Its unlikely that BA would have been paid for the ticket yet, so understandable that there process to help is limited. This is why i always try to book direct whenever possible – although these policies/processes belong in a bygone age.

  • John Tickner says:

    We know the BA product is not great compared to others, but for me the guaranteed/better availability and the 2-4-1 make up for that for me.

    • Diane says:

      I agree – we use the 2-4-1 and last year 2 of us went 1st Class return to Chicago. This year 4 of us 1st Class to Atlanta and back ( 3 days there and then drove down to Orlando ), and have already booked 2 1st class returns to Atlanta for next year, when we will be starting a 2 week fly-drive of the deep south. Also has other CE flights and domestic all from points. The availability for Atlanta is really good. Been very happy with everything, and the 1st Class although not maybe like Quantas etc is an experience I never thought I would be able to enjoy. All my points are earned via credit cards and Tesco etc, none by flying. Its a great hobby, and I look at this site every day. Just will be disappointed when my nephews are too old for lego !!! Thanks Raffles.

    • Brian says:

      Guaranteed/better availability????? Not in the experience of most people on here, it would appear.

    • dps says:

      In my experience, BA RFS is hard to beat for shorthaul (although availability ex LHR is often poor compared to ex LGW at invariably less convenient times); but – apart from a promptly booked Xmas 2-for-1 to the US via a “non-business-oriented” gateway such as ATL, DFW or IAH – much harder and more expensive to redeem than VS (or even OW partner IB) westbound and much harder (if less expensive) to redeem in premiun cabins than (superior) OW partners AY and CX eastbound..

  • James says:

    I Watch CNBC every day. Interview went well, hope you enjoyed it. They try to cram what they can into a very short time frame.

    • Rob says:

      I did actually, it was more laid back than I expected. I was lucky in that I got to see 10 minutes of Geoff doing his stuff before it came to my segment so I had a feeling for how I should respond to him.

  • Andy S says:

    Totally OT sorry guys! Just had an email from IHG about a special “birthday offer” ( as my birthday is coming up) whereby if I register for this offer and then stay a weekend (fri-sat or sat-sun) I get 3000 bonus points. I already have two weekend stays coming up (one will complete my current “accelerate” and the other was booked recently for a weekend getaway), will either of these count towards this new offer or will it only count for nights booked since signing up. both existing bookings are non-refundable so i can’t just rebook. For my current accelerate one night from a pre-existing booking counted towards the 6 required hence my question.

  • Alan says:

    Avios-related – stay away from the US blogs if you don’t want to be depressed about how good a deal they get there 😉 http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/08/10/amex-british-airways-transfer-bonus/

    • roberto says:

      I can see BA doing something similar here if business does not pick up.. sitting on a wad of amex MR in readiness….

      Here’s hoping anyways..

    • Paul L says:

      Not to mention their massive sign up bonuses on a huge range of cards…

      • Alan says:

        Oh absolutely! As much as I don’t like the exorbitant BA fees when booking redemptions at least it keeps them relatively unappealing to US-based customers compared to the low-fee redemptions on other airlines via the US FF programmes.

  • Norman says:

    Well done Rob. Not easy appearing on TV, especially if they go “off piste!”

    Thanks for all that you do.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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