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Bits: new Supercard charges?, Gatwick Express delay repay, more HfP party prizes

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News in brief:

Supercard adds new fees

The Travelex Supercard is an excellent way to make purchases abroad whilst still earning miles and points.

Available free (download the app here and apply), you will receive a MasterCard which can be linked to any other Visa or Mastercard you own.  You make purchases abroad, Supercard converts them to Sterling with no foreign exchange fees and then recharges your other Visa or Mastercard in £.

If your other Visa or Mastercard is a rewards card, this means you earn points without incurring any FX fees.  This typically saves 3% on every purchase.

Supercard has just updated its terms and conditions – see here.

As far as I can tell, this is new:

E-Commerce Transactions within the UK (non-sterling transactions) – £1 + 1%

POS Transactions within the UK (non-sterling transactions) – £1 + 1%

This means that transactions undertaken ‘within the UK’ which are not in £ are not free.  The question is ‘what does that mean?’.  If I book a one-way ba.com flight from Germany to the UK, from my home in London, priced in €, am I charged?   I am in the UK, but where is the charge processed?  The UK or Germany?  And does it matter – do I pay regardless because I am in the UK?  And how does Supercard know where I am?

Many of us will have recurring charges for non-UK purchases (Head for Points has loads – most of the services we buy to keep the site ticking are in US$).  Would Supercard now charge for these even if they are processed in the US but I am not?

We need to wait for these new rules to come into effect in January and see what the real impact will be.

Supercard

Gatwick Express – plus Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern – moving to 15 minute ‘delay repay’

If you are a long-suffering Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern or Gatwick Express passenger, you should know that ‘delay repay’ will kick in at 15 minutes and not 30 minutes from 11th December.

You will be able to reclaim at least 50% of your ticket price if your train is delayed by 15 minutes or more.  That won’t help you if you are at risk of missing your Gatwick flight but it is still better than nothing.

Looking at the latest Gatwick Express punctuality figures here, only 44% of Gatwick Express trains actually arrive on time so your chance of a payout is not zero despite the short journey time!  Thanks to Andy.

Gatwick Express new trains

More Head for Points Christmas party prizes announced

I’m pleased to announce that we have another two prizes for the raffle at the HfP Christmas party on Tuesday, generously sponsored by Melia Hotels International.

The initial list of prizes is here.

The new prizes to be added are:

Generously donated by Dixons Travel:

SONY wireless Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones, worth £199

Generously donated by Uber for Business:

£100 of Uber credit

If you were lucky enough to get a ticket for the party, we look forward to seeing you on Tuesday night.  If you didn’t get a ticket, we will hopefully have some photographs on Thursday and on our Instagram feed.

Category

General

Comments (54)

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

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    3 Dec3 December 04:13

    The 15 mins delay repay is not as good as 50% after 15 mins. It’s only 25%.

    Currently we have:
    50% (of a single fare) after 30 mins
    100% (of a single fare) after 60 mins
    100% (of a return fare*) after 120 mins

    This adds:
    25% (of a single fare) after 15 mins

    * note that a return fare tends to be a flexible ticket. Advance tickets that are restricted to a particular service are always sold as two singles so if you have an advance ticket and are delayed 120 mins on one leg you won’t get a refund of both legs even if bought together.

    • Rob says:
      3 Dec3 December 06:44

      They don’t make it very clear online you only get 25% for 15 minutes. Better than ‘nowt though!

      Virgin East Coast just paid me £85.50 for a 35 minute delay the other week.

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
        3 Dec3 December 07:34

        Not much better… I reckon I’ll be getting a massive £1.30 for 15-29 minutes of my time when I’m commuting (plus five minutes to fill out the form!).

      • Tom H says:
        3 Dec3 December 10:51

        Lucky you, i have been waiting for £92.50 since June!

  • Ro says:
    3 Dec3 December 05:23

    I may be wrong but i think the other graph shows that 72% arrive less than 5 minutes late?
    So chances of getting a refund may not be quite as high?

    • Rob says:
      3 Dec3 December 06:45

      Correct, the other graph does show that. Realistically, being 15 mins late on a 35 minute trip requires some impressive work even by GEx standards!

      • Lady London says:
        3 Dec3 December 09:02

        Er…not by their standards, in my limited experience.

        My bet is they’ll be paying out all day, if people can be bothered to claim.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    3 Dec3 December 07:08

    This is the best use for the Supercard when linked to Virgin Visa https://mobile.twitter.com/Graham_Walsh/status/801711003339804673/photo/1

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    3 Dec3 December 07:29

    MasterCard transactions are processed along with a country code – I assume this will be how they determine UK vs non-UK. Unfortunately I don’t know how they work, seems to mostly be used in fraud strategies in my experience. Perhaps someone who has looked at them can comment on how it works for online cross-border transactions.

  • Patrick says:
    3 Dec3 December 08:02

    I have found that supercard is not all its cracked up to be.

    On a recent trip to South Africa using my Supercard linked to IHG premium card it only worked for a couple of days.

    After contacting both creation and Supercard I found that Supercard were recharging the point of sale transactions as cash withdrawals so I pretty quickly hit the £500 per week limit and my IHG card was locked.

    Supercard seem unwilling to do anything about this and rectify the obvious problem.

    • Tony says:
      3 Dec3 December 10:05

      No, it’s Creation that treats purchases via Supercard as a cash advance so you’re limited to £300 per day/£500 per week plus cash advances on credit cards affect your credit rating. Stopped using the Creation/Supercard link for this reason

      • Patrick says:
        3 Dec3 December 10:42

        Either way. If Creation and Supercard can’t sort their act out so it works properly together then it’s not all its cracked up to be.

      • Andy S says:
        3 Dec3 December 14:01

        Sh*t, seriously? Does that mean I will get stung for interest charges as well? As normally getting cash on credit card attracts interest straight away even when paying in full!

        • PalCsaky says:
          3 Dec3 December 15:49

          I use supercard with creation ihg visa and there aren’t any cash advance charges showing on the statement.

  • Marc says:
    3 Dec3 December 08:23

    Forget about Supercard. In my recent trip to Japan o used Revolut (more than once a day, from 0.5£ to 500£ payments), and worked ALWAYS without any problems. The money you save you can use then to buy Avios during the IbPlus Groupon offers. But the message is: Revolut WORKS.

    • Marc says:
      3 Dec3 December 08:49

      I was there for 2 weeks!! Forgot to add that info!

      • Sandgrounder says:
        3 Dec3 December 09:15

        Did you top up with a credit card? Do they bill as a purchase?

        • Genghis says:
          3 Dec3 December 09:17

          Yes

          • Sandgrounder says:
            3 Dec3 December 09:59

            Great. I had forgotten all about the Revolut credit card option as I was burning my referendum night topups for the last couple of trips. Off to TFS tomorrow so will top up today.

            Supercard is a good product in theory, but it is just too wobbly for me.

        • AndyR says:
          3 Dec3 December 11:03

          Is there a fee to top up with credit card?

      • Brian W says:
        3 Dec3 December 14:07

        + 1

        I’ve been using Revolut now for over a year and recent trips to the States and Europe have shown its robust and trustworthy. Both wife and I have them and use daily on hols for any amount of spend as it always works. I was always nervous using Supercard as you just never knew if it would work or not. Revolut has never let me down once and we must have completed 100-200 transactions now. The app is decent as well. Any money you have on return you can just flip back to £’s and spend it in the UK if you so choose.

        Our supercards shall continue to gather dust I reckon.

  • Johnnycl says:
    3 Dec3 December 09:06

    OT Answer to today’s IHG Christmas Iggy comp is 51,000 points for the toy train set. Think I’d rather buy Lego at that price…

    • Mr Dee says:
      3 Dec3 December 10:11

      I would assume the majority of non sterling transactions wouldn’t be in the UK as most terminals wouldn’t be charging other currencies, however I am sure there would be a few so would need to be tested.

      I would rather try Curve or Revolut as the new Supercard never really worked for me

    • JP says:
      3 Dec3 December 11:54

      My IHG search says it costs 52,000 points…

  • Nick M says:
    3 Dec3 December 10:10

    Re – Supercard…

    I used Supercard on the plane on the way back from Dublin a few weeks ago – transaction was in Euro but processed in Newcastle a few days later… I was hit with £1 + 1% fee. (So ended up paying Aer Lingus about £6 for essentially some breadsticks and small pot of cheese for a hungry 2 year old)

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