TODAY ONLY: Win Lufthansa lounge passes and $100 LoungeBuddy credit

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• Wally1976 says:

  18 May18 May 10:22

  Completely OT – got into a bit of a pickle and hoping someone can help on what to do!

  I’ll try and summarise as quickly as possible…

  My wife’s Lloyds Avios credit card account (Amex/Mastercard) was coming up to end of 0% period so I opened her a Tesco 0% no fee balance transfer card to transfer the balance. I gave Tesco the Lloyds Amex number to transfer the balance. I don’t think their system could cope with transferring balance to the Amex number so they sent my wife a letter asking her to call them. I managed to get her to call, she gave them the Amex number again and they said it would go through within 2 days no problem.

  5 days later (and 1 day until the end of 0% period on Lloyds account) it still hadn’t gone through so I logged into her online Tesco account and re-requested the balance transfer but this time using the Lloyds Mastercard number. Next day (yesterday) the balance transfer had gone through fine – Lloyds cards at NIL balance and Tesco at 95% of credit limit. Brilliant. I posted the letter signed by wife to cancel her Lloyds cards.

  However, I checked today and the balance transfer has gone through twice grrrr. So now Tesco card is at 190% of credit limit and Lloyds card account has a large credit balance. Getting my wife to phone again is NOT an option – she’s quite happy for me to manage all our finances and open credit cards for her etc but she hates having to phone anyone. She went mad at me when I got her to call first time saying that the Tesco Bank person would think she was struggling for money because she was having to transfer balances!?

  Anyway, currently I’m thinking I’ll wait a couple of days to see if Tesco reverse one of the transfers. They shouldn’t have allowed it to go through twice really but I’m worried she’ll get hit with charges and a hit on credit record for going over credit limit plus she’ll probably lose her 0% offer on the Tesco card. Also we’re going to have to wait for the money to come back from Lloyds if Tesco don’t reverse one of the balance transfers. If only Tesco Bank had Live Chat or Secure messaging I’d attempt to sort it through that but alas they don’t.

  Anyway, apologies for the long off-topic but if anyone has any advice I’d be really grateful.

  • the real harry1 says:

    18 May18 May 10:41

    you need to sort it out pronto as you’ve broken Tesco’s T&Cs so they’ll start charging you interest straight away – ie the 0% offer has automatically stopped

    • the real harry1 says:

      18 May18 May 10:44

      ps I’ve got the same wife as you (lol you know what I mean 🙂 ) – and she is at least willing to go through ID/ security with the card issuer then ask them to deal with me thereafter – only takes her 30 secs so might be a compromise?

      • Wally1976 says:

        18 May18 May 13:11

        Ha ha, are most companies willing to do that?

        • Mzungu says:

          18 May18 May 14:25

          Yes, most will give ‘third party access’. In some cases you need to ask/plead with the recalcitrant wife/partner to make the initial call and then hand the phone over. I usually make the initial call, explain what’s needed, and then pass the phone over to my wife for the ID bit – usually keeps her involvement down to less than 30 seconds 🙂

          Some companies will allow you to set up permanent third party access – BA will do this. I have a separate password to access my wife’s BAEC account on her behalf.

    • Wally1976 says:

      18 May18 May 10:47

      Thanks Harry, yes I thought that would be the case. Can’t see any way of doing it other than getting my wife to phone unfortunately. I’m just going to have to take the flak I guess (she’ll forgive me eventually!) Maybe they’ll just let her go through security then hand the phone to me to deal with it. Only other thing I can think of is to draft a letter and get it in the post ASAP.

      • Roberto says:

        18 May18 May 12:04

        Always better to ask for forgiveness every once in a while than to ask for permission on a regular basis.

      • Anna says:

        18 May18 May 14:11

        As someone on this forum said to me recently, ask her if she still minds when she is sitting in Club World drinking champagne!

  • Anna says:

    18 May18 May 14:00

    My husband is the same, so usually communicates with banks and credit card companies by email or letter as he “doesn’t have time to speak to people on the phone…”. This has been a successful tactic for several years now!

    Or if it’s BA, they are usually happy for him to give brief verbal consent to them discussing his account with me, with always surprises me as they are generally so obstructive!

    • Wally1976 says:

      18 May18 May 14:09

      Thanks Anna, yes this has worked successfully for me up to now!

      • the real harry1 says:

        18 May18 May 20:42

        I have found Amex to be the most ‘allowable’ about permitting the supplementary cardholder to do stuff on behalf of the account without involving the principal, not saying it’s going to work for everybody

• Leo says:

  18 May18 May 11:37

  OT. Just heading​ to LHR and lost my silver card. Checked in as silver but will this cause my issues at the lounge?

  • Rob says:

    18 May18 May 12:26

    No, your boarding pass shows your status. If you download the BA app to your phone you get a digital membership card and your digital boarding passes are in a Silver colour.

• Mike says:

  18 May18 May 12:05

  I’m a UK resident. I happen to ben in Zurich for 2 days on business and can’t enter!!!

  • Rob says:

    18 May18 May 12:24

    Get Tunnelbear, it’s great.

• Rob says:

  18 May18 May 13:19

  Off topic advice needed. My wife’s BA Exec Silver status expires 8th June. I’ve just noticed that she only needs 20 points, but has to do 4 eligible flights in order to retain silver. We didn’t realise that when we’ve been flying Qatar and FinnAir and getting BA points that the flights wouldn’t count as eligible. What / where is the cheapest place (twice, for four flights) to go or what advice can people give me so she can retain her Silver. Is it worth calling BA and asking for some extra time to take the flights that would qualify her? Any advice much appreciated.

  • Rob says:

    18 May18 May 13:26

    You can get a 2 week extension by calling up but absolutely nothing more. If you are based outside London then something like Manchester London Berlin for the weekend, and back, would do it. Otherwise you’d be looking at two short breaks, based on 5 tier points for each flight in discounted economy.

    The cheapest flights are from Gatwick but, if you are connecting from the regions, this may well not work depending on how the connections are timed. The BA Low Fare Finder (see the link in our sidebar under Key BA Links) will show you which cities have the cheapest fares. Somewhere like Bordeaux from Gatwick is likely to be cheap.

    • Rob says:

      18 May18 May 13:30

      Thanks Rob, great advice. We live minutes from Heathrow so that would be better but of course more expensive. That BA low fare finder only gives you the option to show London, not London Heathrow. Do you have any ideas what places are cheapest from LHR? Is the two week extension guaranteed or is it up to their discretion?

      • Rob says:

        18 May18 May 17:02

        The 2 weeks seems available to anyone who asks. Given that you are very restricted now on dates you are probably a bit short on options especially as the Bank Holiday will jack up pricing, as will half term which is the same week. Something short like Paris or Amsterdam is likely to be cheapest and if you can go at odd times (because you’re nearby) even better / cheaper. There are probably good prices to Leeds Bradford etc too but ….

      • Yan says:

        18 May18 May 17:05

        Since you are close to LHR, try looking for weekend (Sat/Sun) daytrips (G class) under £100. Amsterdam, Madrid, Nice, Marseille, Geneva, Milan, Stockholm, Aberdeen, Leeds to name a few.

        • Rob says:

          18 May18 May 21:00

          Are those still going? BA has not pushed them for ages.

        • Andrew says:

          18 May18 May 21:18

          Yep – good option. Just booked a day trip to Barcelona (October admittedly) for £87 each return from LHR.

      • Alex W says:

        18 May18 May 22:51

        Is BA Silver really worth £200+ on 2 unnecessary round trips?
        Admittedly I did a couple of tier point runs to get Gold last year, which has been good as a novelty. But if you already have status and travel with your partner, I don’t think it’s really worth an extra £200+!

• Anna says:

  18 May18 May 14:08

  OT 1. My Clubcard statement has arrived with a 100 point bonus voucher I can use 4 times. Best offer for quite a while.

  OT 2. My Lloyds avios have appeared in my avios.com account manually. Not sure of they will do this every month for the next 26 weeks or if I will have to keep chasing them!

  • Alex W says:

    18 May18 May 22:53

    Same here – plus £225 compo. Must be costing Lloyds a fortune!

• Calz says:

  18 May18 May 15:16

  OT
  Was upgraded on Sunday to 1C on BA flight from LHR to EDI – was great to try out CE on domestic routes and was a nice bonus after attaining BA gold for the first time ever. Ploughmans was actually really decent and getting a drink on a domestic flight was a novelty. No scone though 🙁 Submitted an online form to BA thanking them for upgrade and also asking them to bring afternoon tea back up to the standard legal requirement.

  • the real harry1 says:

    18 May18 May 17:11

    what is the standard legal requirement for afternoon tea? sounds like a rule devised by the PG Tips chimps

    • Callum says:

      18 May18 May 23:21

      A scone must be served…and yes they make up at least 80% of the board

  • Alex W says:

    18 May18 May 22:55

    I have been upgraded about 6 or 7 times on BA long haul but literally NEVER on short haul! A mild irritation though and I prefer it that way round than the inverse!

• the real harry1 says:

  18 May18 May 19:17

  O/T Premier Inns: 3,000 city rooms for £39 and under. London rooms for £59 and under.
  http://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/email/city-stays.html?CID=AFF_UK_http:%2F%2Fwww.digidip.net%2F_249371&PURL=weekendbookings.at%2F249371&P36=ABCDEF&awc=3916_1495131291_199425cd763b20340b98822292cfb7b1

• Nick says:

  18 May18 May 22:12

  The thread above has too many comments so is closed but I thought I’d share something on baggage here instead. BA puts cases in bins on the planes, and there are separate ones for premium/non premium classes of travel. This is identified based solely on where people are sitting (read from the barcode), and is automatic. The exceptions are last-minute check-ins (which are thrown into whatever is open). The brightly coloured labels are put on solely to allow DYKWIA types to feel better about themselves, so don’t worry if they’re forgotten. And the system (mostly) does work very well indeed. However, it’s based on seat and not tier, so Gold doesn’t get you anything more (hence also the message on the oneworld website about BA not issuing priority baggage for members, as this is the bit that’s not technically possible).

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