Bits: new BA strike dates, Virgin Trains reduces Flying Club earning and Traveller redemptions

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• Lee says:

  7 Jul7 July 06:04

  How would we know if flights are affected?

  • the real harry1 says:

    7 Jul7 July 06:28

    What is the impact on BA’s services?

    Limited. BA said: “As during Unite’s previous industrial action, we will ensure all our customers reach their destinations.” This means that, while a handful of flights have been cancelled (six long-haul services were hit yesterday, for example), passengers will be re-routed or re-booked on to a different flight – or offered a refund. BA intends to operate 99.5 per cent of its schedule during the strike period.

    It added that customers should ensure their contact details on their booking are correct in case they need to be contacted.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/flight-cancellations-your-rights/

    • kevin salt says:

      7 Jul7 July 11:56

      All that unites/union actions end up doing is making BA spend more funds that it shouldn’t need to ..so hiring Qatar’s planes and crew is a big cost.. this then has a knock impact on what they can offer crew as salaries etc and how they invest in cabins. In short the more the unions call for strikes, the less profit BA will make, thus the less money it has to put into things and the less customers will want to return to pay the fares that fund the crew etc – unions are quite stupid in their approach as it harms the revenue..and in the 21st C I think strikes where services are causing revenue or customer impact should be banned – fine to call a protest outside the BA HQ, get on tv and shout, even hand out flyers at checkins so pax are aware but damaging revenue is just so shortsighted for the change they are asking for.

      • the real harry1 says:

        7 Jul7 July 12:07

        I think it comes down to the idea that BA considers it has the right to withdraw travel privileges & bonus from strikers – there are many more thousands of BA employees in Unite who are not in the mixed fleet, so BA wants to be able to deter them (& the mixed fleet employees) from striking in future & this ‘nasty’ sanction is clearly going to dissuade others from striking

        for the same reason, Unite wants to be able to call successfully for strike action in future & therefore must win the point that withdrawing travel concessions/ bonus is unfair or illegal

      • J-Dog says:

        7 Jul7 July 12:37

        It is important to note that the cabin crew have voted for the strike action – not the Union.
        BA wants to remove their privileges and not pay them fairly – good on them.

• Andrew says:

  7 Jul7 July 06:35

  What is the likely effect to the club Europe service / offering on affected flights / routes ?

  Thanks

  • the real harry1 says:

    7 Jul7 July 07:35

    likely impact will be virtually zero/ not noticeable

    possibly your cabin crew won’t be wearing a hat (hats are for mixed fleet crew)

    • Rob says:

      7 Jul7 July 08:50

      You may be downgraded if you get a Qatar plane because they only have 8 business class seats (but they are great seats!). As usual BA will prioritise Avios customers for downgrade as they avoid EU261 cash compensation.

      • the real harry1 says:

        7 Jul7 July 11:00

        actually whilst nearly all flights seem to see service unaffected (judging by a long thread on FT with plenty of reports)…

        …if you’re unlucky like this guy flying business you might get ‘No drinks pre-meal, full meal all at once, no service thereafter, no snacks laid out during flight. When I went to the galley the crew told me this was reduced service, they basically did not appear the whole flight. This was to Seoul.’

        • the real harry1 says:

          7 Jul7 July 12:42

          and apparently Qatar crew won’t handle pork so you’ll get a chicken sausage for breakfast next to the egg

      • TripRep says:

        7 Jul7 July 18:15

        Quite a bold statement there Rob… Tempted to bite, but I’ll defer for now.. 😀

        TRH1 – The Chicken Sausage is also common on any BA routes to/from countries with high percentage of population that chose to inherit/adopt a particular belief system and its various restrictions and rituals.

        • the real harry1 says:

          7 Jul7 July 18:20

          when I worked out in Qatar we had quite good beef bacon substitute, a bit like greasy (but tasty) fried pastrami

          people used to smuggle in real bacon in their suitcases and were rarely detected, plus there were no real sanctions anyway beyond confiscation & destruction

• Cheshire Pete says:

  7 Jul7 July 06:36

  A shame to see Traveller further devalued. I had it for many many years but dropped out the other year. They had started to erode it even then by stopping travel from 3 to 7 on a Friday. This meant I couldn’t even use it from Crewe to Manchester at that time when 4 carriages were 90% empty. From Euston you’ll still find from 3 to 7 1st class is less than 50% full. The initial financial case for traveller was that it was simply utilising unused capacity from the same pool of Advanced tickets. The initial restriction on a Friday simply pushed unused capacity to 7pm which was already a major pinch point due to the now archaic idea that Off Peak starts at 7. In my opinion now an artificially generated problem Virgin created for itself by allowing so many empty seats to leave London between 3-7 as they are unaffordable except to a small business market.

  Anyhow……. Traveller now totally useless.

  • Smid says:

    7 Jul7 July 08:41

    I just requalified last month as well. It’s pretty much useless now. Unless I plan to do a Sunday to Saturday trip to Scotland…

• Rob C says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:11

  Halving the number of Flying Club points earned on Virgin West Coast for those who have already booked is pretty disingenuous. Fair enough, do it for new bookings, but Virgin West Coast should honour the points for existing bookings.

  • Andrew says:

    7 Jul7 July 09:27

    At the same time, they’ve just introduced a 20% off all advance-purchase rail tickets on VTWC via my employer’s discount programme. No discount on East Coast.

    For me cash discount trumps points every time.

    • Lumma says:

      7 Jul7 July 11:28

      There’s been a 20% off advance tickets on east coast offer on the virgin red app for ages now. It says first time customers only but it works each time for me (other than the blackout dates)

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        7 Jul7 July 17:19

        Basically if you don’t link your VTEC account to your Virgin Red account you get the ‘new customer’ offers and if you do link you get the ‘existing customer’ offers. So my work phone has a Red account linked to VTEC and my personal phone is not linked so I get all offfers. Usually the ‘new customer’ offers are better. VTEC don’t like rewarding regulars it seems

  • Fenny says:

    7 Jul7 July 18:31

    I agree, especially as I’ve just booked my ticket to Edinburgh for 3 August. I’ll be miffed if I lose out on the points, especially as I checked prices long and hard yesterday and then got an email this morning with sale fares in it. OK, only about £8 difference, but it’s still annoying.

• tim tinsley says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:22

  Virgin trains are on the virgin atlantics shopping portal, so you can get a few extra miles using this at 1 mile per £1.

• Roger says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:34

  Anyone having trouble logging into Creation IHG CC Online account this morning?

  • Roger says:

    7 Jul7 July 07:37

    Ignore.
    Managed to log-in

    • Andy says:

      7 Jul7 July 11:00

      I regularly have problems logging in with Firefox when Chrome works fine with the same details. I’m not sure if their shambles of a website and customer service are really worth earning IHG points.

      • Fenny says:

        7 Jul7 July 18:32

        I shall be ringing shortly to activate my card. If I don’t like the service, I’ll tell them not to bother.

        • Fenny says:

          7 Jul7 July 19:30

          Completely automated process which totally replicated the input I gave online when I registered the call, then I got “We notice your card has not yet been activated”. Yes, that’s why I’m having to ring this bloody number with a 30 second recorded message about the bonus points taking up to 6 weeks to arrive in 2 parts.

          I really hope this card is going to be worth the effort.

• Roger says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:43

  So do we take it other routes are unaffected.
  I have a booking which is within strike dates but the route is not listed above.

  • the real harry1 says:

    7 Jul7 July 07:51

    no reports of other routes being affected – though you’d imagine there would be some possible minor juggling going on with planes & crew

• William Avery says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:49

  Is that Qatar image form flight sim Rob? Didn’t know it was still going?

  • Rob says:

    7 Jul7 July 08:52

    Not sure, it looked ‘official’ so I borrowed it …..

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