Bits: cheap one-way Avis rentals, more British Airways strikes

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• boss1 says:

  22 Jul22 July 11:40

  OT. I have just enrolled for Gold SPG status through Amex Platinum, does anyone know how long this takes to reflect on my SPG account?

  • Stu N says:

    22 Jul22 July 13:05

    Two or three days IIRC. Don’t think I got an email too quickly but if you log on to SPG you should see your change in status.

  • MattyS says:

    22 Jul22 July 16:22

    Took mine over a month to upgrade !

  • Ro says:

    23 Jul23 July 00:57

    took mine 9 weeks :-/

• Andrew says:

  22 Jul22 July 11:45

  The current BA safety video seems to have lasted forever, indeed, often on domestic flights the media is so heavily degraded that they do full manual version instead. It’s almost as if it’s played back from an analogue VCR.

  I will forever ponder if the woman in the vid is supposed to be Tracey Emin.

• the_real_a says:

  22 Jul22 July 12:50

  OT – feedback on cancelling the IHG creation card

  It seems the agents have received some training on the products, the service today was impeccable. Managed to cancel the card to avoid the annual fee (after anniversary date but before statement creation date), and have a written confirmation that the free night will be posted to my IHG account.

  • Rob says:

    22 Jul22 July 13:13

    They got a kicking this week because I got a reader complaint, sent it to Creation and they arranged a re-briefing.

• xcalx says:

  22 Jul22 July 13:19

  OT. Thanks to the poster yesterday who reminded us that the Moneycorp Explorer card (with the free money ) is coming up to the 1 year mark where fees are introduced.

  I just tried to clear the balance from a couple of cards but was declined. I had not remembered to add 3% to the total spend and be under the balance.

  • N says:

    22 Jul22 July 15:35

    You can withdraw full amount for free from a moneycorp desk/branch

• Really says:

  22 Jul22 July 13:31

  OT
  Does getting a complementary card (on say the Amex Gold) count against the 6 month churn period? Mrs Really received an offer from Amex of 3k amex points for an additional cardmember. Might as well get a card if it doesn’t count against the 6 months (I’m 3 months away).

  Any input appreciated.

  • Genghis says:

    22 Jul22 July 13:49

    No impact

    • Really says:

      22 Jul22 July 13:55

      Thanks.

• joelyp says:

  22 Jul22 July 14:27

  Anyone have any success claiming EC/261 compensation for BA strike cancellations? In my case it was 48 hours’ notice for the last flight of the day from Newcastle to Heathrow on a Sunday night, with the alternative flight offered late afternoon Monday (!). I eventually managed to get it changed to the Monday red-eye.

  I submitted via the clunky BA form online, and received a telephone call back to refuse the claim, with the only explanation for why it was “exceptional circumstances” being that “BA has to uphold people’s right to voice their opinion and strike”. I pointed out that the CAA has said it would be very difficult to call an airline’s own strike “exceptional circumstances” (and indeed specifically excludes airline’s own strikes in its list of exceptional circumstances), that BA had a choice of which (if any) flights to cancel, had itself received the statutory period of notice for the strike and it was therefore not a wildcat strike with no notice, and BA had plenty of tools to avoid cancelling (such as bringing in other planes, as it had done from Qatar Airways). Also, as Rob points out very difficult to call something which has now happened 11 time in the last 18 months, “exceptional”.

  BA had been very coy in the press when asked if it would compensate for strike cancellations. It’s now clear why.

  I pointed the above out to BA in a written response, also insisting that they respond in writing as that is required for me to escalate the matter to arbitration if necessary. Receiving a call instead of a written response seems to me to be a new way to frustrate the process.

• Nick says:

  22 Jul22 July 21:38

  Does it really matter if the ba one is a misfire? They are at least encouraging people to watch them which has to be a good thing.

  The guy behind me on a recent flight told his young son not to watch it because it was just for people who don’t fly very often, and reminded his son that they had already had 3 flights since Christmas

• Alan says:

  24 Jul24 July 09:38

  Managed to get a Qatar replacement plane on our BA flight to Stuttgart just over a week ago. More legroom, comfier seats and complimentary snack.

  We were very disappointed when we arrived at our gate in Stuttgart for our homeward journey only to find BA metal sitting there.

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