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Bits: BA increasing check-in time limit, Qatar discount code, reader wins an awesome prize

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News in brief:

British Airways to extend check-in cut-off

British Airways has announced that, from 30th October, check-in for long-haul flights at Heathrow will close one hour prior to departure.

At present, the cut-off point at which you will be refused is 45 minutes.

The reasoning for this is not clear – it will have a marginal improvement on punctuality although I am not sure that the inconvenience to passengers offsets the gain.  People more cynical than us may think that it is part of a deal with Heathrow to increase shopping revenue as a trade-off for letting BA build the new ‘direct to the lounge avoiding the shops’ security lane for Gold and First Class passengers, opening in April.

Qatar A350

10% off Qatar Airways flights for mobile bookings

Qatar Airways is offering 10% off base fares, excluding the tax element, for anyone booking a flight via their mobile site.

You need to start at this link and then click through to the mobile site.  It is valid for bookings made by 24th October in all classes.

In other Qatar Airways news, I got a reminder this week that flights to Seychelles are due to start on 12th December.  This offers a good Avios option now that British Airways no longer flies the route.

2016-08-12-10-30-53

HfP reader wins awesome prize for her Heathrow story

Back in July Rob wrote about a competition to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Heathrow Airport.  As there were about 7,000 prizes to be won, we knew there must have been quite a few HfP readers who won a nice (or random) prize.

I’m definitely jealous of this person’s prize:

Dear Rob

I have been a bit tardy in thanking you for the HR prize I received in their “anniversary write a story” competition.

A ginormous bar of Toblerone – weighing 4.5 kilos.

I though it was a misprint when the email came but the bar is indeed 9 ( or was it 11?) enormous triangles of Toblerone weighing in total 4.5 kilos.

Apparently it was handmade to order. The only problem is managing to break the triangles into edible size portions.

PS.  Shaun was not part of the prize, he lives here.

Comments (83)

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

  • Raffles says:

    The HFP trial was the final part of their beta test. Formal launch on the way.

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    OT – does anyone know what verification checks AMEX carries out when transferring points to BAEC ? Looking to transfer some MR to my daughters account to trigger the 1000 bonus points. She has the same surname and lives at the same address. I have previously transferred from the same AMEX account to my own BAEC.

    Any experience ?

    • Genghis says:

      No direct BAEC experience. For Iberia it’s surname only.

    • Ben E says:

      Not BAEC but earlier this year I managed to transfer Amex points from my wife’s account into my Delta account – without issue & went through in 5 minutes

    • Zander says:

      I’ve transferred from MR to QRPC and Sirius (IDC AMEX) to someone not of the same name (unrelated in every way) without issue, doesn’t help I know but MR can be transferred to other programmes regardless of who owns the account IME.

    • Steve says:

      I transferred 25k reward points from my wife’s Amex account to my BAEC account worked ok.

      I did a trial 1000 point transfer first just to be sure

  • DRB says:

    >> the cut-off point at which you will be refused is 45 minutes.
    >> The reasoning for this is not clear

    Here’s another to throw into the mix: Synchronising times with code share partners?

    I fell foul of different times (AA v.s. BA) a while back – some may recall me speaking of same on this site. The flight carried a BA flight number, the confirmation (3rd party booking engine) carried no information about check-in times and, thanks to IT issues at the check-in desk, I missed the “window of AA” check-in for their metal.

    BA / AA have declined to reimburse my £150 change fee and failed to respond about their poor service on the day, respectively. As a point of principle (the money is irrelevant) after many years of loyalty to BA, I seek other airlines ahead of BA wherever possible.

  • bsuije says:

    Anika / Rob – for whoever was jealous of the Toblerone, I would recommend a visit to Liseberg amusement park in Gothenburg. There, you can win giant Toblerone bars (can’t quite remember the weight), which consist of lots of tiny Toblerone bars inside (so no need to worry about how to break the giant bar down into edible pieces). =)

    Other “giant” chocolate goodies to be won include, from memory, local chocolate brand Marabou, M&Ms and Anton Berg chocolate boxes.

    You then just need to work out how to get the giant cardboard box back to the UK…

    • anikaanika99 says:

      Oh that sounds fantastic! And Gothenburg is gorgeous. I’d actually choose Marabou over Toblerone – as they do liquorice chocolate which is obviously the most amazing thing in the world 🙂

    • Sean says:

      It was about 2.1KG if I remember correctly! The package seems to be as big as the one on the photo in the article.
      I won one of these when I was there for the Xmas market!

  • Nick says:

    Call me cynical but i wouldn’t be surprised if BA turns round and said you can now check in upto 45 mins for only £x…..rapid decline in their service delivery. Read about the A319 wheel issue at Manchester yesterday starts me questioning why would I want to sit on an old plane versus newer Ryanair dare I say it!

  • Matthew says:

    I managed to win 15 days meet and greet parking at Heathrow for my story, so can’t grumble 🙂

  • Scallder says:

    OT (apologies) but I received my Nectar Amex yesterday and although I already have the BAPP, the letter confirmed I was not being charged the £25 annual fee for the first year!

    One annual z1-4 travelcard bought this morning and have go near enough the £2k spend already, so should cross the threshold by the end of the weekend so will see how quickly the 2 batches of bonus Nectar points take to get added to my Amex and Nectar accounts.

  • Michael says:

    Read the detail on the T5 changes… the cut off for check-in is going to be 60 mins, but baggage acceptance and conformance (time through security) will remain the same. So if you’ve checked in online there will be no change. It’s being done (I think) to help flight management and seating closure. Inconsistent? Yes. But welcome to BA.

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

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