Bits: 2400 Avios with Tesco Mobile, Qatar Airways launches flights from Cardiff

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• Alex W says:

  25 Apr25 April 07:12

  OT but Qatar. I’ve got a 7 hour layover in Doha coming up in the middle of their night. What am I entitled to? Probably no point getting a visa to go outside the airport at that time.of night.

  • TripRep says:

    25 Apr25 April 07:14

    They provide accom for 8 hours +, worth asking them for goodwill?

    • Polly says:

      25 Apr25 April 08:20

      No good well comes from them now. They have really tightened up the hotel requirement. But if Alex W has lounge access, the bendy black narrow beds in the quiet area are just fine for a few hours sleep. Alex are you on J class?

      • Andrew says:

        25 Apr25 April 09:00

        If your onward flight is in F you can use the private bedrooms in the lounge.

  • Yuff says:

    25 Apr25 April 07:29

    5-8ht stay in the airport hotel.
    Qatar won’t give you accommodation under 8 hours and they moved our flights from over 8hrs layover to 7hrs 55 mins last time I stopped over.

    • Polly says:

      25 Apr25 April 08:27

      Same happens to us last time. Then they blatantly blamed us for not booking a flight with a shorter connection time! It would have meant dep HKT at 07.00 instead of 19.40. So naturally we close the later departure. But it meant a few hours on the bendy black couches in quiet area, which we did get some sleep on.

  • The Original Nick says:

    25 Apr25 April 07:39

    Do you have lounge access?

  • Alex W says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:05

    Thanks guys, we are in J and my BA Gold card is in its last free month before dropping down to silver.

• The Original Nick says:

  25 Apr25 April 07:39

  Also depends if there’s another flight within that layover or on that day AFAIK.

  • Prins Polo says:

    25 Apr25 April 08:15

    There are quiet rooms in the back of the lounge good for chilling (there is a sofa but no bed). I’d personally go to the airport spa where you can use a gym or the swimming pool for something like £30.

• AH says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:27

  Cardiff to Amsterdam & the whole world opens up.
  Not sure if a direct flight is needed – as its not really a huge catchment area, unless they put a ferry terminal close to the airport & ferry people from the South West.

  • JamesB says:

    25 Apr25 April 09:49

    +1, that was my initial thoughts, now first choice for me exEDI. Reasonable premium fares, enough FB miles for a European flight, frequent departures from EDI so short transits at AMS which remains one of the best transit airports. Overall shorter journey times to my destinations, decent sleep on flat bed, reasonable services, no unsociable middle of night transits, and no need to support States with politics I generally feel uncomfortable with.

    • Callum says:

      26 Apr26 April 00:43

      Aren’t charges on Flying Blue redemptions horrifically high? I’ve not looked for several years now so maybe it’s changed?

      • Alan says:

        26 Apr26 April 07:51

        For longhaul I didn’t find them that much worse than BA, but for short-haul the lack of RFS certainly makes a difference. Ideally I want to use my remaining points during one of their promo periods and that’ll normally get you 25% off the miles required for business.

• Brian says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:50

  OT – new Amex deal with £10 back at ASK Italian, if anybody ever goes there – they are one of the in-store retailers for BA’s new venture for awarding Avios on in-store purchases, so would combine nicely.

  • john says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:43

    Rats, didn’t know about that and went to ask on Sunday! Lovetheatre is on amex with 5% back and also is BA/avios partner.

    • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

      25 Apr25 April 15:04

      £10 back on £50 on Heathrow Express as well.

• leoC says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:21

  Wow Cardiff is so much easier than LHR if you are Devon/Cornwall! Is there a good lounge at Cardiff Airport?

• Nicky says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:25

  Sorry but completely O/T but hoping someone can answer: I am about to book flights using avios and Lloyds upgrade vouchers. I know I can only use BA as the carrier and that I won’t earn air miles but but will I still earn tier points?

  • AndyR says:

    25 Apr25 April 09:36

    No tier points.

    • Nicky says:

      25 Apr25 April 09:59

      Thank you

  • Rob says:

    25 Apr25 April 14:06

    No

• Rob says:

  25 Apr25 April 11:25

  O/T – but need help please. I already have an Amex Gold card in my personal name, but I need a business credit card too. I’d like to get an Amex business card (Gold). Has anyone had any positive experience of getting the sign up bonus for the business card while also having a gold card in your personal name. I know that the site says that you do not get the bonus in this case, but i wondered how strict they are in applying this. Alternatively, does anyone have any advice or personal experience regarding which business credit card are best or highly recommended?

  • RussellH says:

    25 Apr25 April 11:54

    Might I ask why you (anyone) need(s) a business credit card?

    The following may well not be tru for Amex, but was certainly true for Visa/MC al least until the end of 2013:

    1. Business cards charged an annual fee whereas personal cards did not
    2. Business cards never offered any points / rewards / avios etc.
    3. The charge for accepting business cards was significantly more than that for accepting personal cards – IIRC WorldPay wanted an extra 0.5%.
    4. Today there is no interchange fee cap on business crads, so that margin may well be significantly more!

    I never had any problems with using personal credit cards for my business, and I seem to recall that Raffles has mentioned that HfP is all run from an Amex Platinum card.

    Business credit cards always seemed to be the ultimate bank rip-off IMHO.

    • Kevin says:

      25 Apr25 April 13:11

      I think an article on business credit cards might be good since the Amex cards have slightly different benefits to the personal ones.

      I currently use the MBNA black Virgin cards (personal) for my business but I’d like a Avios one as well.

      • Mzungu says:

        25 Apr25 April 14:46

        Yes, I think that would be useful – although as RussellH says, business cards are probably a bit of a minority interest on here.

        I have an Amex Corporate Gold, which I only keep as I use Amex foreign exchange services in my business. Forex earns MR points provided you link it to a Corporate Gold or Plat card. These days I’m not sure of the other benefits, so I use my BAPP for day-to-day spending.

    • Rob says:

      25 Apr25 April 13:46

      I have a new limited company through which i contract my services and my accountant is telling me that i should keep my personal and business affairs clearly separate. So when i pay for business flights etc, this should ideally be on a business account credit or debit card. The risk apparently is that when your client pays the expense reimbursement into your business bank account, and you transfer it to your personal bank account, that this can be seen as a taxable disbursement from the company and you will therefore pay higher levels of NIC. At least thats the way I think it was explained to me. I prefer to pay for everything using my Gold Amex and BAPP cards for the rewards benefits. What does the taxman think about this, if anything is my accountant being too conservative??

      • Rob says:

        25 Apr25 April 14:00

        Ask your accountant why, when you go online to pay your PAYE or Corporation Tax bill by credit card, the HMRC website specifically recommends that you pay with a personal credit card because the fee will be substantially lower.

        The idea that anyone from HMRC is going to come in and spend a few days going through your accounts just to hit you with a £50 NIC bill because your expenses were paid into one account and then transferred to another is beyond ludicrous.

        • Kevin says:

          25 Apr25 April 14:19

          When I’ve paid HMRC bills with a personal credit card, I’ve treated it as a director’s loan. Please note I’m not offering professional advice though.

          I do have a separate set of credit cards (but in my name, not the company’s) that I use for day to day business expenses, which helps to separate out expenses from personal expenditure. I pay this credit card bill straight from the company bank account.

        • Genghis says:

          25 Apr25 April 14:28

          Exactly. If pay business expenses personally, treat it as directors loan, Dr expense, Cr directors loan acct. We then clear that down regularly and definitely at year end, Dr directors loan acct, Cr cash. It’s not treated as a dividend.

        • Genghis says:

          25 Apr25 April 14:44

          I’m not offering professional advice either. But that’s what I do and I’m an ACA

      • Mzungu says:

        25 Apr25 April 14:51

        I have personal cards that I use in my Ltd company. I keep separate cards for business use, and pay those cards off directly from the business bank account. No need for the funds to touch the Directors’ loan account. (I do use the Directors’ loan account for other things, as detailed above by those who know far more than me!).

        This has worked fine for me for the past 10 years, and with the blessing of my accountant.

        • Genghis says:

          25 Apr25 April 14:58

          In theory, intra month they should be booked to the directors loan acct and then cleared down once you pay your credit card bill, but why bother. I’d do it exactly the same

        • Alan says:

          25 Apr25 April 15:05

          Plus remember that Amex are happy to issue an additional card in your own name if you want to make it easier to track business vs personal spend – it just has “A.C.” added to the end of your name. Sometimes can be handy for ShopSmall, etc. too as it has a different card number 🙂

• Cate says:

  25 Apr25 April 11:26

  The ever lovely Mr Cate suggests that anyone outside of the UK looking to book a flight into Cardiff airport is going to be mightily disappointed if they think the picture used on Cardiff airport site is Cardiff :

  https://www.cardiff-airport.com/news/2017/04/24/qatar-airways-chooses-cardiff-airport/

  • Anna says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:42

    I heard that Wales gets a lot of EU development money!

    • Cate says:

      25 Apr25 April 17:07

      🙂

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