If you have a Lloyds Avios credit card upgrade voucher expiring, you could try this ….

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• Alan says:

  13 May13 May 10:36

  No dice on a booking made and cancelled this morning

• Confused says:

  13 May13 May 10:50

  I was caught out a week ago by the off-peak WTP->CW upgrade avios price being greater than the peak upgrade price. LGW-OAK in July, out is off-peak, inward is peak. We upgraded the return, overnight, for 50 000 at the time of booking, but did not have enough avios to do the outward.

  Thanks to many tips here I built up my avios to 50 500, and seeing renewed award availability for the outward flight tried to upgrade, only to be told that because the outward date was off-peak, the upgrade was 60 000, not 50 000 as I had expected.

  Fortunately I remembered that I had just enough Iberia and Amex points to get up to 60 000 and completed the upgrade.

  What then did surprise me was the the number of avios and tier points earned has also gone up. Previously we were getting the lowest possible points for WTP in both directions. Now we are getting WTP in one direction and CW in the other.

  “Manage my Booking” says “Club World” in both directions, but T class (WTP I believe) in one direction and U class (is there oen?) in the other.

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:

    13 May13 May 21:48

    MMB lies a lot and BA posts incorrectly sometimes. You should get the points it stated before the upgrades but either or both legs could post at the increased value. Don’t hold your breath for it though 🙁

• Omar says:

  13 May13 May 11:09

  As much as I wouldn’t mind fleecing BA out of some Avios, this seems unethical and based not that I would not pull something like this.

• JamesB says:

  13 May13 May 12:27

  OT query: is the priority pass that comes with amex platinum standalone or does it need to be presented in conjunction with the charge card?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    13 May13 May 12:32

    You don’t need to show the Platinum but most of the time they will match the name on the PP vs the boarding pass and the AMEX card needs to active still for the PP to work

    • JamesB says:

      13 May13 May 12:48

      Thanks, now just have to hope it arrives with the post today.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        13 May13 May 13:01

        Even if it doesn’t they should be able to tell you your details so you can load the PP app up on your phone

        • Alan says:

          13 May13 May 13:36

          Indeed, I don’t even carry the card now, I just use the app.

      • JamesB says:

        13 May13 May 16:31

        Thanks folks, Poly mentioned this to me before too. Who do I call, amex or priority pass customer service? The PP cards have not arrived so I’ll give it a go.

        • JamesB says:

          13 May13 May 18:04

          Have got the digital card set up, thanks again.

• Mark says:

  13 May13 May 13:39

  I have never received my Lloyds upgrade voucher, despite having spent the required amount. Do I contact Avios or Lloyds to sort this out?

  • krys_k says:

    13 May13 May 14:09

    Good question. In my experience the customer service of each refers you to the other when there’s a particularly fruity problem. I’d contact Avios and have a copy of your statement ready to send to them showing spend. In my experience Avios customer service is quite good (as an aside, Amex has the best, BA the worst, and Lloyds well above BA but well below Avios).

  • Alan says:

    13 May13 May 14:12

    Assuming you’ve been receiving your points OK each month (ie that Avios haven’t set up a new account for you) and that there is no voucher showing in your Avios.com account, then I’d get on to Lloyds. They’re the ones that know how much you have spent on the card (even if they don’t have a tracker and their agents don’t know!) and therefore they are the ones that need to trigger the voucher.

  • Richard says:

    13 May13 May 16:52

    Yes, Lloyds. I had the same situation, took about a month but they gave me £200 compensation for the delay …. and then another voucher turned up a few months later (with no additional spend!).

• Lumma says:

  13 May13 May 13:47

  OT but related to Lloyds and this card, but while using the eligibility checker on the Lloyds site, I get 80% chance of acceptance with “it looks like you’d be accepted for one of our cards”. On applying about a month ago, I got turned down for it.

  I was wondering if there’s any real point to these things, I get the same result on the Halifax site as well and their clarity card could come in handy but don’t want to risk another rejection. I have opened two other credit cards (ihg and mbna) and two current accounts (Tesco and co-op) but none of these were instead of my main first direct account.

  Would it be advisable to hold back for a while on any new applications? I’m also close to the time that I can reapply for amex gold

  • TGLoyalty says:

    13 May13 May 14:45

    Should have sent them a letter asking to reconsider.

    Worked for me I just noted I always pay my bills, Never Defaulted, All cards paid off monthly and was a Lloyds customer with a healthy balance and all that would show on my credit file if they manually checked. Still a faff but this card is a keeper while the AMEX lasts so worth it.

    • Lumma says:

      13 May13 May 15:07

      Might be worth a shot. As far as I can work out, this is the best card for me, over the free BA amex which I currently use. Would hit the target for the upgrade voucher easily.

      Think I’ll apply for the gold amex, hit the spend for the bonus, then try again with Lloyds.

      Thanks for the info

      • Anon says:

        13 May13 May 18:34

        Check you haven’t got any dormant accounts. My OH, the main earner, got turned down because he had a really old credit card account, it had zero balance but he’d never officially closed it. I got accepted even as a lower earner.

        • Callum says:

          13 May13 May 21:49

          That should only matter if their total credit limit is too high. I have a dormant account (tried to close it 3 times!) and have never had a problem. At least it’s increasing my average account age!

  • the_real_a says:

    13 May13 May 20:54

    LLyods appears to be unique that is uses its own data heavily when considering credit applications. It also appears to be risk adverse, as LLyods gave me a £1k credit limit compared with MBNA a month later that gave £30k

  • Callum says:

    13 May13 May 21:46

    Yes there’s a point to them – an 80% chance of acceptance means there was a 1 in 5 chance you’ll be rejected, so it’s not that surprising. If Lloyds rejected you then there’s a decent chance Halifax will too.

    I was rejected when I first applied so I opened a Lloyds current account. 6 months later I got an instant acceptance (same with the Clarity).

    • Lumma says:

      14 May14 May 00:17

      The thing I don’t get with it is that it’s using their data, so I can’t see why it shouldn’t be more accurate than saying using the checker on say money supermarket.

      Other sites that have their in house eligibility checkers tend to to be you a simple yes/no then say you can apply subject to a final credit check.

      Strangely, I am eligible for both creation’s IHG cards this way, but not the asda one.

      • callum says:

        14 May14 May 03:38

        I don’t know whether it’s more accurate or not (it depends how they built it) but I vaguely recall reading that the credit reference agencies supplying the data made them make it a bit more rudimentary than the full check – otherwise it would just be a way of cheating the system and never getting “failed” searches on your report. This was back when it was quite rare to have a checker, so I don’t know if it’s still the same now.

        I don’t think they always say yes/no, most I’ve done have been something like “it’s likely you’ll be accepted”. Weirdly I got a quote through a third party (I think the MSE Credit Club) which said I have guaranteed acceptance for a Virgin credit card. I then did the checker on the Virgin website and that said I’m unlikely to get it (or possibly even I would definitely not get it). I went back to MSE and applied and got the instant acceptance.

        Assuming I was right about the credit agencies still hobbling the system, it would be much better if they didn’t, but I can certainly see why they would.

• N says:

  13 May13 May 18:24

  £100 off £500 spend at BA.com in my BAPP

• the_real_a says:

  13 May13 May 20:51

  I am on my third voucher now: Some observations… 1) Any telephone booking appears to be processed as a manual deduction of points. Hence the agent can do “whatever” you persuade them to do. After tagging on domestic connections to the PNR at each end, and 40 minutes on the line they are very “helpful” to get rid of you. 2) Your final destination can be changed, provided it is in the same zone as the original.

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