Bits: Aer Lingus Avios taxes fall, Mail Rail now bookable

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• Mrtibbs1999 says:

  15 Jul15 July 04:51

  Still not fixed for Dublin- Manchester. Shows as 16k plus £212 for 2 adults…

  • Alan says:

    15 Jul15 July 08:43

    Can’t even find EDI-DUB availability to check, but imagine they’ve only fixed this on London services given (I believe) all the flights to other UK airports are via EI Regional?

    (also found a bug in BA app when trying to change dates for reward search, very annoying!)

  • James A says:

    15 Jul15 July 09:22

    Showed the same for me when I checked last week.

  • Bill Hogg says:

    16 Jul16 July 14:10

    IOM-DUB-IOM
    8,000 Avios plus £122

    Haha

• Arthur Munday says:

  15 Jul15 July 05:26

  Strange exclusion from the Hilton offer, as there are no Hilton properties in Taiwan…
  I got my 10,000 Avios 1 stay earlier than expected as one Hilton in Romania kindly posted the 2,000 Avios for a recent reward night.

  • Ralf says:

    15 Jul15 July 05:31

    yes, i really do like that phrasing. Seems like the chinese HMA group (owner of Hilton) wants to show their obedience to the Chinese government who considers the (for now) free, democratic country of Taiwan its property and is threatining it with an invasion

    • Genghis says:

      15 Jul15 July 06:02

      Why would PRC want to make specific reference to ROC if they don’t think it exists?

  • the_real_a says:

    15 Jul15 July 12:25

    Considering i picked up a hilton for about £30 in china last year, i would imagine the rates dont allow the economics of the offer to work for them in this region.

• Swiss says:

  15 Jul15 July 06:29

  2000 points credited fine for my recent stay in China. Maybe I got lucky.

• Mike says:

  15 Jul15 July 07:22

  We had a school trip to Mount Pleasant sorting office in the 80s and seeing the Mail Rail trains working was brilliant! Would highly recommend it.

  • Genghis says:

    15 Jul15 July 07:59

    My wife sent me a link a couple of weeks ago but thanks HfP for the notice that tickets are now on sale. Just booked. You understand the HfP demographic well as this is right up my street.

    • Alan says:

      15 Jul15 July 08:31

      Agreed, hopefully can get tickets next time I’m visiting London. Would also highly recommend Bletchley Park for a visit – regular direct trains from Euston.

      • Anna says:

        15 Jul15 July 17:02

        Not into post offices but Bletchley is fantastic and you get an annual pass with your entry fee.

        • Alan says:

          15 Jul15 July 17:05

          Yep, plus 241 on entry when visiting by train – got my folks to use that deal and they had a great visit!

    • Tom says:

      15 Jul15 July 13:10

      Yes, thanks Raffles. Just booked!

    • Janeyferr says:

      15 Jul15 July 13:33

      I booked on Tuesday for Sept 9th. I’m rather excited.

• Genghis says:

  15 Jul15 July 08:25

  OT. Nationwide Simply Rewards. I’ve never used it before but received an email for £8 back on £8+ spend at Uber. Was thinking of sending a £8 gift code to myself to get essentially a free £8. Can anyone foresee any problems with this?

  • Alex W says:

    15 Jul15 July 10:49

    @Harry, the returns on an offset mortgage can’t be more than a couple of % at the moment? Or am I wrong?

    • the real harry1 says:

      15 Jul15 July 10:53

      it’s exactly the same return as your mortgage rate – as the provider doesn’t actually pay any interest (which is why it is tax-free) but reduces your mortgage outstanding by the same amount you have invested in the savings a/c

      ie your savings a/c holds £10K, your mortgage is £50K, you only pay interest on £40K

      • Alex W says:

        15 Jul15 July 11:38

        I understand the concept.
        But even if your mortgage interest rate is 2%, which I would have thought is quite high given current borrowing rates, and you’re a higher rate taxpayer, that works out to 3.33%, which I reckon you would easily beat with zopa.
        Problem for me is offset mortgage needs a low LTV, about 60% I recall. And these mortgages seem to have low interest rates below 2%. I am not close to busting the personal savings allowance at the moment so wouldn’t see the benefit of offset mortgage even if I had a big enough deposit.

        • Nick M says:

          15 Jul15 July 15:36

          Whenever I’ve looked at offset mortgages for clients the interest rates have always been significantly higher than standard mortgages (unless you have a legacy offset with a lifetime tracker for example)… so usually makes sense to go for a regular deal and then look to maximise savings elsewhere – savings rates obv come down recently but could get average 4% on £80k in various instant access this time last year.

        • the real harry1 says:

          15 Jul15 July 15:50

          I guess it comes down to how you interpret ‘significantly’

          last time round I wanted a 5 year fix – having paid my first mortgage through the 15% pa years, I’m cautious – and my 5 yr offset mortgage deal was about 0.2% higher than the cheapest 5 yr fix (non-offset) alternative

        • JamesB says:

          15 Jul15 July 17:22

          I have not had a mortgage for some years but in the past I always found those with the best rates tended to have the worst booking fees, penalties etc. When looking at a range of mortgages with very different rates and fees over a full term the differences in the total amount payable was remarkably similar. Thus, choice of mortgage owed more to the way you wanted to pay it (fix, cap, variable, subsidy etc) than to the overall amount payable. This may remain the case today or may have changed, I don’t know. When I did have a mortgage thoughI just stuck wuth SVR products with no fees, penalties that could be avouded and flexibility to overpay. This worked well for me but it was during a period when the rate peaked at about 7% and was 4-5.5% for most of the term.

        • Nick M says:

          15 Jul15 July 20:50

          From memory, the most recent difference was circa £600 pa on a small mortgage (£150k?) – you need to factor in the differences in arrangement fees and other costs too. And then think about what returns you can get elsewhere without taking on risk or too much hassle

• Johnt says:

  15 Jul15 July 08:44

  For the Postal Museum we got a presale offer as were on the mailing list. However took nearly two hours to complete the booking due to the demand! Going in first weekend. Sounds great and yes good match to this site. PS if you join MyGatwick you get MoneyCorp prebooked rate for a walk up purchase with a voucher.

• Flyer68 says:

  15 Jul15 July 09:24

  You can lower the price of the BA RFS return flight Heathrow – Dublin by choosing singles instead (Heathrow – Dublin 4500 plus £17.50 and Dublin – Heathrow 4500 plus £10.60).
  For the Aer Lingus bookings on Avios.com, Dublin (or Shannon/Cork) – Heathrow single at 4500 plus £15.90 is pretty good. However Dublin – Gatwick single at 4500 plus £43.90 makes no sense at all.

  • Polly says:

    15 Jul15 July 10:29

    Flyer68 Thanks for that. I always do the ow options too, but am sometimes stuck for a seat, so have had to bookJ ow. So, will def look at the EI options in future. Yes the LGW tax makes no sense at all!

  • Anna says:

    15 Jul15 July 17:06

    This is where being in the North West has a rare advantage as Liverpool – Dublin is £35 return with Ryanair!

    • Alan says:

      15 Jul15 July 17:14

      Ryanair option from EDI too, although each time I’ve found that as soon as I added a bag they ended up massively more expensive than EI, so went with the latter instead!

      • JamesB says:

        15 Jul15 July 17:29

        I looked at the exact same flight EDI-DUB operated by Stobbart Air:; booked for cash via Aer Lingus it was £47, avios + £76 at avios, and £93 cash at BA.

        • Alan says:

          15 Jul15 July 17:40

          Agreed – have never been able to justify using Avios for these connections, always ended up cash with EI.

• JamesB says:

  15 Jul15 July 09:39

  OT: Short economist piece on brexit and EU flights yesterday.

  https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/07/air-pressure-rising

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