Bits: 240 Avios with £24 of rioja, Concorde Room, 4000 Flying Blue miles with Europcar

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

• Yuff says:

  6 Nov6 November 07:30

  Didn’t see that furniture in there a few weeks ago.
  It still looked all looked pretty good and very impressed with the Wing, too many F1 crew, flying to Austin, at check in though so almost had to queu to check in…..shocking.
  Lounge was busiest I’d ever seen it, had to borrow a spare chair from a Brazilian guest, Felipe Massa, to sit inside.
  Much busier, than the Etihad F lounge on the return, in fact the staff ratio must have been 3 staff, to 1 passenger, in Abu Dhabi !!!

  • Rob says:

    6 Nov6 November 08:35

    Installed last week.

• Anna says:

  6 Nov6 November 07:36

  I’ve noticed avios.com appear to have ditched Budget car hire and replaced it with Europcar, who charge £100 more per week for a family sized vehicle. BA’s car hire prices are also very high, and excess charges are outrageous, so it’s worth shopping around and also buying a separate excess policy.

  • the real harry1 says:

    6 Nov6 November 07:58

    just checked (in case) and Accor is still the only way to get Avios from a Europcar rental (Accor—>IB)

    you also have the option to use Tesco points @ 3x, genuine 3x – though reading the reviews, it seems that often Europcar are still charging the full cash hire charge in error which then needs to be chased for a refund

    • Rob says:

      6 Nov6 November 08:36

      Eh? Avis Budget has just signed a new contract to remain the exclusive car rental partner across all IAG operations!

    • Anna says:

      6 Nov6 November 10:09

      Sorry, I am talking rubbish! Europcar and Budget should read the other way round. Any rental with avios looks like a poor deal, though, thanks for the reminder re Easycar, W, I had forgotten that a few years ago we booked a “Golf or similar” with them and actually got a Golf!

  • W says:

    6 Nov6 November 08:14

    I’ve found Avios/BA pricing for hire cars alwSy to be terrible and more expensive than booking direct. EasyJet usually cheaper though

    • sam says:

      6 Nov6 November 09:29

      i booked with ryanair this summer in spain. unbelievably it was cheapest at £37 for a polo for 1 week!

      • Anna says:

        6 Nov6 November 10:11

        Will have a look at this. Budget and Avis both quoting over £300 for a small SUV from Nice at half term next May, with excess at well over £1000.

• Michael says:

  6 Nov6 November 07:40

  The Wing is superb and makes T5 the best termial for me to fly from now, but the CCR furniture and pretty much everything else in there was in dire need of replacement last time I was there a few weeks ago (not to mention air conditioning that works) but from the picture it looks like BA may have hit a new low even for them!

  The management however consider BA a Premium Brand for all remember so clearly this illustrates what the see as the word premium meaning and thus no wonder they what they now offer as ‘premium’!

  • W says:

    6 Nov6 November 08:15

    Does that mean premium brand for sardine class as well? Next they’ll be saying “world class traveller”

• Ian says:

  6 Nov6 November 08:08

  That furniture looks dreadful. I thought it must have been a joke! I’m flying BA First out of Heathrow tomorrow, probably give the Concorde Room a miss

  • Worzel says:

    6 Nov6 November 08:36

    Steady on Ian!

    Those sofas still looks good- Mum, Dad and my brothers spent many a happy hour watching ‘It’s a Knockout’ etc sat upon them in the 70’s! 🙂

• W says:

  6 Nov6 November 08:17

  I know we can’t wait for the news these days but any speculation on the FlyingBlue news?

  • Rob says:

    6 Nov6 November 08:38

    You could ask why they are sneaking this out today when every travel journalist and industry player in the world is at at Excel for World Travel Market and not turning up to Amsterdam press conferences …..

    • W says:

      6 Nov6 November 09:12

      Not pretty? I’ve got an Singapore/Indonesia trip coming up in March and trying to work out whether to stick or twist with MR points to a KrissFlyer or FlyingBlue (Garuda) for regional flights.

      • the real harry1 says:

        6 Nov6 November 09:43

        https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-france-klm-other-partners-flying-blue/1869711-your-flight-2018-discover-flying-blue-new-programme-rules-13.html

        some speculation for you – but I don’t think the news is out just yet

      • the real harry1 says:

        6 Nov6 November 09:49

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpg1cuz6KT0
        Flying Blue reinvented

        Miles & cash

        New ways to spend miles from June 2018

        er, that’s it! (for now)

        could it possibly be the incorporation of Virgin Atlantic into a joint loyalty scheme?

• vlcnc says:

  6 Nov6 November 08:56

  OT – I have an Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card. I got offered 3,000 MR bonus for adding an additional cardholder, so added my partner. I was under the impression that each cardholder gets 2 Complimentary Lounge Club visits from reading here, but he hasn’t received his card so I called them up and apparently that isn’t the case? At least not anymore??

  • Alex says:

    6 Nov6 November 09:01

    Never was a case, afaik, unfortunately.

    • vlcnc says:

      6 Nov6 November 09:07

      I see – I perhaps misunderstood or maybe this is a benefit of the platinum card only with pp. Wierdly they offered me £30 statement credit anyway! I have to say I am impressd with Amex CS, there are a lot of companies including banks and even BA that could learn from them…

    • vlcnc says:

      6 Nov6 November 09:09

      (I should I was happy with the bonus MR and only called up as I thought they’d forgot to send it!!!)

  • Tom says:

    6 Nov6 November 12:52

    I’ve just had the sae email re the 3000MR points so have applied to add my partner. Have to say I did wonder if she too would get a pass but I understand now!

    • Anna says:

      6 Nov6 November 13:45

      We applied for supplementary cards on both accounts recently, OH’s points took 42 days to post, mine arrived before the supp card! But yes, it’s 2 free visits per account, but I don’t know if the main cardholder has to be present or the supplementary cardholder can use them. Also, if you’re organised about churning you can get 6 or even 8 free visits per year.

      • Genghis says:

        6 Nov6 November 14:56

        We applied for another Supp on BAPP recently and received 3k avios unexpectedly straight away.

• Lumma says:

  6 Nov6 November 09:18

  Hope no one is in a rush for those bottles of rioja. Placed my order a couple of weeks ago and I’ve just gotten a notification from Curve that they’ve taken the money.

• the real harry1 says:

  6 Nov6 November 09:40

  I was looking for the Flying Blue news and found this instead http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/291348/holiday-extras-buys-purple-parking-brand-and-website

  so Purple Parking has effectively gone bust and bits of it got sold to Holiday Extras, who say they are going to honour existing bookings

  if that is the case, I guess there is no need to cancel for a refund and book elsewhere – doesn’t affect me, anyway

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