Heathrow Airport cuts UK domestic aircraft landing fees again

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• Liz says:

  3 Jan3 January 07:45

  OT Has anyone received the 240 Avios for the last Vino Seleccion promo from November. Normally the pts post quite quickly but it’s been 2 months now. Who do you try and chase? Iberia or Vino Seleccion?

  • the real harry1 says:

    3 Jan3 January 07:53

    I chased IB last time and got a quick response on plata@iberia.es (they didn’t seem to care that I am not plata)

    I haven’t even bothered to check my IB a/c this time yet as they are usually pretty slow to post points in any case

    • Liz says:

      3 Jan3 January 12:50

      Thanks Harry – I’ll wait a bit longer and see if they turn up then try emailing them.

  • AndyR says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:27

    Was it the Bene Placitum Reserva 2013? How is it?

    • the real harry1 says:

      3 Jan3 January 11:42

      it’s a bit £4-ish, I wouldn’t really want to pay much more for it

      dry/ astringent and not a very full palate, not that fruity

      excellent for mulled wine!

• S***o says:

  3 Jan3 January 07:47

  Haven’t had a Plat Amex for the past 3 years but have somehow managed to keep Plat Accor since signing up all those years ago (with limited stays).

  Had a notification from AwardWallet a few days ago saying I’ve dropped to gold and my Accor number had changed to reflect it.

  It’s a shame my regular Novotel was £40 a night and as Plat I always got upgraded and given 2 x drink vouchers good for £20 worth of wine!

  • Intentionally Blank says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:21

    I’v a handful of Accor numbers, and never know which one to use.

    Stayed in Mysore in India a couple of months ago and used a number which had previously been my Plat one. Treated like a king (upgrade to suite) despite not having been plat for a year. They didn’t seem to care either!

• Met says:

  3 Jan3 January 07:57

  OT new BA Amex offer this morning £15 credit on £100 spend. Makes CE sale even more appealing

  • Scott says:

    3 Jan3 January 08:24

    I got spend £100+ and get 1500 avios.

    • Lister says:

      3 Jan3 January 08:43

      +1

    • Thomas O says:

      3 Jan3 January 08:51

      Same here – £100+ before end of Jan 18 and get 1500 AVIOS

  • Tilly says:

    3 Jan3 January 08:34

    No BA Amex offers on any of my 5 cards this morning. Maybe because I already had one and used it late last year. Shame though as would be handy for the late May bank holiday trip.

  • Craig says:

    3 Jan3 January 12:52

    Two £100 payments made towards a Gib Holiday, 3000 Avios thanks.

• DYKWIA says:

  3 Jan3 January 08:01

  I got downgraded to ‘Classic’ despite having 136 nights… Others have reported the same on FlyerTalk :-

  https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/accorhotels-le-club-accorhotels/1885573-downgraded-classic-today-despite-136-nights.html

  The Accor IT systems leave a lot to be desired…

  • s says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:35

    Yes, they are abominable.

• Dwadda says:

  3 Jan3 January 08:06

  When I check on the App it says I’m Platinum valid until 31 12 2018. I hope that sticks.

  I stayed at Accor hotels a total of two weeks last year. Not enough to requalify. If I hadn’t been Platinum that would only have be 3 nights (due to an event), so Accor got more business from me than they would otherwise have got as I normally favour Hilton.

• AspirationalFlyer says:

  3 Jan3 January 08:24

  I had Accor gold status in 2017 (achieved via various stays in 2016) and received an email on New Year’s Day notifying me that I had classic status. I’ve decided to buy the Ibis business card for £65 and was given gold again. I have a couple of Sofitel stays up and coming – I will be interested to see if I get any worthwhile upgrades and will report back accordingly!

  • Luke says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:40

    Soft landing for me – from gold (earned for j to silver (I stayed only 5 nights with accor last year)….it looks like le accor like playing wheel of luck game

• Alan says:

  3 Jan3 January 08:30

  OT (a bit).

  Which hotel loyalty schemes (if any), that are AMEX MR partners, offer unrestricted rewards redemption (i.e. they don’t have limited numbers of rooms available for redemption – if rooms are available for cash then they can be purchased for points)?

  I hope this question makes sense!

  • Paulm says:

    3 Jan3 January 08:38

    Hilton would be

    • Alan says:

      3 Jan3 January 09:00

      Thanks Paul, very helpful.

  • Rob says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:01

    Starwood (not sure about Marriott). Hilton, IHG and Carlson do not.

    Some Starwood hotels play games though, eg they put a small number of rooms into a bottom end category (perhaps because they are 1% smaller than other standard rooms) and when those are booked they claim they have fulfilled their obligation to keep open reward nights for their basic room category. Not widespread, admittedly.

    • Alan says:

      3 Jan3 January 13:41

      Sorry Rob, not sure what you mean. Are you meaning Starwood, Hilton, IHG and Carlson do not have quotas or do not make all rooms available for rewards redemptions?

      I’m assuming its the latter as IHG definitely appear to have restricted access for rewards but the inclusion of Hilton contradicted Paul.

      • Rob says:

        3 Jan3 January 13:46

        Starwood guarantees that if a ‘standard’ room is available for cash, it will be bookable as a reward. This is effectively ‘last room availability’ for the lowest category of room in the hotel. I think Hyatt does the same.

        The rest have quotas albeit Hilton will offer you an overpriced ‘Premium’ redemption when standard rooms are exhausted. IHG obliges a hotel to put up 5% of rooms for redemptions daily for example.

      • Alan says:

        3 Jan3 January 13:49

        OK thanks Rob

• Nick Burch says:

  3 Jan3 January 08:40

  I ended up doing 31 nights with Accor last year. Yesterday and today, their systems show me simultaneously as gold, but only needing 29 more stays to make platinum!

  Sadly the bit that shows status / prints membership card etc all correctly knows I only made Gold last year. That said, small chance hotels won’t notice the drop given Accor’s poor IT, though it doesn’t actually make much difference between Gold and Platinum when not at a Sofitel…

  • Lady London says:

    3 Jan3 January 09:18

    @Nick I believe it’s 30 nights or 14000 points from where you are, to make Platinum? Noting promotion-earned points won’t count anymore.

    The other alternative is apparently 5 Fairmont stays or 10 Fairmont nights, before end of June if you’re one of them…

    I haven’t really noticed platinum to give me much in the way of increased benefits though. That might be because I travel alone and not much this year and next in Asia where I gather hotels have the scope to pamper you more

    I’m only back to Accor as I’ve acquired one French client this year and expecting to acquire more and Accor footprint in France is far beyond ihg and Hilton.

    • Nick Burch says:

      3 Jan3 January 13:09

      I believe, with a new year, I’d need to do 60 nights to get Platinum back (or the special Fairmont offer). They seem to have set my status down to Gold, correctly, but left my qualifying nights/points where they were from last year rather than zero-ing out

      In terms of Platinum, if you’re not at a Sofitel, it’s basically not worth anything over Gold. Sofitel it does matter at. Only other times I’ve found it helped were when a hotel was overbooked and tried to walk me somewhere less good, and when I’ve used the Platinum reservation guarantee to book an almost-full hotel that I really wanted to be in.

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