Another Qatar Airways flight sale bargain …. to Johannesburg

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• David says:

  11 Jan11 January 06:56

  O/T – Has anyone else noticed that avios transactions done over the phone (on the BAEC Silver line) are taking an age to post? I cancelled a JAL flight on the 5th Jan, and upgraded the return of a 2-4-1 HND-LHR to F on the 8th (so in effect, +15,000 and -27,000) and neither transaction has posted yet. I mentioned the former to the CS agent on the 8th, and he said there’s a delay and it’d take 48 hours… but I’m still waiting!

  I’m sure in the past they’ve been immediate.

  • JamesB says:

    11 Jan11 January 07:08

    This is normal, they go in a queue and get processed according to departure dates so if you have a far out departure date you can sometimes wait many days or even weeks to get it processed. However this is no cause for concern, your booking is safe and will get done. I have been in this situation many times.

    • David says:

      11 Jan11 January 07:24

      It’s the refund I’m more bothered about! 🙂

  • Monone says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:45

    Your article Sofia as starting point, what exchange rate are you using for the lev?

    • Rob says:

      11 Jan11 January 11:38

      xe.com/ucc

• Radiata says:

  11 Jan11 January 06:59

  I booked a return ex-Eu to JNB from TXL in J for £1397 which may be able to be bettered as in the I bucket on one leg and R on the other. Indeed I saw one price on ITS matrix below £1300 but could not find availability that suited.

• JamesB says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:03

  Unless I am misreading the timetable EDI-HEL is daily. However flights are shown to be operated by Norra using ERJ on three days. These have an AY flight number so hopefully avios can be earned and redeemed.

  • Catalan says:

    11 Jan11 January 09:14

    I earned Avios points on the HEL-TLL flight operated by Norra last year when Rob highlighted the £235 Finnair deal.

    • JamesB says:

      11 Jan11 January 11:09

      Cheers, good to know 🙂

• Steve says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:19

  OT: any tips for hotel in Vienna in May? Just decided to grab two RFS fares there for the second bank holiday weekend for a first try of club Europe. Thanks.

  • David says:

    11 Jan11 January 07:25

    Le Meridien is *lovely*

  • JamesB says:

    11 Jan11 January 07:41

    Tip to avoid: Courtyard Prater.

  • Brian says:

    11 Jan11 January 09:00

    If you have Hilton status, the Hilton near Landstrasse is good. They tend to treat me as Diamond well – good upgrades, etc. Opposite the station where you can get S-Bahn trains to the airport. Close to the centre.

    Really depends, though, how much you are looking to spend.

  • Nick Burch says:

    11 Jan11 January 09:33

    The Park Hyatt is lovely! Amazing old building, big rooms, nice facilities, very friendly and helpful staff, central location etc. Just a shame about the price… Good place to burn expiring Hyatt points though 🙂

  • Rob says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:04

    InterCon is perfectly fine but a dull 60’s concrete building with no local flair. Fairly short walk from the Airport Express station though.

  • Leo says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:18

    The Hotel Sans Souci is great upmarket boutique option. No points opportunity – maybe book through Bon Vivant or Amex? Or Hotels.com come to that. Great location next to metro and 5 minutes from Hofburg if that.

    • R C says:

      11 Jan11 January 12:26

      Amex no longer an option on Hotels.com. Just tried to book a room and my saved cards have been removed and Amex not in the dropdown.

      • Robbie says:

        11 Jan11 January 13:48

        Maybe it is the hotel? I have had some hotels that don’t accept Amex and then they disappear from the list. I have just booked a Crowne Plaza via Hotels.com and Amex worked.

      • Genghis says:

        11 Jan11 January 14:07

        Still there for me now on a dummy booking.

      • Cate says:

        11 Jan11 January 16:06

        Don’t forget to check out your fave frequent flyer own shop to book for extra points.

  • David S says:

    11 Jan11 January 18:10

    Stayed at the Hilton last month next to the station and Stadtpark. Ok rooms, no great upgrade for being Hilton Gold. Was told that they only offer continental breakfast for Golds, so booked full breakfast which is definitely worth it. Access to the airport train was great and in Vienna, you can pretty much walk everywhere. Have fun.

• Rob MC says:

  11 Jan11 January 08:03

  OT
  IHG ambassador upgrade – just had confirmation via email that the 10,000 bonus miles were only for those that received an email invite to upgrade and as such I will not be getting the bonus miles

  • Kathy says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:49

    I successfully got them to give me the old 5000 point bonus miles for joining by pointing out it was still being advertised on the webpage of the IC Sydney I had booked when I joined (I had screenshots). That was back in November – it has been removed since. Might be worth having a poke around various individual hotel Ambassador pages to see if it’s still lurking anywhere!

    • Radiata says:

      11 Jan11 January 09:47

      Dear Rob

      I complained similarly and they were willing to post the bonus if I could provide either a screen shot or the original link.

    • Kathy says:

      11 Jan11 January 10:56

      Try taking the screenshot of the sale pages, and terms and conditions, showing that you complied with the advertised terms by applying within the advertised period, and send it to the Ambassador customer service team (or back to them if that’s who you went through initially). They should do a goodwill adjustment on the basis of the published information being misleading.

  • Rob MC says:

    11 Jan11 January 12:02

    RE Tangey,

    I upgraded on the 22nd November when the offer was on, only chased it up now as its been over 6 weeks.

• Botham says:

  11 Jan11 January 08:04

  I recently booked HIE at Southwark, for the Marathon. The price has now gone up from £142 to £159.

• EBungle says:

  11 Jan11 January 08:12

  Did anyone else think that the snowmobile rider was “mooning” the camera?

  I took Finair to Beijing last year and they were great. Helsinki is a nice airport for a connection, and saved about 25% on a BA flight.

  • MikeL says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:24

    Agree re Helsinki airport, nice and the security staff are very pleasant too. I was even asked (politely) if it was ok to swab my hand luggage.

• Tyra says:

  11 Jan11 January 08:59

  Issues with Melia Gold status. If you are an existing Melia member and you try and enrol from Amex Platinum you won’t be able to. I’ve been trying for the past 6 weeks and getting the same error message. Amex has finally recognised this to be a “technical issue” and has no time line of when it’s going to be fixed. If I let Amex open a new account for me, I would lose my existing Melia points. For the moment, I’m stuck at the status I’m on with Melia and can’t access any Gold status benefits.

  • Nick says:

    11 Jan11 January 09:15

    Haha so that would explain why my Melia Gold was recently extended for 5 months… they knew I wouldn’t be able to renew the usual way!

  • Nick Burch says:

    11 Jan11 January 09:35

    I had a Melia Rewards account for a few years before the Amex Plat status offer was added. I signed up as soon as Amex offered it, and had no issues getting my existing Melia account upgraded to Gold. Maybe Melia have broken something since then?

    • Rob says:

      11 Jan11 January 09:58

      Mine was also upgraded OK.

      • Robbie says:

        11 Jan11 January 13:50

        +1 For me too

        Must be a new technical issue

    • Tyra says:

      11 Jan11 January 20:07

      They keep blaming each other and can’t agree who’s “technical fault” it is ????????‍♀️

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