Your American Express Platinum and Boingo free wi-fi offer is extended

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• Sue says:

  21 Jan21 January 05:47

  Was billed my first card fee for my gold reward amex last month but thinking of upgrading to platimum. Can anyone tell me if im charged the full £450 for the year or do they take into account ive paid £140 akready? Thanks

  • Andrew says:

    21 Jan21 January 06:30

    Hi Sue… they’ll issue a pro-rata refund of the £140 and then bill the full £450.

    • Sue says:

      21 Jan21 January 08:45

      Thanks Andrew! Think im going to go for it! 🙂

      • thehornets says:

        21 Jan21 January 14:23

        The Gold bonus can take up to 6 weeks to post. Am I ok to upgrade to Plat BEFORE they post (but after by the card anniversary) or do I risk losing them if I upgrade too soon?

        • Rob says:

          21 Jan21 January 15:26

          You will lose the 10k I reckon.

      • Genghis says:

        21 Jan21 January 14:25

        @thehornets only upgrade Gold->Plat once the Gold anniversary bonus has posted

      • thehornets says:

        21 Jan21 January 14:35

        Thanks Genghis – didn’t want to do anything stupid!

      • Jonny says:

        21 Jan21 January 18:31

        Last year I upgraded before the 10k bonus and lost it. Fortunately they gave it to me as a goodwill gesture anyway but won’t do that again!

  • Alex says:

    21 Jan21 January 11:51

    If spent 10 000 gbp in the first year its worth waiting for the 10 000 mr points bonus before upgrading to plat.

• MarcB says:

  21 Jan21 January 07:24

  Anyone know if Boingo can be used to access the London Underground WiFi?

• Jo says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:12

  HI just registered myself for boingo. Can’t seem to do it for my supplementary holder. Any others with same problem and any workaround?

  • Jovanna says:

    21 Jan21 January 08:28

    Use the same log in details?

  • AndyR says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:16

    Yeah I could only ever get main cardholder registered.

• LaserBeams says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:22

  OT – I have a 2-for-1 booked to and from Beijing but wanted to change the return to be from Shanghai to be able to spend a few days in each. Was told that this was not possible as the two cities are in different Avios zones despite only being 2 hours flying time apart. Is this correct or should I call back and speak to someone else?

  • Dwadda says:

    21 Jan21 January 08:38

    I’ve done open jaw 241 from cities in different avios zones (BKK, KUL). It is possible. Do you have the additional avios needed for Shanghai (which is further away)?

  • Stu N says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:00

    That’s right – you can make changes to Avios bookings as long as the cities are within the same zone but not where your new city is in a different zone. Eg if you had booked LHR-JFK return you could change your return to IAD (DC) or Boston as they are the same zone (6 I think) but you couldn’t change it to come back from LAX as that is (say) zone 7.

    One option is to cancel and rebook but that is risky as the seats you have now won’t necessarily go back into reward inventory.

    Open jaws are completely possible for new bookings, I think the rule is the two cities need to be closer to each other than either is to London. You normally have to book them on the phone too as the website can’t handle this.

    • mark2 says:

      21 Jan21 January 09:05

      Correct: it is the change which is the problem rather than the open jaw.
      I tried to change flights from Vancouver BC to Seattle (just over 100 miles) but could not because they are in different zones.

      • Scallder says:

        21 Jan21 January 15:17

        Mark – Vancouver seems to have been moved as now the same price as Seattle and LAX

  • Steve-B says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:05

    If you want to change to different inbound/outbound zones on an existing booking you need to cancel and rebook the entire booking I believe, paying the £35 cancellation per ticket and the risk that the seats aren’t added to reward inventory. Definitely possible to book 241 open jaw across different zones though… I’ve booked to ORD and back from SEA in July.

    • CV3V says:

      21 Jan21 January 09:12

      Steve-B wins the prize for the correct answer!

      BA CS will warn you that when cancelling that the 241 voucher, avios, and reward seats may not become instantly available again, but the one time i had to do this it was all instant. I did this for a flight out to Tokyo, then back from KUL, on a 241.

    • LaserBeams says:

      21 Jan21 January 13:06

      Thanks all for your help on this … cancelling and rebooking looks like being the best bet (I can still see plenty of availability so this shouldn’t be a problem). If I cancel and rebook over the phone on the same call, will the 2-for-1 voucher get immediately refunded so I can use it again straight away?

      • CV3V says:

        21 Jan21 January 20:40

        they will warn otherwise, but the voucher should go straight back into your account.

      • Cate says:

        21 Jan21 January 22:59

        Are you going to be ok visa wise before you make the change?

      • LaserBeams says:

        22 Jan22 January 07:27

        Thanks @Cate – I haven’t applied for the visa yet so want to sort out the destinations first and will then apply for the visa

• Dwadda says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:32

  Boingo is a complete waste of time. The app constantly checks to see if you are within range of a hot-spot and even when you are it never, in my experience, successfully logged in. Worse, it takes credit for connecting your device to the mobile data network,which means it pops up all the time.

  A million dots of 50ft circles dotted across the globe is closer to useless than they would have you think. Especially when the successful connection rate is zero.

  Mobile data is a cheaper than chips these days. Just get a local Sim.

  Really really don’t waste your time.

  • Susan says:

    21 Jan21 January 08:42

    YMMV – for me Boingo has been very useful especially in places with paid hotspots provided by the local telecoms companies- not everywhere is near a McDs or Starbucks (thank goodness!). I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s a “freebie” I’ve made good use of from time to time and will be sad to lose.

  • Paul says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:37

    I have to agree. Boing has been dire for me. I have had the app since 2014 and the number of successful logins could be counted on one hand.

    It was so bad that I too had assumed that Anex had ended it sometime ago. I have tried again in recent months with similar results.

  • John says:

    21 Jan21 January 10:34

    Don’t understand. If mobile data is “cheaper than chips” then why does it matter if “it takes credit for connecting your device”?

    Just turn off your wifi and kill the app if you don’t want it to keep checking.

    • S says:

      21 Jan21 January 20:45

      It’s not cheaper than chips when roaming.

      • Andrew says:

        22 Jan22 January 08:44

        Depends where you are roaming. I’m only £20 a month for 8Gb on Double-E including Europe, Oz, NZ, Canada & USA.

  • Stuart_F says:

    21 Jan21 January 10:40

    Dwadda is right in so far as the app is useless. Just manually enter your login details when you need to and it works fine.

  • Nick Burch says:

    21 Jan21 January 14:33

    Skip the app, and just log in manually. I find it comes in handy once or twice a month, even if only to avoid having to go through some stupid hotspots’ registration system!

  • AndyGWP says:

    21 Jan21 January 18:45

    Agree with those above – don’t use the app – just login when you need to 🙂 – pretty certain the BTOpenZone have a Boingo login option and i’ve never had an issue with it 🙂

  • john says:

    22 Jan22 January 12:53

    the boingo app auto-login is very hit and miss, but that seems common with apps that try to support multiple WiFi providers

    I went into settings and switched off everything, since then no more alerts/pop-ups

    though I only run the app to check if there’s a hot spot I can use

• Chelseafi says:

  21 Jan21 January 08:56

  O/T sorry basic question hope to booked flights this week with my BA 241, am I correct in saying I’ll get 3 Avios for every £1 on my BAPP and only 1 every £ if I use my Gold Amex?

  • Stu N says:

    21 Jan21 January 09:03

    You’ll get 3 Avios on BA card, definitely. I think you get 2 MRs per pound spent on travel on the Gold and that should work for Ba.com. Can someone with recent experience validate this?

    • AndyR says:

      21 Jan21 January 09:17

      You get 2 on the Gold that is correct.

    • Jenni says:

      21 Jan21 January 09:35

      Sorry to hijack this, but I have a Walt Disney World package to pay for soon, booked directly via the Walt Disney Travel Company. Would this also qualify for 2 MR per £? Anyone have experience on this please?

      • John says:

        21 Jan21 January 10:35

        You only get 2MR per £ on the Gold Amex when paying an airline.

      • Davide says:

        21 Jan21 January 10:41

        I have been getting 2 mr points for hotel bookings so I would imagine that you would get 2mr points per £.

      • mark2 says:

        21 Jan21 January 10:44

        You get 3 MR per £1 when booking through Amex Travel (but be prepared for an argument with cruises (I got it in the end)).

• Jeremy says:

  21 Jan21 January 09:01

  boingo Wifi is quite useful at the premier inn it gives you the premium tier and saves you a fiver a night

  • John says:

    21 Jan21 January 10:36

    If you wouldn’t have paid then it saves you nothing.

  • Bill says:

    22 Jan22 January 18:02

    Don’t recall seeing the boingo option on the premier speed wifi

• Lee says:

  21 Jan21 January 09:03

  OT – but AMEX Platinum related. does anyone know if you will get MR points for getting gold supplement card from Platinum? I’v already got 5000 MRs for first platinum supplement. Thanks

  • Davide says:

    21 Jan21 January 10:40

    Yes, can anyone help witht this?

    • Matt says:

      21 Jan21 January 11:43

      I also want to know.

  • Graham Walsh says:

    21 Jan21 January 13:32

    I thought it was only on the first supplementary card. I’ve only applied for one on my Plat. I thought the 2nd and others were chargeable.

    • mark2 says:

      21 Jan21 January 17:54

      other Platinum supplementaries are £170, but I believe that you can get gold supplementaries free.

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