A Club Aspire airport lounge is to open at London Gatwick’s North Terminal

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• Mark says:

  1 May1 May 07:00

  O/T as bits. I instructed a transfer of some Hertz Gold Plus Reward points yesterday to Marriott but didn’t get an email confirm and my points balance didn’t change. The Hertz website said it can take 6-8 weeks, any insight into if this has worked? Has anyone had issues with transferring Hertz points before? Thanks

  • Bob says:

    1 May1 May 07:13

    Yes from Hertz to IHG.

    It took something like a little less than 4 weeks the first time I did it two years ago. I believe it is also advertised 6-8 wekks for IHG.

    It took less than 3 weeks for the second time when I did it this year.

    It seems it is quicker when it has been done once in the past.
    Or maybe it is just when it is performed or good luck.

    • Stevie G says:

      1 May1 May 08:36

      Has Hertz removed a lot of partners you can transfer to? I’m sure in never used to be this then and Rob’s (rather old) article may suggest more partners.

      • Stevie G says:

        1 May1 May 08:38

        Autocorrect-it and thin changed.

      • Rob says:

        1 May1 May 09:17

        If you go to the transfer page, it is there in a dropdown – found it for a reader the other week.

  • RussellH says:

    1 May1 May 10:09

    Yes, a couple of years ago I had all sorts of problems with transferring Hertz points to Marriott. I took it up with Hertz CS who told me that there were significant technical problems that would take some time to sort out, so, they told me, I should just keep trying. At some stage it would work, they said. I must have tried every other day for a month. One day when I logged into my Marriott a/c I found lots of points transferred from Hertz – must have been at least six weeks from when I first tried, maybe more…
    🙂

• 2002ad says:

  1 May1 May 07:05

  OT: does anyone know if the platinum upgrade from gold charge card still exists (20k points) and if it’s a targetted offer or if anyone can do it?

  When I tried to get the old gold credit card ( think it was 5k points for £500 spend) a couple of months ago using the generic link I wasn’t given any bonus points with Amex claiming it was targeted offer only.

  • Tony says:

    1 May1 May 11:20

    I upgraded 3 weeks ago via generic link (i.e. I wasn’t targeted) and I hit the £1,000 target fairly quickly — points posted within 48 hours.

    • 2002ad says:

      1 May1 May 22:01

      Thanks Tony

• Ammar says:

  1 May1 May 07:26

  Ot – what is a good way of getting to the ic hong kong in the evening arriving around 9pm? Ps can u use uber in Hong Kong or Didi like China?
  Thanks

  • roberto says:

    1 May1 May 07:43

    Yes Uber is available in Hong Kong. Cost me 380 HKD to get into TST in March. Free wifi at the airport and easy pick area nearby.

    • Jaycee says:

      1 May1 May 20:29

      Uber is actually illegal in Hong Kong (even though it still operates). Normal taxi is cheaper in general than Uber.

  • JamesB says:

    1 May1 May 08:18

    My favourite way to arrive in HK regardless of time of day is front seat upstairs on a public bus…safe, fun, cheap and great views

    • Polly says:

      1 May1 May 18:08

      Agree, fab views coming in the expressway…night time more impressive tho..

  • Scott says:

    1 May1 May 08:25

    Depends how many folk. If on your own I would Airport Express to Kowloon station and then taxi. Cost overall probably $180/190 (£16-17). If with other people makes a taxi/uber the whole way more attractive.

  • Will says:

    1 May1 May 08:37

    Airport Express to Kowloon then taxi/uber from there to IC.

    Having said that if you call ahead and get a hotel car to pick you up in my experience you might get a nicer room and in room check in.

  • Waribai says:

    1 May1 May 22:40

    With the family in tow, I always book the hotel car. They radio ahead, take you straight to your room and do the check in in the comfort of your room!

• Smid says:

  1 May1 May 07:36

  I never used adblock until six months ago and was forced to be a repetitive amount of low quality ads from whatever major advertiser dominates. I tend to whitelist my favourites until inevitably there’s an ad which makes chrome on pc or browser run like crap again (usually excessive animation) then I have to block the site until it goes away. It has happened on guardian, independent, flyertalk, hfp and a bunch of others…

  Adverts have never been as bad as recently.

  • Ian says:

    1 May1 May 08:57

    I’ve been using AdBlocker Ultimate for a while now and it’s changed my browsing experience. It’s currently showing that it’s blocked 13 ads on this page alone.

    • Rob says:

      1 May1 May 09:16

      …. which is total nonsense as there clearly are not 13 ad units on any page of HFP.

      You are costing me about 1p per desktop page view, by the way.

      • Healthy Skeptic says:

        1 May1 May 09:40

        Not being funny but isn’t that vastly offset by the £ gained from affiliate links, the ads that aren’t blocked and bon vivant etc

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 10:19

          Here’s the thing. The ad space we sell ourselves (and which is not blocked as the ads come off our server) is priced based on the number of impressions the Google ads get and NOT page views. So, no, I don’t actually get paid for the ads you do see IF you are blocking the Google Adsense ones.

      • Andreas says:

        1 May1 May 09:41

        How many views does hfp get a day? 🙂

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 10:15

          My overheads – Anika, the office plus normal bits and pieces – are well over £70,000 per year …

      • AK says:

        1 May1 May 09:45

        Regardless of how much it’s vastly offset by any other source of revenue Rob makes, the fact still stands that we’re costing him for something that doesn’t even affect our HfP experience.

      • Simon says:

        1 May1 May 10:18

        i didn’t realise adblocks had a negative impact on earnings – how does that work? I’d assumed the only thing it stopped was the ads for the enduser. Whitelisted.

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 10:23

          As above, the ads we sell ourselves (such as the IHG ad on the mobile site today) are priced based on Google Adsense impressions, as that is the most verifiable way of showing it.

          If you don’t let the Google Adsense ads appear then it reduces the amount we can invoice for the ads we sell ourselves, because what we charge is based on Google Adsense impressions x £x.

      • Simon says:

        1 May1 May 10:32

        Ah, I’d assumed all payments would be on click through rates. (and, perhaps naively, imagine myself to be a non clicker!). Thanks.
        Your readership seems to have a lot of goodwill so I imagine there will now be some whitelisting happening.

      • callum says:

        1 May1 May 10:33

        The running costs are 1p per page view or you would have received 1p in ad revenue? If the former you’re being majorly ripped off!

        Though having whitelisted this site when the problems started, I can’t say the ads have been overly intrusive (just rather ugly). It never occurred to me to turn it off here to help out as I’m just so used to it blocking ads everywhere, so I guess these issues have been a good thing!

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 10:40

          We get roughly 1p per page view for desktop views (and a fraction of that for mobile views, unfortunately).

      • Delbert says:

        1 May1 May 11:08

        Thanks for the reminder, Rob. I’ve whitelisted HfP as the benefits of HfP far outweigh any visual distraction.

      • Andrew says:

        1 May1 May 11:50

        Is it possible the booking.com ones are counting as 3 given they’re separate links, one for each hotel?

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 13:11

          Wouldn’t matter, there are only 6 externally-filled ad boxes on the article pages – plus the Amex Gold and Virgin credit card ads which we control. That is 8 (or 6 if you see the Gold and Virgin card ads). They are just making up random numbers if they say 13.

      • Andrew says:

        1 May1 May 15:12

        While the adverts themselves may be unobtrusive it must be remembered that their tracking ability isn’t. If you can see a google ad then they can also see you and it will forever be linked to your online profile as you’re tracked all over the internet. That’s why I block adverts everywhere without exception. I’m happy to buy through afiliate links, or even donate directly, the commision from which I expect dwarfs that from ad views.

      • Nick says:

        1 May1 May 15:24

        Rob, I would have zero problem whitelisting you if you guaranteed that you would only have no intrusive ads at all, only ‘light’ ones. I appreciate that you have a business to run and really want to help you out. But you don’t and won’t do that, and I simply can’t be doing with obtrusive ads, which sadly you still have a lot of, so I turned Adblock back on for your site. Sorry but that’s how it is.

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 17:13

          There is nothing intrusive. We have finally killed the source of the video ads that were popping up late last year. There has not been one …. single …. comment …. this year about annoying ads as far as I can remember. When they did pop up it was nothing to do with us.

      • Andrew says:

        1 May1 May 17:29

        According to alexa HFP gets 61,089 views per day

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 19:35

          Less 20% for bot traffic, less ad blockers, less 50% mobile which is effectively worthless 🙂

  • John says:

    1 May1 May 09:00

    I use Disconnect

    Adblock Plus is not trustworthy – they allow some ads possibly in return for clandestine payments, or at least have been suspected to do so. Even though there is the option to disable everything, the whole thing is almost like an annoying ad itself

  • Aeronaut says:

    1 May1 May 09:06

    I haven’t had any issues with silly ads on HfP – I think Rob’s careful to keep them reasonable – but Flyertalk can be ridiculous.

    Advertisers (and publishers of said ads) should realise they are going to get blocked if said ads cripple users’ machines.

    • David P says:

      1 May1 May 10:10

      The whole reason I installed adblock in the first place was because of Flyertalk ads. Many of them contained some kind of redirection malware which would tie up my phone browser in an endless loop, but it would also affect my laptop as well. Complaining to site admin never solved the problem because they’d take ages to block one set of ads, then the problem would recur within a day or two.

      Now I have adblock on as standard and only remember to whitelist certain sites when prompted. Like today.

      • Delbert says:

        1 May1 May 10:28

        Good point, David P. I do feel for Rob in this case but with the constant bombardment of ads across the net then, as you say, most viewers leave their ad blockers on by default and think nothing more of it.

• N says:

  1 May1 May 07:54

  OT- I appreciate there’s no correct answer to this, but what are others doing with their SPG Amex cards? I’m due a churn and can fit one in before the end of the year assuming it doesn’t get pulled before December… Should I keep hold just in case the card disappears? Or shall I go ahead and churn?

  • Liz says:

    1 May1 May 08:05

    I was holding on to mine but decided in the end to cancel last week in the hope of another churn later in the year. But who knows……

  • Tom Cook says:

    1 May1 May 08:17

    I churned on the basis of being able to reapply in September – fingers crossed.

  • JamesB says:

    1 May1 May 08:22

    I cancelled mine hoping for one last churn in late October but prepared to be disappointed.

  • wally1976 says:

    1 May1 May 08:59

    Personally I’m going for one last churn (hopefully)!

  • Cate ⛱️ says:

    1 May1 May 09:24

    We’re going to keep ours for the foreseeable future as we’re waiting to see how things are after the Sparriott merger settles in August.

    Regarding the points being swept over from SPG in August, I presume they will all go irregardless of the 1000 point minimum? Also what happens to the new points we earn via Amex? Will they be sent to Marriott instead of SPG monthly at the new 1:2 rate??

    • Genghis says:

      2 May2 May 13:13

      2:3?

  • KevMc says:

    1 May1 May 16:53

    I got rid of mine in the hope of a final churn in October. My wife has kept hers in the meantime, just in case it gets pulled to new applicants before then

  • Steve-B says:

    1 May1 May 18:45

    Interesting that the general consensus seems to be to cancel. I’ve voted the other way, partly driven my plans to do a couple of referrals but also a bit of pessimism given Amex’s recent approach to dropping the PRGC without notice and the upcoming MasterCard launch.

    • Tom Cook says:

      1 May1 May 20:37

      Can you not refer from Plat, which equates 18kMR which converts to 9k SPG?

      Referral from SPG only triggers 5k.

• Soloflyer1977 says:

  1 May1 May 08:05

  O/T I have Lloyds duo/Amex Gold (and companion card); can’t apply for BA amex again until September. My husband has the BA Premium amex and we are a couple of thousand away from the £10k. Apart from the referring the husband to the Amex Gold, are there any other cards I should take out as we will have a decent amount of spend until Sept? I already confuse the hell out my husband on which card to use so ideally would like to apply under my name for another over the next couple of months. Cheers

  • Anna says:

    1 May1 May 09:11

    Upgrade to Platinum (you could both do this)? Your OH could also apply for the Lloyds card if he can be bothered ringing up or going into a branch. My OH also gets confused with the cards (I think there’s a potential club there!) but yours seems to have the most points earning potential here. However, if you upgrade to Platinum you can make a few referrals and get 18k for each one accepted even if your OH isn’t eligible for sign up bonuses. Just don’t refer him for BA blue or his BAPP account will get downgraded.

    Moving away from MR and avios, you could get a hotel rewards card.

• Lee says:

  1 May1 May 08:20

  OT – Harrods Spend £100 or more, get £30 back on most of my cards
  Gift card excluded

  • Andrew says:

    1 May1 May 09:04

    Grabbed that. Hopefully it will layer with the usual Birthday discount coming up.

  • ricardo says:

    1 May1 May 09:49

    There’s also a new £100 off 10 trips with Mytaxi

    • Rob says:

      1 May1 May 10:13

      Ooh, very handy if I get that, since I can take the kids to school for £7 🙂

  • Anna says:

    1 May1 May 10:24

    Yes and 5 avios per £1. Fathers’ Day sorted!

• Gin and Tonic Please says:

  1 May1 May 09:09

  OT – I’ve got an Amex offer for £100 off £1000 spend at Trailfinders, which I’d like to use to book flights to the US for Sep. The T&Cs say the discount is off a “Trailfinders holiday”. So, does anyone know: (1) If Trailfinders are OK to book a flight only, rather than flight + hotel, and (2) If they do this, will it be OK for the Amex credit?

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 09:14

    Amex cannot tell the difference so highly likely that it works OK.

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:

      1 May1 May 09:18

      Thanks. Appreciate it

      • Travel Yoda says:

        1 May1 May 20:31

        I used last time round. Don’t recall it saying it was for holidays only. But I only booked flights and it worked.

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