British Airways applies to wet lease three Qatar Airways A330 aircraft

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• Alex says:

  11 May11 May 10:30

  OT: I’m thinking of getting the Premium BA Amex to get the 2-4-1 voucher. I would probably use the card to buy 100k Avios which would bring me to 1600GBP spend. Does that count as BA spend (ie 3x avios) ? The idea is to fly west coast return in F — I already have enough for 1 way, but thinking it’s actually a good value deal with the sign-up bonus and the voucher.

  Also, any idea if there will be another bonused Avios sale in the year? Might wait for that…

  • Jonny says:

    11 May11 May 10:41

    no it won’t, will appear as “points.com” I believe

    • Stu N says:

      11 May11 May 11:21

      Yes – it definitely comes through as points.com at standard rate.

  • @andrewseftel says:

    11 May11 May 17:02

    Bonus points only apply to flights and holidays bought from BA

• Crafty says:

  11 May11 May 10:53

  OT: Very odd one, and interesting in current privacy climate. I’ve just been on Radisson Rewards live chat. I wrote a follow up question in the box, but didn’t submit it immediately as I wanted to wait until the agent finished her previous answer. But the agent then responded to my follow up question – before I’d even asked it! This demonstrates that they have visibility of what you are typing into the box, as you are writing it – in advance of your having submitted it. So be careful what you say! Surveillance economy indeed…

• Stu says:

  11 May11 May 11:27

  O/T

  Anyone flown Hainan airlines before? do they accumulate Tier points for BAEC?

  • Stu N says:

    11 May11 May 20:49

    Nope – needs to be BA, a One World partner airline or a BA code share to earn Avios and TPs.

    • Genghis says:

      11 May11 May 20:57

      Check out https://www.wheretocredit.com/hainan-airlines

  • Yan says:

    12 May12 May 01:24

    Alaska is likely your best bet.
    Hainan is the only mainland Chinese carrier with five star Skytrax status, but isn’t part of any major alliance (CX would have vetoed any Chinese carriers from joining ow anyway).

• Ammar says:

  11 May11 May 11:34

  OT – I have £200 pounds of Heathrow Reward Vouchers ( i converted my points last year during a promo), not got a chance to pop down to Heathrow before they expire in June, so have recruited a family member who is travelling to use them instead – will they be ok in the shop to use all these vouchers without me being physically present? Any experience, looking to make this process as smooth as possible, so if any shops are easier to deal with eg Dixons Travel vs Tiffanys let me know…thanks

  • Rob says:

    11 May11 May 12:09

    My wife has used mine, no issue and diff surname on credit card.

• Ammar says:

  11 May11 May 11:36

  Also as a reference point – I am sure many are aware but I booked a bonus points package to try hit one of my last IHG accelerate targets last month to hit the overall bonus but booked a Bonus points package rather than a YOUR RATE BONUS POINTS PACKAGE so missed out on 15k IHG points!
  Hope this helps others during the current accelerate……
  Never the less, i have complained to IHG but not hopeful for an outcome, what is more annoying is the CP Beijing i booked via the app (part of my accelerate) did not have any YOUR RATE BONUS PACKAGE, only bonus points package!

  • Luke says:

    12 May12 May 02:00

    I had the same problem last year, exchanged a few emails with IHG and 4 months later all points (both target and achievement) reached my account. I caught them on wording – in my case target headline was saying YOUR RATE BONUS PACKAGE, but when you clicked on target detail, there was no mention of your rate bonus package at all, just saying bonus package rate…good luck

• C says:

  11 May11 May 11:44

  OT, and this might just be my own incompetence, but i can’t seem to search the BA website for flights between Hong Kong and Tokyo. The idea would be to redeem Avios against a Cathay or JAL flight, which i understood was possible via BA, but the website has just come back with error messages for over a week. Is this something that needs to be done over the phone?

  • Stu N says:

    11 May11 May 11:55

    You need to make sure you’re looking for award flights using the “standard Avios search” option. The reward flight finder tool only shows BA metal.

    Also I found I occasionally got more results looking at HKG-NRT and HKG-HND airport codes separately, compared to HKG-TYO as a generic city code.

    CX J is fabulous – worth trying to make sure you get a long haul aircraft with flat beds rather than a regional one with angle-flats. Apparently if the flight has F and PE its long haul, it not regional.

    CX F is easily the best flight I have taken in every respect – if you have the Avios and can find availability I would totally recommend it.

    • C says:

      11 May11 May 12:19

      Excellent, thanks.

      • JamesB says:

        11 May11 May 22:35

        I do not know your big picture but if you are looking at multi-city around Asia to include TYO you should consider X-TYO-Y in JAL business using Alaska MP if you have a means of getting the miles.

  • CV3V says:

    11 May11 May 16:42

    As Stu says, if you can get CX F availability go for it, did HKG to LHR in F and still the best flight i have ever done. The level of service was embarrassingly good, 2 crew for 6 passengers, and the CSM as cover if needed! They apologised for the ice cream being frozen too hard, and made up a basket of snacks whilst the ice cream softened – imagine that on BA. They also apologised for not topping up my champagne glass for the caviar, and did i want another serving of caviar. I actually emailed CX to say what a great flight i had, they responded by pretty much saying ‘yeah, its supposed to be good, its first class’.

    CX in J is also very good, good service and a really good seat.

    • Stu N says:

      11 May11 May 20:44

      I really want to do proper CX F long haul after HND-HKG. I’d defer our annual 2-4-1 by 6-12 months to make it happen.

      The “regional” version was a slimmed down version of long haul. For this our cabin director apologised but that was wholly unnecessary. This limited service meant no caviar, sleep suit or amenity kit but one coped.

      They still fitted in a welcome drink (super vintage champagne), full Kaiseki (Japanese tasting menu with matched drinks) and some fine digestifs. An excellent use of 30k Avios and about £100.

      If you don’t have the Avios or it’s not available J is still very, very good but actually I would probably pay full price for Avios to redeem this.

  • Curious says:

    11 May11 May 23:13

    JAL are great too. Fab cabin crew

    • YL says:

      12 May12 May 01:13

      I second that JAL are great too!!
      I love CX F, but last month I flew long haul JAL F for the first time, and it was the best F experience I ever had.

      The quality of the food and drink, the presentation of the food, the service were just outstanding! + free WiFi

• Will says:

  11 May11 May 11:48

  Hope they block it for the sake of not exploiting cheap labour. Just saying.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    12 May12 May 08:30

    Cheaper, they still get a fair wage tax free and very nice accommodation fully paid for

    I’m sure a lot of them don’t feel exploited

    • Rob says:

      12 May12 May 08:46

      Given that they probably earn 10x the average Qatari wage I’m sure they are delighted.

      Someone told me this week that he had a private butler in a super luxury hotel in the Middle East who told the guest he was paid the equivalent of $5 per day.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        12 May12 May 17:04

        Agree service staff, mostly foreigners, are poorly paid but it’s not the average Qatari wage as the true locals are extremely well paid in all sectors.

        You’ll also hear as many stories of very generous tips/gifts as you do of extremely poor treatment of maids etc

        Also Seems like wages depend upon which country their passport is from so it’s not entirely fair.

• Ian says:

  11 May11 May 12:07

  We’ll be in Aberdeen next month so look forward to using the new lounge – and will report here unless a review has already been done by then.

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