Get a 35% discount when you buy Starwood Preferred Guest hotel points

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• Alex W says:

  30 May30 May 06:11

  Shame the £ has tanked Vs the $ in the last month. Wish I’d bought SPG points earlier.

• Craig says:

  30 May30 May 06:37

  OT: If anyone is looking for a Hilton status match/mattress run hotel and the location works I can highly recommend the Doubletree Sheffield Park. For the price I paid I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality, there is no lounge but on a Mon, Wed and Fri from 1900-2030 they have a drinks reception with complimentary beer, wine, soft drinks and nibbles. As Diamond I was invited and I think some of the others were Gold. We tied this in with a couple of days walking in the Peak District and enjoyed it so much we are back next week, which along with my other plans through June and July makes up the 8 stays needed.

  • Mark2 says:

    30 May30 May 07:07

    +1

  • Crafty says:

    30 May30 May 07:58

    We were there Monday night. Good hotel, has a decent pool too, and very friendly staff. Our stay was to finish off an Amex offer, so was effectively free too! Only incongruous aspect was the very obvious prostitute with the guy next door..

    • Craig says:

      30 May30 May 08:53

      Ouch! It wasn’t me, Mrs S wouldn’t have been happy.

    • Alex says:

      30 May30 May 12:02

      Maybe they were on a mattress run too?

    • Crafty says:

      3 Jun3 June 15:34

      Prostitute was in 58…

  • TripRep says:

    30 May30 May 21:14

    Thanks, It’s on my list for a visit down the Midlands later this summer, that’s the hotel, not the temporary guest….

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  30 May30 May 07:02

  More bits. I don’t think it’s been mentioned here (but I’ve been so busy I might have missed it) but from 24 June Virgin Trains East Coast will be replaced with (initially) government operated LNER. Generally I think it’ll be a good thing as VTEC seem to cut costs on the important things (like train maintenance and staffing) and waste it on the gimmicks.

  Even if LNER decide to launch a proper loyalty scheme I don’t see it being ready from day one. So if you collect Flying Club miles it might be worth booking your tickets before the 24 June. Remember tickets booked through the VTEC site only earn miles if the journey includes at least part of the route on a VTEC (or LNER) service. As the booking system still lists train journeys from 24 June as VTEC even though they’ll be operated by LNER then we expect you’ll get the miles if you book before LNER take over. If you don’t then you have a good reason to claim.

  When a new operator takes over your tickets will continue to be valid and timetables will stay the same. You’ll have the same staff on-board and at stations. There’s no risk in booking your tickets now.

  • Perkypat says:

    30 May30 May 08:31

    Wanting to book with them in October, but the cheapest tickets theyve released NCL to LKX are £46. Looks like theyre trying to gouge as much as they can before they leave. If the prices dont come down Ill forgo the rewards and give the money to the new operators

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      30 May30 May 09:08

      I don’t blame you! It’s only worth collecting the Flying Club miles if the fare is one you’re willing to pay. Can’t guarantee fares will go down with LNER but it does seem VTEC release very few of their cheapest fares these days.

    • Jonathan says:

      30 May30 May 16:30

      Do they release Advance tickets that far ahead? With Virgin West Coast it’s 12 weeks so beyond that only options are standard peak/off-peak prices.

• Lumma says:

  30 May30 May 07:14

  OT my Ryanair flight to London from Berlin got cancelled last night, they couldn’t offer me suitable alternatives and I couldn’t find anything on the airlines they partner with in these situations.

  I did manage to book an avios flight on BA to city airport, does anyone know if I’ve got any chance of claiming back the cost of this from Ryanair? The cancellation email claimed it was due to bad weather l, so I’m already expecting them to try and not pay any compensation

  • @alastairtravel says:

    30 May30 May 08:07

    I’d try for compensation anyway, but you may struggle to get back more the cost of your flight with Ryanair (assuming this is greater than the tax on your Avios booking)

    • @alastairtravel says:

      30 May30 May 08:08

      *more than

  • the real harry1 says:

    30 May30 May 08:41

    There WAS bad weather so you’ll be unlikely to get anything more than a refund, definitely no cancellation compensation is payable. Unless…see below:

    So – they couldn’t find you any suitable alternatives and I guess you accepted the refund. Case closed.

    What you COULD have done is not accept the refund and demand to be re-routed (which is one of your EU261 rights). If they couldn’t find you anything suitable, you could have found something yourself (sounds like you did this), and taken the following steps: 1. put it to Ryanair that they must under EU261 re-ticket you on your convenient alternative flight even if it’s on a competitor carrier; 2. if they refused to do this, inform them that you would be booking yourself under EU261 and claiming back the cost from Ryanair, if necessary taking your claim to MCOL. You’d win, simple cancellation—> re-routing case. Document the steps you took when you contacted Ryanair.

    But once you willingly accept a refund, it’s case closed, Ryanair have fulfilled their EU261 obligations. Just don’t accept the refund as I described in the steps above, and you’d have been entitled to a refund of your new ticket cost (and duty of care until you departed, ie food, drink (not alcohol), hotel and communications all refunded with receipts).

    • Lumma says:

      30 May30 May 08:59

      I haven’t accepted any refund yet (the flight was only €14) as I read that accepting that would release them from any obligations. So it’s worth trying to see if I can claim anything back. Although to be fair, I had a friend’s house to stay at last night and a day flight TXL-LCY is better than SXF-STN arriving around midnight. I’ve just lost 4500 avios really as it would’ve cost me around the £17.50 to get home from Stansted

      • the real harry1 says:

        30 May30 May 13:45

        You could have used the cancelled Ryanair flight to claim back a paid re-route ticket & duty of care costs, if you got things in the right order (no blame intended).

        They are much less likely to agree to refunding self re-routing unless you go thru due process (ie ask Ryanair first to re-ticket you etc as above).

      • Lumma says:

        30 May30 May 14:29

        They told me to book my own flights but BA weren’t one of the options. Tried booking easyJet to either lgw or lut but both flights showed up as full when trying to pay for them. Ended up being only 1 later flight today which would’ve gotten me to London too late.

        Only other option other than BA would’ve been eurowings with a stopover somewhere in Germany but their flights were significantly more than the cash price on BA.

        I’m gonna try and make a claim and see what happens. If they pay for my dinner and Berlin public transport that would be fine by me

      • the real harry1 says:

        30 May30 May 14:33

        That’s just Ryanair BS trying to get you to use their preferred partners = Ryanair has a cheaper deal with them.

        Reality is, you can choose any reasonable & appropriate new re-route & charge it to Ryanair.

        Sure – I’d look at possibilities on their list of preferred partners first, but if nothing showing, just choose whatever I wanted.

  • Z1E1 says:

    30 May30 May 14:11

    I did the same on the sunday flights that were cancelled from SXF-STN. No alternative flights were offered and they said they only refund easyjet flights, NOT BA. I took my chances as others have outlined above and am awaiting the response. Their “quickest” alternative travel was a BUS, or standby the next day. I think
    In the end I booked the waldorf to trigger the amex hilton offer and have sent the claim into Ryan air for the £500 BA flights expecting to be kicked back to sort with insurance.

    Since when has “refreshments” not included alcohol?!? Nothing more refreshing.

    • the real harry1 says:

      30 May30 May 14:30

      Ryanair were told quite clearly by the CAA in September 2017 that they must re-route passengers on any competitor airline if that is more convenient for the passenger. Threat of sanctions if Ryanair didn’t immediately comply.

      Ryanair immediately complied.

      But you do need to put a bit of work in & go thru the Ryanair process. Just have to give them the details of your preferred re-routed ticket – when Ryanair say not possible on our preferred re-routing partners, you just say oh yes it is, whether you (Ryanair) prefer this airline or not, you’re paying for my new ticket, Mr O’Leary.

      It’s at that point that they accept re-ticketing you on your suggested new route – or deny it, in which case you’d document the exchange, take it to MCOL, win.

      • Nick says:

        30 May30 May 23:28

        Harry yes that’s true, they did rule that. But it WASN’T the case that you could claim for ‘anything’, only if Ryanair couldn’t reroute you the next day or two. This is important and it is not the case that passengers can claim for absolutely anything, they do have to allow Ryanair a chance to sort it out first, which CAN include the next day.

      • the real harry1 says:

        31 May31 May 04:36

        Sure, as I said, reasonable & appropriate. But if Ryanair are allowing you to re-route yourself same day/ next day as long as you choose from their list of preferred partners (and they are allowing precisely that, giving cancelled people a list of preferred airlines and telling them to book themselves another flight & claim it back), then if there’s nothing available from those partners (or if it’s inconvenient, eg wrong airport far from original destination or timing is bad for you), you have a perfect right under EC261 to get re-routed (which here means re-route yourself as Ryanair often won’t do it for you) same day/ next day on (say) BA. As per CAA interpretation of EC261, which Ryanair was forced to accept.

  • Nick says:

    30 May30 May 23:17

    It really depends what you consider ‘reasonable’ and whether a court would agree. If they offered a flight the same or next day but you insisted on one within a small number of hours, then almost certainly not. If they couldn’t offer a flight for (say) 2 or 3 days then you’d probably be ok. If the original issue was weather then its unreasonable to expect them to pay over the odds as it was genuinely outwith their control.

• Cat says:

  30 May30 May 07:58

  Hey all, OT, I just wanted to check – if I book a Raffles or Fairmont hotel now for a date after the July merge date, the stay will earn rewards points on Accor won’t it?
  Thanks!

• Oli says:

  30 May30 May 08:45

  OT re Curve: How do I know if a transaction is for “financial services”? Would I be blocked instantly or would it go through first (it did in my case) and then I get told off later? How do I know if my credit card sees it as cash advance?

  Thanks!

  • the real harry1 says:

    30 May30 May 08:54

    it’s suck it & see/ learn by example/ ask here if anybody has done the transaction you wish to perform

  • Mark2 says:

    30 May30 May 09:55

    Mine have come through as ‘Business Services’

    • Oli says:

      30 May30 May 10:40

      Yea same – it’s buying Premium Bonds from NS&I in my case. Went through just fine as “Business Services”, does that mean I’m safe now or is there another potential hurdle on the credit card side of things?

  • Rob says:

    30 May30 May 09:59

    It just fails to go through.

    • Alex W says:

      30 May30 May 10:22

      This is my experience. Haven’t had any comeback (yet)

  • the_real_a says:

    30 May30 May 23:34

    Its best to do a test transaction of £1 on something, and let it settle on your credit card account and see if a fee is applied. Having said that, curve purchases are charged to a generic “dump” merchant code for Business Services which includes a huge number of legit non-financial merchants. So it would be impractical for credit card providers to block on this alone. Of course nothing to stop them coding curve on a black list, but financial institutes loathe to make one off exceptions.

• Wivus says:

  30 May30 May 08:58

  OT. Can anyone please tell me how can you check the reward seat availability on BA if you want to book more than one 2-4-1 rewards on the same flight?

  • Darren says:

    30 May30 May 09:25

    I assume you want 4 seats, just alter the search number of pax to 4, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 241, if there are 4 seats then you can book them with 2 x 241’s.

    • Wivus says:

      30 May30 May 09:33

      Thanks Darren.

      • Darren says:

        30 May30 May 16:31

        One thing I should add, if you’re only searching don’t select the use voucher option on BA.com, it’s irrelevant at that stage. Only select that option when making a booking as it has no relevance to the number of seats available.

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  30 May30 May 09:13

  More OT VTEC stuff. They launched a sale yesterday but it’s by invitation only so it just means word of mouth ends up annoying people who aren’t eligible. The fares are decent though so it’s worth checking to see if you got an email.

  Acting all innocent I called web support 03457 225 111 (option 3) and asked about the sale. They took my email address and said they’d pass it to marketing to see if I can be enrolled. There’s only a small chance but the way I see it is it’s worth a shot.

  • Perkypat says:

    30 May30 May 09:45

    Just checked their website again, tickets are now down to £28.50 for our dates in October. Havent been notified of a ‘sale’, but Ill probably buy at that price.

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