Thameslink and Great Northern declassify First Class carriages

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• I KILL FOR AVIOS says:

  1 Jul1 July 04:51

  Yawn,yawn are we going to be able to transfer the 90,000 Avios from Iberia to BAEC ?
  They drop Monday.

  • ChrisC says:

    1 Jul1 July 10:44

    Yawn yawn for repeating the same comment a couple of days running.

    Why not wait until tomorrow and try it then come back and tell everyone of it works or not.

  • Andy says:

    1 Jul1 July 11:54

    4:50am? Are you one of those vultures who lives in an American time zone who bought like 300 tickets on 30 accounts?

• Mike says:

  1 Jul1 July 04:55

  So the cheapest route from London to Gatwick is frome London Bridge, on a “Southern Only” ticket for I think £9.80.
  This can now be used on any train from Victoria including GatEx and also in first class on Thameslink.

  It’s almost ‘anything goes’ on the Brighton Mainline at the moment!

  • Gumshoe says:

    1 Jul1 July 06:12

    It’s only £8.30 off peak with Oyster or contactless.

    Or £6.50 if you get off, touch out and touch back in again at East Croydon. (Typically 8-12tph off-peak from there to Gatwick so should only add 5-10 mins to the journey time.)

    • Mike says:

      1 Jul1 July 06:56

      Sorry, my £9.80 was at peak time.
      I agree oyster is cheaper off peak.

    • john says:

      2 Jul2 July 10:30

      Isn’t there a time limit on touching out before you can touch back in?

• Lee says:

  1 Jul1 July 06:48

  The council might moan about the Blackpool hotel, but it is a dump. I need of serious refurbishment.

  The new Hampton (I think) will be a much better option anyway.

  Not going to shed any tears over it leaving the chain.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:08

    I think the moaning is because another landmark hotel will now be left to rot, rather than being taken over by a reputable operator and refurbished. I don’t think they are necessarily sad about the reduction in redemption opportunities for HfP fans! 🙂

    • Rob says:

      1 Jul1 July 10:05

      Britannia is a bit of a running joke in the UK, which is why it went in. 700 click-throughs to the Blackpool Gazette so far, so clearly a lot of interest.

      • Andrew Stock says:

        1 Jul1 July 10:38

        Always gets voted worst UK hotel chain in the UK every year.

        They’re famous for being used by the Home Office to acomadate asylum seekers.

      • Craig says:

        1 Jul1 July 11:41

        My company used to put me up in a Britannia, it was filthy. It took 3 goes once to find a room that was anywhere near clean, after several months and many complaints with photographic evidence we pressured the company into using a different hotel. #bogeygate

      • Andrew says:

        1 Jul1 July 20:00

        Is there actually any change in ownership/management here? Or is this simply a case of Britannia having always owned the property now reverting to their own brand rather than put in the investment to get it back to Hilton franchise standards?

        • Rob says:

          1 Jul1 July 21:25

          Not sure to be honest. Don’t know if Britannia is just a management company or if it owns the property.

• AndyW says:

  1 Jul1 July 06:58

  Apologies for the massive OT, but given there are a lot of plat holders here.. had an issue with a hire car in Spain, in short a scratch they claim was new (as an aside don’t use drivalia, complete rip off merchants). Question is, if I put a claim through plat insurance, does anyone have experience of this then having a knock on impact on their personal car insurance premiums? I would imagine this sort of claim would hit the database all insurers use. Thanks

  • the real harry1 says:

    1 Jul1 July 07:16

    I think claims for scratches are treated completely differently to claims for accident (collision etc) and there won’t be any need to declare it to your regular insurers (and won’t be held against you for non-disclosure)

    I’ll have a dig

    • the real harry1 says:

      1 Jul1 July 07:41

      Actually most of the decent sites say you have to declare any claim in the last 5 years (and any new claim), it doesn’t have to be an accident claim. Risk is that a future claim gets declined if you omit to tell them. And yes, some (not all) ins cos will then put up your future premiums by 5-25% because computer sez even a no-fault claim indicates you are higher risk going forward. Get around this by shopping around. But declaring a claim for a scratch wouldn’t normally result in a demand for more money on this year’s premium.

  • Alan says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:40

    Interesting, I think it’s one thing if you’ve had an actual accident and are then ask the question by your personal insurer. However for a claim for a scratch I would have said you’re just using the excess insurance to cover an invoice from the car hire company.

  • Alistair says:

    1 Jul1 July 09:05

    You’re claiming on hire car excess insurance. You’re not claiming against car insurance. It has no effect on your car insurance, just like a claim against travel insurance would have no effect on your car insurance.

    • Matt says:

      1 Jul1 July 18:10

      Actually, you are claiming against Car Rental Insurance. This is in effect car insurance. Amex Platinum does not cover your excess if you have insurance included in the rental agreement.

      In the T&Cs, If you do not decline CDW or any other insurance typically offered by car hire companies, you are not covered. This is very important, especially when renting a car in UK/Europe where CDW is usually included by default.

• Memesweeper says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:02

  OT: Curve reporting payment processing problems today. I’m unable to add my new HSBC card to my Curve wallet, which may or may not be related.

  • Simon says:

    1 Jul1 July 07:52

    Had my first curve card declined yesterday….

    • Rob MC says:

      1 Jul1 July 09:50

      Used mine twice yesterday and worked fine.

      • Nadia says:

        1 Jul1 July 20:33

        Was out shopping this afternoon and was using the card fine – only realised a couple of hours later that curve transactions had been declined after the fact, as notification appeared on my phone later but in the shops they had seemed to go through fine.
        Will curve be able to recharge those later? Don’t want those shops/cafes to lose out but I can’t remember how much was spent as they were little transactions & I declined receipts…

      • the real harry1 says:

        1 Jul1 July 20:53

        @Nadia sounds like a great way to get some shoplifting in! Pay on Curve, everybody’s happy, take away your frocks etc then later on it turns out nobody paid for the goods 🙂

        Not sure how sustainable a model this is

    • Alex W says:

      1 Jul1 July 11:24

      I had 2 declined messages for Mrs W’s Curve yesterday. She claims the transactions went through through. Either some sort of error going on or she has effectively stolen a Gregg’s sandwich and a pharmacy prescription!

    • Kip says:

      1 Jul1 July 12:03

      Had my first decline today trying to pay HMRC.

      • Genghis says:

        1 Jul1 July 12:25

        Mine declined this morning

    • Chris says:

      1 Jul1 July 14:21

      Yes, paid for parking early Friday, two notifications through app, one saying decline one not (only attempted one payment)
      Payment receipt received so they think they got paid but doesn’t show in TXN history in curve yet..

      • Peter K says:

        1 Jul1 July 15:47

        Wife’s worked at the cash machine today but was declined in supermarket… Showing as processed on the app though. Just sent them a message…

  • Sam Hall says:

    1 Jul1 July 11:58

    Used mine yesterday and today in Greece. No probs.

  • Jon says:

    1 Jul1 July 13:51

    Mine was declined yesterday too.

• Nigel the pensioner says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:28

  Hampton by HIlton, Britannia Hotels, Blackpool………..AmEx Platinum cards……..erm, are we having a bottom of the barrel news day????!!!

  • Danny says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:56

    It’s Sunday, Nigel the pensioner, so put your feet up and have a nice cup of tea…

    • the real harry1 says:

      1 Jul1 July 15:38

      every day’s a put your feet up and have a nice cup of tea day when you’re a pensioner…

      sometimes worth making a grumpy comment to some youngsters as that probably makes your day – I got one yesterday when I was riding my bike over a [very quiet country] road where the bike trail says cyclists dismount, this old coffin dodger biddy says: you do know you’re not supposed to ride your bike across here! in a lovely posh accent lol

      I just smiled back 🙂

• Simon says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:51

  Used to travel thameslink great northern on a first class session ticket. The refund while not unwelcome, is no substitute for the seat you were guaranteed and the rugby scrum you avoided getting on the train. Glad my work plans have changed and I don’t use the train anymore, as on top of the disruption it must be a real drop in standards and service.

  • Andrew Stock says:

    1 Jul1 July 10:41

    It’s a complete shambles! I’m now on 30+ delay repay claims since 20th May 2018 and I use the Moorgate line which has been less impacted than the Thameslink lines.

• Jon says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:59

  OT: Amex -> Radisson

  Trying to add Radisson Rewards to my Amex partners so I can transfer some Amex MR points across for an upcoming hotel stay.

  Amex doesn’t seem to recognise my Radisson Rewards account details, either with or without spaces every 4th digit. Did someone here mention that you need to add/remove some digits to the 16-digit RR number to get it to work, or am I just better off phoning Amex?

  • TripRep says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:05

    Think I commented on this the other day, Phone AMEX, they will do it manually over the phone.

    They should really have info on the web which digits you need to drop.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:12

    Last 10 does the trick, if I remember rightly. There is a thread on a famous frequent flyer site on this subject.

  • Hamed Caesar says:

    1 Jul1 July 11:08

    you have to remove first five digits or something such

  • Olly says:

    1 Jul1 July 11:15

    It took mine about 6 months to go through. Amex said it was down to Radisson for reading do long and vice versa. Amex CSA did offer to move the points across in my behalf in the interim, although I was concerned as my status was still going to be showing Silver and no benefits so didn’t bother and booked a Hilton. It took three or four phone calls till a competent Radisson Rewards rep resolved it.

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