New list of IHG PointBreaks redemptions published on Monday

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• Dan says:

  21 Jul21 July 11:14

  OT – currently in Lisbon and due to fly back to LHR this evening. I can check in but can’t print / download my boarding pass. My wife and son, on separate tickets, have successfully managed to do this. These are CE avios reward tickets. Reason for separate tickets is needed to burn Amex 241 and Lloyds vouchers. I emailed for the tickets to be linked – had no reply but given same row on both flights with with and child allocated aisle seats. Reason for failure to issue boarding pass to me is an “irregularity on one or more of my travel documents and needs to be checked by BA at the airport before travel”. I have a UK passport with plenty of time to expiry. Am I being bumped for overbooking? Random check?

  • marcw says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:33

    It has happened to me previously as well. Sometimes they choose random pax to check whether there´s a match between the Passport/ID and the information introduced in the API, or they´ve detected a discrepancy.
    Nothing to be worried about, just a PITA to go to the check-in desk.

  • Dan says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:47

    Thanks both. I’ll relax and get on with my day! I have checked bags so no issue queuing for a printed pass.

• Dominic says:

  21 Jul21 July 11:36

  OT

  Going to be self-employed from August. First time ever for me so totally new to everything.

  Anyone else on here that is self-employed apply a monetary value to their points if they use them for business/work purposes? If so, how do you value them? Standard 1p/point value or based on the cash value of the individual redemption?

  Doesn’t seem outrageous to me to think of them as having cash value to reduce tax bill but like I said, I’m new to this!

  Sure this may have been asked before but probably overlooked it as it would never have applied to me. Thanks.

  • Lady London says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:47

    I put some through at a value I’d bought a few at. But I don’t think my business use exceeded the amount I’d bought. My accountant was happy with that valuation proof. I’m not sure if that would extend if you’d used many more points for business than you’d actually bought.. you’d have to ask your accountant. I have a feeling that the Revenue would be onto that quite quickly and would start asking people to prove the cost of all the points used for the business and expect that to be less if theyd not actually cost you cash that you could prove.

  • Rob says:

    21 Jul21 July 11:54

    If you sell them to yourself at what BA sells them to you for then you have a decent defence.

    • Genghis says:

      21 Jul21 July 12:07

      I disagree. Points purchased by you and then use in for travel would be fine as there’s a prescribed cash amount. However, points earned through spending on credit cards etc are outside the scope of income tax in terms of paying tax. Using those points to then lower your tax bill, you’d be on dodgy ground. But it’s not what I as an accountant thinks or what other accountants think, it’s what HMRC think.

      • Sussex bantam says:

        21 Jul21 July 12:27

        Also be careful because technically if you ascribe a value to them in your business when you spend them the must have had a value when they received them.

        If anyone ever aduited you that could get very messy !

      • George says:

        21 Jul21 July 12:57

        I’m with Genghis – I’ve not found a single viable way to justify redemptions as recoverable or expense-able. I stuck to earning them with business spend and redeeming them for much needed time off. The only time I ever ‘sold’ points to the company I first bought those points (exactly the number for the redemption, which was a fifth of the cash price) and expensed the points purchase.

        For hotels, redemptions for business have also never stacked up in terms of value per point – a cash rate is tax deductible (20/40%), VAT deductible, and earns loyalty points + cc points and no chance of Revenue issues. Redemption is none of the above and for business spend this seriously reduces the value per point, pretty much always below my spend threshold.

      • Dominic says:

        21 Jul21 July 13:07

        Good point about using a tax deducted cash rate to work out the points value. I didn’t think of this.

        With the tax removed from the cash price the points value is much poorer.

      • the real harry1 says:

        21 Jul21 July 20:47

        Bean counters. You can’t live with them.

        You can’t live without them 🙂

    • David MacPherson says:

      21 Jul21 July 21:11

      I went through a phase of using some for business travel, but as a one man band staying at a 5k pointsbreak for about 60 days, I felt it was acceptable – especially so as they generally gave me around 3k points back each three day stay.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    21 Jul21 July 13:12

    I think I’d let the points go and be happy I can offset the surcharges/fees against tax.

• Lady Londno says:

  21 Jul21 July 11:43

  some people have no class.

  sorry I haven’t had enough coffee today yet 🙂

  • Peter K says:

    21 Jul21 July 13:13

    More coffee is worth having, especially as you struggled to spell London ????

    I thought that as you only get a max of 100 bonus entries (if Rob’s link above is one) that it wouldn’t hurt to help a friend ????

• xcalx says:

  21 Jul21 July 11:57

  OT anyone with November IB flights from Miami to the UK may want to check for flight time changes. We had MIA-MAD-MAN just got changed to MIA-LHR-MAN on BA. am I right in thinking some unexpected avios may be heading my way.

  • xcalx says:

    21 Jul21 July 12:43

    Avios booking

• Jack says:

  21 Jul21 July 12:17

  OT: what’s the best way of securing 241 reward flights? I can’t seem to find info online but say I book LON-SIN departure at midnight tonight and some random return (because my return date is more than 355 days so hasn’t been released yet) can I change it later for free? Or have things changed? And calling the BA office in the US is still the best option?

  Thanks guys!

  • Genghis says:

    21 Jul21 July 13:06

    1) book online LON – SIN single at 1am BST
    2) when return is released, call up to add return / I’d have enough avios buy single online and sort out the avios and taxes refund in the morning.

    • Jack says:

      21 Jul21 July 13:44

      Thanks Genghis. Booking two singles would work for a 241 Amex voucher too?

      Thanks again

      • Genghis says:

        21 Jul21 July 13:58

        Yes. Trues it up to a return on booking.

• Andy says:

  21 Jul21 July 13:08

  I’m probably a bit late today but hopefully I can get an opinion or two.

  Would you rather do Virgin PE to Shanghai (with a day or two of sightseeing) then JAL business to Tokyo, or Virgin PE to Delhi, an 8 hour layover, and then JAL business to Tokyo? After Tokyo will be business on JAL to Hong Kong with both options.

  Both would be redemptions, the Delhi option is £30 and 5000 points cheaper overall. I’ve never flown business so I feel like it would be nice to maximise my business flight time but is it really worth it when I’d spend most of a day in Delhi airport, even if it was mostly in a lounge?

  • Cat says:

    21 Jul21 July 14:33

    Can you not squeeze a day or two of sightseeing in Delhi? There’s plenty to see!

    • Andy says:

      21 Jul21 July 14:57

      I was trying to avoid getting a visa, but it looks like I might have to get a transit visa for a layover that long (with two separate tickets) anyway.

      • BJ says:

        21 Jul21 July 15:56

        If you have a way of getting Alaska miles then Delhi to HK with a dtopovef in Tokyo on JAL business is a great deal.

  • Genghis says:

    21 Jul21 July 14:57

    We went to Shanghai a couple of years ago. Enjoyed the maglev ride, walking along the bins and the French connection area and stayed at the WA which was great. Good for a couple of days. But if it means taking time out of Japan, head straight to Japan. I’m going there in Sep after a long hiatus and can’t wait.

    • Andy says:

      21 Jul21 July 15:30

      I did a week in Shanghai last year and really liked it, my favourite Chinese city so far, and this trip would see me going to Chongqing and Chengdu after Hong Kong, I was going to mention that but thought my comment was getting a bit long already.

      The Japan part is just a for a tradeshow that I would like to go to (that it happens to mean I can put a few days in Japan on business expenses is entirely coincidental…). I last went 4 years ago and I’m sure there’s still plenty for me to discover in Tokyo.

      I also wanted to take advantage of the Alaska mileage plan quirk of allowing long stopovers on “one way” trips in which they count Delhi-Tokyo-Hong Kong as a one-away redemption which would be 25k points and about £50 in fees.

      • BJ says:

        21 Jul21 July 16:00

        Sorry Andy, added the comment abovd before reading on to this one.

      • Andy says:

        21 Jul21 July 16:12

        No worries BJ, it’s something I’ve been looking at for a while and I can’t really believe they offer such great value! I’ve got 20k SPG points waiting to transfer over to Alaska so I can get the 5k bonus.

      • BJ says:

        21 Jul21 July 16:34

        Would you not be better putting those SPG points into VFC along with other earnings if required to get your longhaul flights in business as opposed to PE? A huge number of decent cash or avios options for short flights in Asia. I don’t think I would endure the Dehli option just to try JAL business if I could get to do longhaul busines..

    • Dan says:

      21 Jul21 July 18:39

      +1 Maglev, used it this week – for a fiver you get to zip along at over 400km/h. Made me cringe about paying £38 return on the Heathrow Express.

      So much to see in Shanghai, if you’re a foodie, it’s an incredible city.

• jason says:

  21 Jul21 July 13:33

  OT Can you still self refer on Amex platinum and get 18K?

  • Genghis says:

    21 Jul21 July 14:54

    Yes

• Rob says:

  21 Jul21 July 14:21

  Unlikely

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