Get 6,000 Emirates Skywards frequent flyer miles with a Sixt car rental

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• G-bit says:

  15 Aug15 August 14:47

  O/T Hello. I’m hoping to receive some advice re transit times in Hong King. I need to get to Brisbane this winter and am hoping to utilise 2 x BA Amex 2for1 vouchers as far as Hong Kong. BA27 arrives Hong Kong 16:55 and I can book QF98 to depart 19:05. As these will be two separate tickets I’m assuming bags will not be interlined between BA and Qantas. Therefore will 2hours and 10 mins (assuming flights on time) be enough time to collect and recheck bags for flight to Brisbane? Your advice and guidance would be gratefully received.

  • Lumma says:

    15 Aug15 August 17:21

    Unless you’re short of time, isn’t this a perfect excuse to have a night in Hong Kong and head to Brisbane the next day?

  • John says:

    15 Aug15 August 17:53

    It is enough if you rush and know exactly where to go. If the BA flight is late by a few minutes you will be stuck though. I wouldn’t do it without interlining and BA absolutely won’t.

    If there is availability on BA31 then I would go for it – but BA31 is now the B777 (or will be soon) so maybe less likely

    The HK transit desks used to be able to retrieve bags and retag them on your behalf when on separate tickets, but I’ve heard that this has stopped, and I never really transit HKG since I have a place to stay there.

  • Cat says:

    15 Aug15 August 18:01

    Every time I’ve been through HK airport I’ve found everything from check-in to baggage reclaim to be absurdly efficient. I’d say you’re more likely to have problems with your BA flight being late. If your pilot announces a delay leaving London, you’ll spend the entire flight having palpitations, and won’t enjoy your LPGS.
    I’m with Lumma – have 24 hours in Hong Kong instead! Go and eat at Din Tai Fung, explore Temple street night market, get on the Star ferry, climb Victoria peak, and then experience the check-in at Kowloon MTR station, rather than the airport, just for kicks!

    • G-bit says:

      15 Aug15 August 18:26

      Thanks very much for these replies – very helpful. Will consider best course of action.

  • BJ says:

    15 Aug15 August 18:42

    HKG has a very congested airspace, I recommend you take the advice and go for longer layover or stop overnight in HK.

  • Lady London says:

    15 Aug15 August 21:54

    Personally I wouldn’t do it. even if you would be departing from the same terminal you have absolutely no margin for any lateness on the incoming flight at all.

• Louise says:

  15 Aug15 August 14:52

  OT: Just upgraded my cat 1-5 Marriott TP to a cat 7. I was short by 9000 points so purchased on SPG and transferred across as it was slightly cheaper than buying points on Marriott site (in hindsight should have purchased those points during spg 35% bonus!)
  Wouldn’t have needed to buy the points if the Amex CC points had transferred in time!

  Irish call centre did the upgrade and applied to reservation in about 10 minutes of hold time.

  • Roberto says:

    15 Aug15 August 17:32

    Data point..
    My SPG points that left amex on the 14th of July hit today. Managed to book two award nights before they go up later this week.

    • Mariusz says:

      16 Aug16 August 21:56

      Suspending the transfer from Amex MRs to SPG without any prior announcement means I can’t maximise this great deal 🙁

  • BJ says:

    15 Aug15 August 18:55

    Would you mind sharing why you chose to do this now rather than wait until after 18th Louise? I’ve been pondering a similar decision all day, my main concern is that there will be a flood of bookings soon after merger and availability might be an issue one month later when existing certificates are sorted.

    • MarkH says:

      15 Aug15 August 20:57

      I upgraded from cat 1-5 to 8 today as my plan was always planning to upgrade when it came to book bt this would most likely cost a lot more points post 18th assuming they use the new travel package rates.

      Interestingly the Irish CS rep said the categories were going to map directly across so my current cat 8 would become a new cat 8.

      When I asked what would happen to cat 9 and above he said they would become cat 8 and have points refunded so no-one would lose out.

      This would be great if it’s true but seems a bit unlikely I think, especially as cat 8 doesn’t even exist until Jan.

      • BJ says:

        15 Aug15 August 22:09

        Thanks Mark, did you have to make a hotel booking or is it possible just to upgrade the certificate without using it? The mapping described to you is consistent with what some have been advocating from the outset. Not long until we knos for sure.

      • MarkH says:

        15 Aug15 August 22:50

        BJ – wouldn’t let me reply to your message below…

        I didn’t have to make a reservation. Just called up and asked to upgrade and he knew what I was talking about and did it straight away. Took about 10 mins including wait time.

        The upgraded voucher was in my account when I checked 20mins later with a new expiry date of 15/8/2019.

        Yep we shall see very soon what happens! 🙂

      • BJ says:

        15 Aug15 August 23:03

        Cheers Mark, I will upgrade one of my two tomorrow then.

    • Louise says:

      16 Aug16 August 04:12

      BJ, As Mark said I didn’t want to pay more points to upgrade post 18th
      Original plan was to use for cat 9 but don’t have the points in time so settled for a cat 7.

      I didn’t get a new cert issued, my reservation actually shows daily reduced points which I think is normal for upgraded certs applied to bookings

      • BJ says:

        16 Aug16 August 08:16

        Thanks Louise, after helping my partner buy a cat 1-5 package I am left with 72k Marriott rewards points. My dilemna is to use those to upgrade to a cat 7 on my package like you did or keep them for miles or hotel. If they map both old cats 6 and 7 to new cat 5 which seems likely to me I would then be hoping to get 30k points refund due to difference between old cat 6 and 7. In effect it would mean a new cat 5 for 30k points net instead of 60k points if I upgrade after 18th. Those 30k points saved could be 3 nights in a decent tourist class hotel in Asia. I think I’ll get on the phone.

      • BJ says:

        16 Aug16 August 08:23

        And better still, if what Mark was told is true then I will end up with a new cat 7 🙂

• Jimbob says:

  15 Aug15 August 14:58

  I’ve got 25 current offers with my BAPP card that I’ve had for 5 months. Probably took 2-3 months before I started to get a significant number of offers.

• BJ says:

  15 Aug15 August 18:58

  OT: Anybody able to confirm yet if we get the 2500 M&M bonus points on Hilton group rewards stays paid entirely with points but with incidental on the bill?

  • Cormac McCaughey says:

    15 Aug15 August 20:07

    Also tried this on 3 stays – no M&M points showing

    • BJ says:

      15 Aug15 August 22:00

      Thanks, were they all 100% points or were some points and cash?

      • Cormac McCaughey says:

        16 Aug16 August 08:12

        All 100% points.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    15 Aug15 August 22:43

    I had a cash stay and registered for the promo but no M&S miles here either. Either they fixed the it so you can’t get points and miles anymore or something went wrong.

    I registered for the promo and have it set as preferred travel partner so can’t see what went wrong on my side

    • BJ says:

      15 Aug15 August 23:00

      Presumably you are chasing it up? Don’t see why you should not get both points and miles and there is no way to opt out of points. Special miles bonuses have stacked before. Sounds to me more like they broke it than fixed it.

• Chris says:

  15 Aug15 August 19:05

  OT: Does anyone know if bonus points are still given for adding a supp card to the new amex gold credit card>

  • BJ says:

    15 Aug15 August 19:30

    See earlier comments today.

• Mycity says:

  15 Aug15 August 19:22

  O/T re Curve just had an email they are changing my credit card to a debit card, asking if I want a personal debit card or a commercial one, anyone know the difference?

  • Alex Sm says:

    16 Aug16 August 13:13

    They didn’t ask me anything, just sent a new card and my partner got a new one as well, albeit slightly differently packed.

• TM says:

  15 Aug15 August 19:54

  O/T – Tried to use Tesco Pay + today for my shopping and got told they are withdrawing it as people have been committing fraud. Oddly no mention of this in articles or on Tesco website. My Avios earnings now drop from 5.4 per £1 to 4.8 🙁

  • MarkH says:

    15 Aug15 August 20:44

    Ah that might explain why I’m locked out and it won’t let me in even though i reset the password

    • MarkH says:

      15 Aug15 August 21:04

      I’m back in so that wasn’t it…

  • TGLoyalty says:

    15 Aug15 August 22:27

    I don’t understand how you can commit fraud any easier than any other payment method.

    Surely the answer isn’t to withdraw it but to make the system more secure.

    • Liz says:

      15 Aug15 August 22:48

      For the last couple of weeks we have had to have management authorisation when using the Pay+ app. The guy at our local store said some people had gained access to photographs of staff pay+ codes and were using them to get staff discounts – hence the security check at the tills.

      • BJ says:

        15 Aug15 August 22:55

        You would think Tesco had a lot more to worry about than a few people getting unentitled discounts 🙂

      • Alan says:

        16 Aug16 August 00:54

        Ahh I wondered what was going on – had that issue yesterday and was asked if I was a staff member! Also had to have code rescanned a few times. When I contacted their Twitter team they said it was a known issue if you had a Tesco Bank Clubcard attached and to switch to a regular Clubcard instead (they confirmed usual bonus points would still be applied).

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