Don’t use the American Express Membership Rewards Auto-Redeem feature

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• Roger says:

  27 Aug27 August 06:27

  BA LHR_TYO
  For CW, which aircraft should I be looking for? 777 or 787?
  Travelling with young family, so side by side cabin is fine.

  • Genghis says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:23

    I assume J (never sat there but I’ve heard 789 Y is tight)? I prefer 789 J over 777 J for the air quality. But 789 goes to NRT and 777 to HND and the 777 prices seemed consistently cheaper when I was looking so I’m on the 777 next week.

  • Jonathan says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:38

    Lots of variables in play here! On a straight 787 vs 777 I’d pick 787 but with a family the 777 may be better. How many kids/what ages? You may find the centre 4 with the two rear facing middle seats on 777 works best as gives a nice big open space to put the kids.

    Are you tied to BA metal (241 voucher)? If not & price similar I’d choose JAL using BA codeshare and try for evening departure from LHR as the day of arrival will be a very long one in TYO with the morning arrivals. Note that you won’t get an early check-in at a Japanese hotel without paying for an extra night or a day rate.

    Also consider where you will be staying. NRT is a long way out but there is an express train into Ueno if you’re staying that side of the city. Taxis are very expensive in general so try to avoid. Tokyo is also a very big city and transferring from one side to the other takes time and levels of patience you may not have when jet lagged with kids so pick hotel accordingly.

    Coming home I’m not sure there’s much in it timings wise so pick based on location. If you’re connecting from elsewhere in Japan then HND will be best as most domestic flights use it although it is the earlier departure.

  • BJ says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:49

    In CW little difference in seats except configuration. 777s are horrible but reliable, 787s are new but have reliability issues. Still, I would opt for 787 simply because it goes to Haneda.

    • Kevin says:

      27 Aug27 August 09:06

      It is the 777 that goes to Haneda.

      It’s very easy to get from Haneda into Tokyo but it’s an earlier flight time coming back (08:50).

      One way to get an early check in for a Tokyo hotel is to book through Emyr at Virtuoso. We got a 9am check in at the Peninsula and got there from Haneda at exactly 9am.

• BrianN says:

  27 Aug27 August 06:31

  Anyone else been having issues transferring Avios to/from Avios.com to BA?

  Keep getting this error message on both websites on my mobile.

  “Your session has timed out, please log in again”.

  • Mikeact says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:10

    I cleared it by re booting.

  • Stuart P says:

    27 Aug27 August 08:24

    Had this repeatedly on my mobile but worked first time on my laptop. “Request desktop version” on mobile Chrome didn’t help so but sure what was causing it.

  • RussellH says:

    27 Aug27 August 10:21

    This is some sort of Javascript and tracking issue, I believe. I always get this these days using Firefox if I forget to pause Ghostery first.
    This is on a computer, though – not a phone – I do not have a phone with a working web browser.

• Craig says:

  27 Aug27 August 07:26

  OT: I seem to have kept Marriott Platinum even after account merge. When will this likely expire, 2019 or 2020?

  • Brian S says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:38

    More than likely be 2020.

    • Craig says:

      27 Aug27 August 07:58

      Thanks Brian, is there any where I can see this?

      • Brian S says:

        27 Aug27 August 08:01

        How did you receive Platinum? I was informed by a Marriott CSR that any status applied in 2018 will be good to 2020.

      • Craig says:

        27 Aug27 August 08:11

        No idea, I expected it to disappear.

• Ian M says:

  27 Aug27 August 07:29

  Let’s hope this Avios account/BAEC merger goes a lot more smoothly than the disastrous Marriott/Starwood one!!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    27 Aug27 August 09:47

    Have to be honest haven’t noticed any issues myself accounts combined myself though the link on the website, correct status, all my points, nights and certificates etc correctly accounted for.

    But with any IT change a couple weeks of difficulty really isn’t that bad.

    • Ian M says:

      27 Aug27 August 13:19

      An awful lot of people are having problems.

      I’m missing 14 nights from my YTD count.

      I’m missing 610k points.

      Stays on 15-17 Aug, 17-21 Aug and 21-22 Aug haven’t posted.

      The majority of the time none of my forthcoming reservations are showing.

    • Alan says:

      27 Aug27 August 15:36

      Much worse for me, couldn’t login to SPG account for days, lots of details missing, combine accounts fails without warning midway – plus of course the TP shenanigans. While thing seems very rushed to me, think they would have been better doing it later in the year once they’d done some more work.

• Brian S says:

  27 Aug27 August 07:39

  Anyone else noticed that the points transfer from IHG Credit Card to IHG Rewards club account has not happened this month so far?

  • Genghis says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:46

    Yes. Others I’ve spoken to have reported this as well. I’m going to chase Creation and IHG today. Some intern probably forgot to upload the file.

    • Brian S says:

      27 Aug27 August 08:00

      It’s normally almost instant when the statement is generated. I’m not desperate for the points but I do like to see my balance grow (vanity ????)

    • Crafty says:

      27 Aug27 August 09:40

      Looks like it’s all of us. Thanks for chasing please do report back.

    • Simonbr says:

      27 Aug27 August 11:43

      I spoke to Creation, who referred me to the IHG rewards club. They tried to send me back to Creation! When I protested they acknowledged several others had called this morning regarding missing points and agreed to escalate the complaint by emailing their “investigation team”…

  • BJ says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:53

    +1 and waiting for my signup bonus.

  • Craig says:

    27 Aug27 August 07:58

    +1

    • Liz says:

      27 Aug27 August 08:09

      And me – I need to the qualifying points!

  • Mark2 says:

    27 Aug27 August 08:31

    Me too. I notice that the credit card points seem to be counting for status FWIW.

    • Brian S says:

      27 Aug27 August 08:50

      They have always done, I have achieved Spire via this route as I’ve only had 22 nights but managed to rack up 112k in Elite points so far.

      It really is a great credit card.

      • Simonbr says:

        27 Aug27 August 09:59

        +1. Thanks for chasing. Do IC hotels offer two upgrades to Spire Ambassador guests or do they tend to ignore the high elite part?

      • Genghis says:

        27 Aug27 August 10:28

        Just one would be guaranteed on paid stays.

    • Alan says:

      27 Aug27 August 15:37

      Yep they always have, I’d never achieve it through stays with them!

  • New Card says:

    27 Aug27 August 09:05

    +1

  • TGLoyalty says:

    27 Aug27 August 09:48

    Yea thought it was strange as normally very reliable. Has to be the month where I’m hitting spire elite aswell

    • Alan says:

      27 Aug27 August 15:38

      Indeed, they always came through 24h or so prior to statement being generated IME.

• BJ says:

  27 Aug27 August 07:59

  OT: There is a comment on FT stating that Hilton points and money reservations do not qualify for the 2500 M&M bonus. I was hoping this would just apply to full award stays but it seems not. They are not listed amongst exclusions in T&C so poor from Hilton.

  • RussellH says:

    27 Aug27 August 10:35

    That is our experience too.

  • Rob says:

    27 Aug27 August 20:43

    I received my M&M points on my last Hilton stay booked fully on points. Just paid for a small incidental to trigger a spend

    • Rob says:

      27 Aug27 August 20:50

      Interesting. There is no logic to it then!

• GeoffGeoff says:

  27 Aug27 August 08:56

  OT: is there a bonus for adding a first supplementary card to an existing Amex Gold card? I seem to remember there is but can’t find any details. TIA.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    27 Aug27 August 09:50

    The charge card has a 3k bonus

    • Louie says:

      27 Aug27 August 10:10

      Is the credit card the same, does anyone know?

      • Mark2 says:

        27 Aug27 August 10:41

        sadly no

• John says:

  27 Aug27 August 09:33

  Hi,

  Completely unrelated (but couldn’t post on the relevant posts) but does anyone know if tickets bought with the 90,000 Iberia Avios can be changed/ refunded? Worried that they won’t be re-credited. Anyone cancelled/ changed any of the tickets themselves?

  • Rob says:

    27 Aug27 August 09:56

    These were super-discounted no changes, no cancellation tickets, so no (assuming you just bought the cheapest tickets online). If you bought a refundable ticket because you needed one anyway then normal ticket rules apply.

    • Jonny says:

      27 Aug27 August 12:38

      Thanks for the response. But apologies should have been clearer. I’m referring to the tickets bought with the 90,000 Avios (on Iberia metal). If I cancel one of these reward tickets will the miles be refunded, or is a change possible? I’m worried that because these are restricted Avios from an offer Iberia has been trying to back out of, that other rules may apply.

      Thanks.

      • Mikeact says:

        27 Aug27 August 13:33

        I’ll let you know after their December deadline! We’ve booked two Business to S America, but ideally we’d like to change the country, but as local flights are easy to come by, we’re not too bothered, but I might call them in January all the same.

      • Russ says:

        27 Aug27 August 14:27

        I’ve canceled Iberia metal flights made with the promotional avios twice now due to a date then destination error. Both times they were refunded promptly minus 25euros per booking admin fee.

      • Jonny says:

        27 Aug27 August 14:48

        Cheers- great to hear!

      • Tom1 says:

        27 Aug27 August 22:22

        I can’t see how they will police this.

        Say I add 30k more avios to my account to top up the 90k via that promo.

        I book flights using that 120k and then want to change/cancel the reward flight. Do you think their IT will be able to handle the fact that 90k came from the promo and treat them differently from the other 30k?

        Tate another example. Assume I earn another 90k between now and December. Make two separate reward bookings. How will they know which ‘pot’ of points the two bookings were made from?

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