Get 1,000 American Airlines miles at Hyatt Place or Hyatt House hotels

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• Mr(s) Entitled says:

  27 Oct27 October 07:48

  Is Man to Ibiza going from 5 to 1 per week? If so surely that cant just be down to the withdrawal of a loaned plan from London City on a weekend.

  • Anna says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:27

    It was 3 flights to Ibiza, I think? I am wondering if they were also struggling with delay, I used the (delayed) service to Nice earlier this year and one of the cabin crew said that they were struggling to do all the routes with one plane.

• Brighton Belle says:

  27 Oct27 October 07:54

  OT

  Got my IHG Rewards Creation statement today.

  All Starling Bank account top-ups passed through Curve to Creation last month have been charged as cash advances triggered by the new Curve Merchant Category Code 6012. Previously they went through as purchases and didn’t get interest.

  The interest was the last line on my statement I so had no idea what was happening at the daily transaction level until month end.

  If it looks like a cash advance to Creation you will get charged the cash advance interest fee. There is no way to identify on your Creation statement how they treat one type of Curve transaction as a cash advance. Their statements don’t append the MCC code to a transaction. Looking at my Virgin Rewards card they identify the same type of transaction as MCC 6012

  That’s cost a few pints discovering that. Shame it took a whole month to find out.

  • Frenzie says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:03

    Does this mean Virgin identifies it the same way? As cash advance?

    • Brighton Belle says:

      27 Oct27 October 08:10

      Seems to but whether they charge a fee is yet to be seen by my next Virgin statement. Which is why I set up a test.

      • John says:

        27 Oct27 October 09:17

        Why didn’t you just do it once close to the statement date?

  • Rts says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:42

    Virgin didn’t charge me.

  • Steve says:

    27 Oct27 October 10:15

    Has anyone tested their MBNA Horizon card with Curve recently to see if it goes through without being hit with a cash advance charge at month end? I have a corporation tax payment to make before the 31st so no time to test it myself.

  • New Card says:

    27 Oct27 October 13:14

    Did the transactions still earn points? Presumably you could mitigate interest by overpaying the card…

  • h2d says:

    28 Oct28 October 10:48

    This is interesting as mine have not been charged a cash advance fee for exactly the same starling top-ups so YMMV..

• Bob says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:11

  That’s right BA knock off Manchester flights forget about the northerners they don’t go anywhere even though those flights I have been on were full.

  • Shoestring says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:19

    There’s no compelling logic to your gripe, you seem to be suggesting several things such as: BA making this change to spite northerners; that they should somehow be made to run provincial services even if they wouldn’t otherwise choose to do so for commercial reasons; that BA don’t realise these Manchester flights are profitable after all; that the one or two times you flew, the plane was full so the plane must always be full (though you probably flew in the school hols!); that you have a deep understanding of BA’s fare pricing algorithms so a full plane = highly profitable etc.

    All of your assumptions could easily be completely wrong. But you’re entitled to have a rant if you feel like it 🙂

    • Mikeact says:

      27 Oct27 October 08:27

      There are numerous European options out of Manchester…..and Leeds…..and Liverpool, spoilt for choice.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:37

    Man is well served by other carriers flying direct to many more short haul destinations. It’s hardly a loss. And before I get accused of Southern bias, I live 20 mins from Man. I’d swap these flights for ManLgw flights in a heartbeat.

    • Anna says:

      27 Oct27 October 09:12

      +1 on MAN- LGW. Off the top of my head though, I can only think of EasyJet/Ryanair/Jet2/Thomas Cook on direct routes to European holiday resorts, there never seems to be loads of options when I’m looking for half term flights.

• Shelly says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:22

  Most days all i get is entry to the sweepstake not even 50 points!

  • Leo says:

    27 Oct27 October 10:47

    Me too. I’ve probably scraped together 200 points all told.

• Anna says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:30

  I don’t really understand why BA didn’t put on services from MAN at February half term and Easter. There is huge demand for holiday routes (especially the Canaries) at this time of year and currently only about 4 carriers which serve them directly.

  • Genghis says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:34

    A plane / crew need to come from somewhere

    • Shoestring says:

      27 Oct27 October 08:48

      Yep I think several airlines have been struggling in particular with pilots.

      Did you see what the going rate for a Ryanair pilot is?!!! BA is hardly going to pay markedly worse than that.

      • Rob says:

        27 Oct27 October 11:07

        A few years ago there was a pilot surplus – someone I know had to go to Indonesia to get a short-haul Airbus job and get his hours up. He is now back here with Thomas Cook.

      • Harry in transit says:

        27 Oct27 October 11:13

        Well I don’t resent them their GBP160K!

        Bit more to it than pressing either the accelerator or brake on a train, those guys do make me mad with their strikes & what seems to me very inflated pay for the job they do.

      • Curious says:

        27 Oct27 October 14:15

        No, what is the going rate for a Ryanair pilot?

      • Shoestring says:

        27 Oct27 October 20:19

        @Crurious it was something like £178K for the Irish pilots, I’m sure this by no means typical of the lower wage economy countries but I bet the N European pilots would typically get £150-175K
        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/07/25/ryanair-publishes-staff-payslips-amid-pilot-strikes/

    • Anna says:

      27 Oct27 October 09:08

      But presumably the same planes and crew are available at these times as in the summer?

      • Nick says:

        27 Oct27 October 09:19

        How is a piddling little embraer going to get from Manchester to the Canaries without stopping for petrol?

• Peter K says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:38

  Do BA charge extra for a data breach with the holiday fares or are they included in the price? ????

  • Shoestring says:

    27 Oct27 October 08:51

    There is a badatabreach class action suit set up & running, I reckon BA will be forced to concede *something* here so might be worth signing up, haven’t checked it out properly myself as I wasn’t involved until this latest revelation. If it doesn’t cost you much for participation, you might as well sign up.

  • Lady London says:

    27 Oct27 October 12:48

    :-). The data breach comes like a toy in packet of cornflakes 🙂

    • EwanG says:

      27 Oct27 October 15:50

      Available in 2 options. When will they add a third?

• Lyn says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:41

  Thanks to the person who mentioned playing with both SPG and Marriott accounts a couple of days ago.

  My husband’s accounts aren’t merged yet and he only won the usual 50 points using his SPG number this morning but 1,000 with his Marriott number.

  oG

• Nigel T says:

  27 Oct27 October 08:42

  I don’t see how BA can’t make one fight a week from Birmingham to Ibiza work given the Monarch flights (plural) on that route were always heaving. Last year BA pulled this service long before it even started and to pull it for 2019 seven or eight months ahead of the start date seems strange. Are they really able to gauge load factors on what are essentially holiday flights that far out?

  • Nick says:

    27 Oct27 October 09:23

    Why do so many people here not realise that ‘full’ flights don’t equal profitable flights?! Any fool can fill a plane, the challenge is to do it AND make money. It could just be that they realised skinflint northerners wouldn’t pay the fares required to make a profit, so have stopped trying.
    One thing I know is that if there were money to be made with their business model in a regional operation, BA would have one. Harsh maybe, but the reality of the airline business today.

    • Stu N says:

      27 Oct27 October 09:30

      A single flight a week isn’t a great option if you want to go for a few days or a ten day break. BA probably struggle against competition with more frequent flights.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      27 Oct27 October 09:32

      Play the ball, not the man. It doesn’t reflect well.

      • Evan says:

        27 Oct27 October 10:50

        Eh?

      • Darren says:

        27 Oct27 October 16:35

        Well said

    • Capt Hammond says:

      27 Oct27 October 11:39

      “Skinflint Northerners”? 1. Nigel was talking about flights from Birmingham – doubt that people from the Midlands would class themselves as Northerners. 2. You’re clearly a buffoon.

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