ANA announces a new Vienna to Tokyo flight, redeemable with Virgin Atlantic miles

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• Memesweeper says:

  10 Nov10 November 09:41

  Rob said:
  You can only book return flights on ANA using Virgin Flying Club miles.

  Rob meant:
  When using Virgin Flying Club miles you can only book return flights on ANA.

• David says:

  10 Nov10 November 09:55

  OT: I was checking AerClub for a business class redemption and can find pretty much no availability at all for 2019. Surely there must be at least one seat(!) Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

  • Rob says:

    10 Nov10 November 10:22

    Seems to be limited to one seat initially … I agree they are not super-generous though.

  • Polly says:

    10 Nov10 November 11:14

    Forget them, the MOST useless FFP on the planet. Their own staff haven’t a clue, l ended up,explaining what avios were to one of them…

• Graham says:

  10 Nov10 November 10:06

  No other first class from Inverness to NYC at £900 pp each way. Then the good folk at BA delayed the last LHR – INV leg by 24 hours. Thus, I’m now going from Leeds (half an hour from home) rather than Inverness at no extra charge. Handy.

  • GrahM says:

    10 Nov10 November 10:06

    *booked

• rams1981 says:

  10 Nov10 November 10:48

  OT did anyone else still have issues with the 11k bonus spend on spg not being multiplied by 3 and sent over to Marriott? Had to raise another formal complaint on behalf of my wife. They lied and said it would be sorted last month which it wasn’t. Still haven’t manually added the points to the account which would guarantee it going and instead claim IT are working to fix it. Amex customer service been fairly woeful over this.

  • Polly says:

    10 Nov10 November 11:17

    Exactly same here, nobody claims to know anything. Spg say ask amex, amex say ask spg. Going round in circles. They raised a complaint but no result yet.. keeping at it…

  • Jay says:

    10 Nov10 November 13:43

    Same boat as well – waiting to see if resolved in next week or so and then will write a formal complaint to Amex and see what comes of that.

    • Jason says:

      10 Nov10 November 14:15

      My formal compaint just got closed with nothing

  • Richard says:

    10 Nov10 November 14:35

    Eventually got the extra 20k added this week after about 5 calls over 3 weeks. They said it was a gesture of goodwill as I was only due 10k (which is rubbish of course). I think it helped that about 3 weeks ago an agent said the 20k would be on my account within a week. It seems like back office then rejected this. I was able to point them to this call that they were able to listen back to and all agreed it was very clear that they said I was due 20k more.

  • The streets says:

    10 Nov10 November 21:49

    Try emailing: research at starwood-service.com – it worked for me and got my points tripled

• Mark2 says:

  10 Nov10 November 10:57

  Another reminder that tax voidance often has a cost, sometimes more than the tax avoided.
  Inverness is well worth a visit, although probably not immediately before and after a long haul holiday.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    10 Nov10 November 12:53

    You arent avioding tax. There is no tax to be avioded. That is by design not accident.

    You are right on Inverness being well worth a visit though. Pretty much all of Scotland is stunning. Some great places on our doorstep that don’t require years of points collecting to get to.

    • Mark2 says:

      10 Nov10 November 13:57

      You are avoiding the tax that you would pay at every other airport in the country.

      • Anna says:

        10 Nov10 November 16:31

        There is no departure tax at INV. You can’t avoid something which doesn’t exist.

        Mr(s) E – I totally concur, we manage a week in Scotland every other year and always leave feeling we’ve hardly scratched the surface. A road trip around the Highlands is on my retirement “to do” list, as is a visit to Orkney, the archaeology for me and the diving at Scapa Flow for Mr Anna.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Nov10 November 16:44

        I had to go to Orkney for work reasons a couple of times and of course built in a couple of extra days and looking around the archaeology. Really interesting, esp the 800 year old graffiti in one of the big burial chambers/ chambered cairns the Vikings robbed out (Maeshowe). And Skara Brae of course.

        I spent many summers up on the far north-west coast in Sutherland (my parents had a cottage there when I was a kid then moved there when I was at university) and it’s a grand part of the world, well worth a decent touring holiday.

      • Mark2 says:

        10 Nov10 November 17:05

        That’s like saying that an ISA does not avoid tax.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Nov10 November 17:09

        Sorry Mark2 – it’s not avoiding tax.

        It’s avoiding Duty.

      • John says:

        10 Nov10 November 23:58

        No it’s like saying not spending your entire paycheck is avoiding VAT.

    • Liz says:

      10 Nov10 November 17:02

      This is why we decided to buy a caravan for our early retirement. We have seen more of Scotland these past two years than we have our whole lives and we are thoroughly enjoying it. Helps if you get good weather though which we did this year. Still lots to explore up the top end and north west. We also took out memberships for the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland which also gives you access to places in the rest of the UK. Already saved more than double the membership fees from places we have visited – including free entry to Melbourne Gaol! No longer using UK hotels as we take our home from home with us! Still love our USA road trips though – 29 of 50 states visited so far and counting….

    • BJ says:

      10 Nov10 November 18:56

      Not just Scotland, all of UK really. We decided last year to spend most of our free time exploring parts of home we had never been before and we are loving it. South and central Wales along with Northumberland last year. Yorkshire, Shropshire and North Wales this year. Devon, Cornwall and Sommerset next year. People everywhere have been really friendly and welcoming too.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Nov10 November 19:58

        Europe is better.

        Better climate, culture, food, drink.

        Sticking to the UK just saves money, not a bad thing.

      • BJ says:

        10 Nov10 November 20:35

        Europe’s awesome but for now I want get at least a flavour of every Shire in UK. Getting there, only your area, Hampshire, Nottinghamshire, parts of East Anglia, all of Northern Ireland and many islands still to do.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Nov10 November 21:19

        BJ you don’t want to put it about so much. Think about what matters.

  • Rick says:

    11 Nov11 November 01:13

    In this instance, it is absolutely not tax avoidance as the government has clearly designated that Inverness should not charge APD. Tax sparing yes. But avoidance, no. You’ve physically got to get to Inverness to benefit from the tax sparing. An ISA? Arguably a tax subsidy, but avoidance, no. You need to be putting away the full amount of the ISA to benefit – and if you’re not, others are gaining from the subsidy and you’re not. But is still not avoidance. However, it is possible to avoid something which does not exist. And a whole section of cross-national tax avoidance practices thrives on this very point.

    • Mark2 says:

      11 Nov11 November 17:09

      Tax Avoidance means arranging your affairs within the law to minimise the amount of tax that you pay. This includes using state sponsored tax-free savings scheme like ISA and the lack of APD at Inverness or flying to another European airport to start a long haul flight. Also using a small trader who is not VAT registered, although this only works if most of the bill is labour.
      Tax Avoidance is perfectly legitimate although the left leaning media try to persuade us otherwise. They usually only mention large multi-national companies and ignore the avoidance by most citizens.
      Tax Evasion, however, is not and is illegal. This includes a tradesman whom you pay in cash not accounting for the tax, which is probably the biggest source of tax evasion.

      • Shoestring says:

        11 Nov11 November 17:22

        This is silly. No need to name it tax avoidance. You all simply accept that there’s no APD on international flights that start from INV.

• Ian says:

  10 Nov10 November 13:44

  The first time I flew up to INV I imagined there would be no APD on the return leg but no, if you fly LHR-INV-LHR you pay 2 lots of APD, if you fly INV-LHR-INV you pay no APD at all. That’s how it is.

  • TM says:

    10 Nov10 November 14:29

    That can’t be right, APD is a departure tax.

    • Shoestring says:

      10 Nov10 November 16:55

      But you know that’s not correct, otherwise ex-EU LH via LHR would not exist as a saving.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        10 Nov10 November 17:52

        The connection had to be less than 24 hours otherwise APD is payable on departure.

  • ChrisC says:

    10 Nov10 November 21:40

    I’ve checked the breakdown of my last ex-INV with BA

    I was charged APD on the LHR-INV leg (£26 as in Club Europe).

    No APD on return flights. Which is how it should be.

    • ChrisC says:

      10 Nov10 November 21:42

      edit – to clarify these were the positioning flights to and from INV

      I also wasn’t charged AP|D on the ex-LHR leg that came off my ex JFK (again as it should be as it was <24 hours connection)

• dicksbits says:

  10 Nov10 November 14:43

  Even with the improved retiming of flights is INV still only viable if flying HBO? Is B2B possible?

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Nov10 November 16:54

    Would be viable if you built in a Scottish break & enjoyed it.

  • ChrisC says:

    11 Nov11 November 13:32

    You can of course leave your bags in left luggage / use the airportr service at LHR and as long as your long haul flights is the same day BA will check them in for the longhaul leg (though it sometimes confuses the check-in staff and you may need to insist and ask for a supervisor so during OLCI select ‘not sure’ for the number of bags as that apparently makes it easier for them to do it)

    With the B2B there simply isn’t time to collect checked bags and then check-it in again due to the 45 minute cut off – some of the turnarounds are very rapid with not much time to do more than get off the plane walk back to security and get cleared before reboarding.

• Anna says:

  10 Nov10 November 16:40

  OT – used one of our Wilko offers today and immediately got the confirmation email. There is still no sign of my 500 bonus avios (x 2) from 3 weeks ago, even though OH got his within 5 days. I know it’s technically within 90 days bla bla but I honestly think they are not going to appear unless I chase it up. I’m closing one of the BAPPs next week so will mention it as one of the reasons and see what the response is!

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Nov10 November 16:46

    They only appear in your Avios count. No other notification.

  • Liz says:

    10 Nov10 November 17:37

    I phoned Amex yesterday and complained about not getting the points – she wouldn’t budge so we have to wait for 4.5 mths for them to appear. It’s 90 days after 30/11 – they probably won’t post then and will have to chase up again! Too many glitches in their system with these offers.

    • Liz says:

      10 Nov10 November 17:41

      I also did 4 Healthspan orders last night – got 2 emails on Plat card and no emails on SPG cards. That’s another two I’ll have to wait for – 90 days from end of Jan I think! Crazy! Doesn’t bode well for Small Shop!

  • Sandra says:

    11 Nov11 November 21:40

    I phoned about another issue and they put the 500 there and then because I mentioned it.

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