New World of Hyatt benefits from January, including ‘milestone awards’

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• Mark says:

  21 Dec21 December 06:12

  What is the latest you can book Avios flights, is it same day? My sister and brother in law are due to fly easyJet from Milan to Gatwick this eve and I was going to get them a couple of ba seats into LHR is possible

  • N says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:19

    Stories on FT of those booking while stood in the queue to check in after IRROPS

  • Anna says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:29

    About 12 months ago I tried this and it seemed that avios seats could be booked up to one hour before a domestic flight, I don’t know if it’s the same for international.

  • Andy says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:43

    I tried to use some Avios for a hotel when I got stuck at CPH and was told that you have to wait 24 hours to use them

  • Chris L says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:46

    Definitely possible certainly up to 2 hours before. There are flights showing available today. You’ll need their passport details for the API.

    • John says:

      21 Dec21 December 08:20

      No, they will be able to provide their passport details themselves when they check in. There’s never any need to provide API unless you want to OLCI.

  • Mike says:

    21 Dec21 December 08:04

    I’ve booked same day via BAEC on many occasions. Seems to be a 1hr cutoff.

    Please note that avios.com has a 24hr cutoff though.

• Bagoly says:

  21 Dec21 December 06:29

  On a dummy booking I’m being offered next flight (3.5 hours out).
  It doesn’t even seem to generate the “This is for today – are you sure you will make it?” warning that Easyget does for cash tickets.

• Optimus Prime says:

  21 Dec21 December 06:51

  Flights are now departing but nobody has said whether the drone operators have been apprehended.

  As far as we know they could have gone to sleep and resume disruptions later on.

  • Shoestring says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:28

    It’s a full schedule today. Well, 100 flights were already cancelled but the other 700 are intended to fly.

    The military are securing the perimeter, which is 6 miles long. That’s 10km, so 1 pax every 100m = 100 personnel, hardly too demanding [@ twice density, 200 pax].

    What an incompetent response yesterday – there should have been a pre-agreed plan in place to deploy the military already by 6am – after 6hrs of drone activity (9pm-3am) it was clear this was planned disruption & unlikely to just go away.

    It does annoy me. All very foreseeable and straightforward to put contingency plans in place, no need to make up a response on the hoof. Just go to scenario X and press the ‘deploy armed response’ button.

    Exactly the same pathetic planning by LHR airport in 2010, when the snow should have been a minor inconvenience, except the airport operators didn’t think buying snow-clearers & de-icers in sufficient quantity was a good investment.

    • Anna says:

      21 Dec21 December 07:31

      We’re always behind the times here. There’s just been some incredible footage on TV of a bird of prey taking out a drone in Holland where they train them to do this!

      • ankomonkey says:

        21 Dec21 December 08:23

        I suggested falcons or owls yesterday. I say this having had a sandwich swiped out of my hand by a bird of prey once before. Clinical!

      • Shoestring says:

        21 Dec21 December 08:37

        Yep but LHR should have been one of the tightest operations in the world, best in class (or similar) in all respects. Not third rate.

        Gatwick and LHR should have done robust scenario planning – I’m sure they did – but have seemingly ignored the drone threat – incomprehensible when you have eco-terrorist groups like Plane Stupid & Rising UP plus the constant challenges posed by the Islamists and Russians amongst others.

      • Shoestring says:

        21 Dec21 December 09:06

        Now up to 765 flight movements scheduled for today

      • Craig says:

        21 Dec21 December 09:32

        That’s fine for something like a Mavic 2 which weighs 900g, different story for a commercial drone which can weigh upwards of 4Kg!

      • RussellH says:

        21 Dec21 December 11:19

        Harry, you are doing it again. Saying that the likes of PlaneStupid are terrorists is wrong. You are either saying that the likes of Da’esh just cause inconvenience, or that climate change campaigners are threatening our lives. Neither is anywhere near true. You should apologise.

      • Shoestring says:

        21 Dec21 December 11:32

        @RussellH – you may have a point – I’ll withdraw that description of Plane Stupid as eco-terrorists *PROVIDED* they have had nothing to do with the drone incident.

        If they were involved with the drones, that’s blatant terrorism – a potentially deadly protest with the capacity to bring down a plane.

        However, Plane Stupid and Rising Up *are* both quasi-anarchist in nature, going far beyond peaceful protest within the bounds of the law.

      • Craig says:

        21 Dec21 December 11:46

        I’m with Harry on this;

        ‘Terrorism – the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.’

        How is denying the use of an airport not intimidation for political aim?

      • ChrisT says:

        21 Dec21 December 12:06

        He’s tabloid news most of the time, spouting off with lack of understanding

      • Craig says:

        21 Dec21 December 12:25

        I didn’t say I always agreed with Harry! 🙂

      • RussellH says:

        21 Dec21 December 14:11

        Interesting comments from a professor on The World at One: apparently English Law (and, presumably Scottish Law) still assumes that any airborne vehicle has human beings on board. This means that any attempt to shoot down the drone(s) or perhaps even get a falcon or hawk to attack it would be illegal.

      • Lady London says:

        21 Dec21 December 22:30

        At least it was your sandwich, and not your hand as well.

    • Alex W says:

      21 Dec21 December 09:23

      I agree Harry except that this should be the responsibility of the airport and the police, so don’t blame the military. It is not their primary role and they only provide Military Aid to the Civil Powers inextremis when called upon to do so.

    • Yuff says:

      21 Dec21 December 10:44

      I’m supposed to be flying into Gatwick tomorrow, agree with Shoestring, what a shambles.
      Don’t know much about drones but surely it could not have been that difficult for another drone to follow the offending drone…….🤷🏻‍♂️

      • Chris says:

        21 Dec21 December 14:57

        Precisely….

    • the_real_a says:

      21 Dec21 December 13:56

      Agree on the shambles, even more so since drones have been delivering “payloads” in the middle east for the past 3-4 years…

    • LoopyLou says:

      21 Dec21 December 19:13

      > The military are securing the perimeter, which is 6 miles long. That’s 10km, so 1 pax every 100m = 100 personnel, hardly
      > too demanding [@ twice density, 200 pax].

      Bit hard on the pax (passengers) though – you’d have thought they’d suffered enough 😀

  • RussellH says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:57

    There was an interview just before 0900 on Radio 4 with someone from a firm who specialise in anti-drone systems. He made two points which seem relevant:

    1. Given the duration of the whole thing, these were high tech, sophisticated machines. The ones you could get from Maplin etc have a max flight time of around 20-30 mins before they need to be recharged.

    2. There would not have been any operators. They had been pre-programmed. If they had been operated, then it would have been a trivial matter to track the radio signal back to the operator, or to interfere with it in such a way that the drone would automatically return to base.

    I do not have the knowledge to analyse this, but it does sound very plausible.

    • dgsupersonic says:

      21 Dec21 December 15:40

      Being a drone owner and in the infosecurity/tech/telecoms field, I can confirm these are solid points.

    • Lady London says:

      21 Dec21 December 22:34

      I hope this was not a test run to probe response to such method of attack – or a diversion for another one.

  • Jonny says:

    21 Dec21 December 15:56

    has anyone actually seen any evidence of these supposed drones flying around the airport?

• John Thompson says:

  21 Dec21 December 07:07

  Re Stansted Express – we successfully tested the first of the new fleet last Friday night. A very nice train and I’m sure F won’t be missed all that much.

• NigelT says:

  21 Dec21 December 07:19

  Swin shorts – really?

  • Anna says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:33

    Were you away on the day of the great swim shorts debate lol?!

  • Darren says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:44

    Yep, wish I’d won a pair.

  • Rob says:

    21 Dec21 December 08:03

    Fixed 🙂

• AndyGWP says:

  21 Dec21 December 07:48

  OT – looks like the 1000 avios from the Tesco conversion has turned up folks

  • AndyGWP says:

    21 Dec21 December 07:48

    (the bonus that is!)

  • average South Coast entertainment lawyer says:

    21 Dec21 December 08:28

    Is this Tesco promo still running or have I missed it?

    • Shoestring says:

      21 Dec21 December 08:38

      missed it

  • RussellH says:

    21 Dec21 December 11:12

    Yes, just got 1000 avios on top of the original 1600 for £5 of clubcard points (old copnversion rate).

  • Sandra says:

    21 Dec21 December 12:42

    Yes checked my account just now and there is a credit marked Miscellaneous for 1000 Avios today which I assume is the Tesco bonus as I’m not expecting 1K from anywhere else.

    • Benylin says:

      21 Dec21 December 22:47

      I got it too today and was not targeted so I guess everyone should have received it.

• Lblace says:

  21 Dec21 December 08:36

  O/T – does anyone know if the recently revised BA price guarantee work per ticket booked or per booking made? Eg if I bought 2 tickets with a price difference of £60 per ticket on a single booking, would I get £120 x2 BA vouchers? Thanks!

• Optimus Prime says:

  21 Dec21 December 08:45

  Is it worth to reserve access to No1 in LGW South today?

  We usually go to Grain Store but I’m wondering whether either will be able to cope with today’s demand…

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