Last call for flight bargains in the British Airways Winter sale

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• Anna says:

  29 Jan29 January 10:55

  OT but interesting. Rip Off Britain featured airlines which split families up if they don’t pay for seats together. Simon the expert in residence said that this is a safety risk which breaches CAS rules and planes are not allowed to take off if parents are separated from children under 12 by more than one row. It doesn’t apply to us now but it’s good to know!

  • Anna says:

    29 Jan29 January 10:56

    CAA rules!

    • Shoestring says:

      29 Jan29 January 11:22

      except it’s not – & not that black & white [‘every effort’ is pretty meaningless]

      Families, children and infants
      The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.
      Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.
      Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.

      • Anna says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:31

        Hi Harry,

        This doesn’t say what the airline should do if their efforts fail – it was suggested that planes really shouldn’t be taking off under those circumstances as it breaches safety regulations (obviously in the event of an evacuation parents would be getting to their children first rather than getting off the plane as quickly as possible). It doesn’t bear thinking about that this might have to be tested before anyone acts on it.

      • Shoestring says:

        29 Jan29 January 12:50

        @Anna the papers have been full of stories of parents separated from their under 12YOs by a lot more than 1 row – so it’s clearly not enforced.

        Whether the CAA has privately rapped a few airlines over the knuckles & told them to try harder, I don’t know 🙂

        We don’t care any more, either – 4 of us were initially seated together somewhere near the toilets coming back @ Xmas (Avios) plus 1x HBO – it ended up the HBO got upgraded free to Club (which my wife selfishly kept for herself!), 6A, 7A, 7B, 16A – obviously we ended up choosing the 4 Avios seats @T-24, preferring windows to sitting completely together – it was a 100% full flight with limited options but my daughter was adamant she wanted 16A otherwise I’d have been the fall guy as usual

      • Anna says:

        29 Jan29 January 14:17

        Hence my comment about the possibility of a serious safety situation having to occur before anyone enforces it!

        Didn’t you offered your wife that seat IIRC?

      • Shoestring says:

        29 Jan29 January 14:21

        She got upgraded HBO—> Club twice recently, I grabbed the first one (1A) & my 1C neighbour & I drained the plane of Champagne 🙂 – that was a fun flight…

        For some reason she insisted on keeping the CE seat this time 🙂

        Her theory is that ‘single middle-aged woman’ figures high on the upgrade algorithm

• Chas says:

  29 Jan29 January 11:40

  OT – has anyone got any real-world experience of using your Curve Card to top up the current account of various challenger (app only) banks such as Monzo, Starling, Revolut etc? Looking for guidance as to which one works most reliably and which one allows the highest value of transfers from Curve to the bank account.

  • New Card says:

    29 Jan29 January 11:55

    Seriously? Just try it and see.

    • Chas says:

      29 Jan29 January 12:02

      New Card – of course I could set up one of each account to test them all out, but I am interested in other people’s feedback if they already have experience of some of them not working as well as others, so as to save myself from wasted time and effort.

      • Luthar says:

        29 Jan29 January 15:11

        I just tried to top up Revolut £10 using curve and got charged £0.13 fee.

      • New Card says:

        29 Jan29 January 19:08

        Sorry Chas, was a bit snappy there!
        As a general rule I’d say it’s worth opening all the accounts anyway, you never know when they might become useful in the future…

    • jimmy says:

      29 Jan29 January 12:15

      starling and revoult don’t work

      • tartan says:

        29 Jan29 January 13:56

        Can confirm the Revolute doesn’t work

  • bazza says:

    29 Jan29 January 12:13

    Yea, let us know ..

  • 456t says:

    29 Jan29 January 19:39

    Starling need a sort code so no chance there as curve don’t have one. Monzo works I heard

    • Chas says:

      29 Jan29 January 21:03

      It appears that Monzo stopped allowing debit card top-ups in Aug 18. So if Revolute and Starling don’t work, I don’t think that what I was wanting to do is possible, as you need an account which you can set up DDs with, and which you can top up via Debit Card. Instead I’ll have to see what bills I can pay on my debit card each month ahead of the DD being collected – a bit of an administrative nightmare tbh.

• ChrisC says:

  29 Jan29 January 12:01

  Priced up BA flights only and then as a holiday and the package was way more expensive than separate bookings for flights and hotel. BA Holidays weren’t offering anything to justify the price difference (no room upgrade or free breakfast etc) other than a few bonus avios.

  Also BA website didn’t offer me the flights I wanted (all on BA or AA with BA codeshare) yet Expedia were able to put them together and all on the same 125 ticket number.

  So be advised to check all your options not just assume BA are the best price even in a ‘sale’

  • Peter K says:

    29 Jan29 January 12:15

    Atol protection on BA holidays as a package deal. If bought separately then no ATOL protection.

    • Lost+confused says:

      29 Jan29 January 13:53

      ATOL protection will also apply to an Expedia booking if the flight and hotel are booked same or following day

• Dawn says:

  29 Jan29 January 12:51

  Didn’t realise that you can start in other countries for the BA holidays offer as my business partner has to come over every year. Managed to get a CW return including car for a week in October for £1370 from Johannesburg to Heathrow for her. Pleased with that particularly as we only needed to pay a deposit now.

• roberto says:

  29 Jan29 January 14:17

  Also our on BA001 and back on a 747 (in First) in May, the 9th to the 13th – however I wish our hotel netted down to £108 per night……

  • Anna says:

    29 Jan29 January 14:22

    We’re also flying to NYC in May, out in F, back in J, but at the end of the month when cash prices are insane! Our flights are currently pricing up at £12k, and our hotel (Embassy Suites so not that special) is hovering around $500 per night, though happily we got 3 nights for 210000 HH points.

    • AndyGWP says:

      29 Jan29 January 18:31

      Anna – at the other end of the scale for NYC IN May holidays, we got economy cash flights for sub £300 each and an Airbnb to ourselves in Brooklyn for £300 for 6 nights

      Think of us paupers down the back when you’re drinking your champagne 😂

  • Nick_C says:

    29 Jan29 January 17:08

    Hey Roberto, I am on the same flight out. There were only 20 people on that flight last time I took it, so if we bump into each other we can swap Geese stories (see above).

    I’m taking the morning flight back on the 14th. I’ll spend my last night in a cheap hotel at Jamaica. Thought it would ease the jet lag and let me enjoy the flight instead of just sleeping through it.

    Anna, have you done BA1? It’s a great flight but no lounge or pampering at LCY. OTOH, you can in theory just turn up 20 minutes before the flight.

• Mark says:

  29 Jan29 January 15:21

  OT: Has anyone else received their letter regarding the changes to the Lloyds Avios cards yet? I’ve heard nothing – apparently about to be charged another annual fee and my Amex card is still working.

  • Simon says:

    29 Jan29 January 15:54

    my understanding that no one has heard anything. With 60 days noticed needed and their target of April that means we should all get the “staggered” letters in the next month or so.
    You’d better smash that 7k through.

    • Mark says:

      29 Jan29 January 16:55

      Thanks. Unlikely I’ll put £7K through it in 2 months, but probably too late to cancel now before the annual charge hits.

      Hopefully there will be some flexibility for people party way towards the voucher spend.

      • Simon says:

        29 Jan29 January 18:55

        If curve hadn’t explicitly updated their terms today of suggest that method…

    • Mark2 says:

      29 Jan29 January 16:55

      Let’s hope that they keep that target as well as kept the target to fix the problem where some accounts were not getting Avios at the correct time (but generous compensation). Unfortunately it was fixed eventually.

      • Simon says:

        29 Jan29 January 18:53

        Haha, indeed, especially as my year starts in April

    • AndyGWP says:

      29 Jan29 January 18:35

      I had to contact Lloyd’s the other day as my card was suspected of fraud (Mastercard only, so that limits the opportunities where this was done – ie. not BA website)

      Anyways, he seemed convinced that the Amex cancellations had started… (for some reason he seemed to think I would be issued a new mastercard when the Amex deal comes to an end and was worried my replacement card would overlap with the card he was sending me)

      … I haven’t heard anything from anywhere else tho, so I doubt it has started yet

  • Nick_C says:

    29 Jan29 January 17:15

    I’ve just paid my annual fee, and I’m ready to trigger my final upgrade voucher when I get the letter. Spent a bit on curvaceous poultry with the MC.

• RussellH says:

  29 Jan29 January 15:47

  OT: Re Missing Marriott point from Creation M/Card
  We had some discussion about this yesterday.
  Shock / horror, but my missing points posted today.

  • ankomonkey says:

    29 Jan29 January 16:41

    My balance has increased today, but by more points than I was owed from card spend. There was no entry in the itemised transactions list, so was waiting to see what that says. Thanks for reporting back, though!

• Ant says:

  29 Jan29 January 16:25

  OT: Hilton
  Looking at the sale we are staying at KL Doubletree for 3 nights and the options are 10,000 points or £48pn.
  Trying to work out which is the best option when you consider the 2,000 bonus per stay and the points we would get if we paid cash. Will be doing a Diamond match.
  Thoughts?

  • ankomonkey says:

    29 Jan29 January 16:43

    You’d get the 2000 stay bonus when paying points or cash. I’d pay points as 10k HH points are worth less than £48 to me.

  • Russ says:

    29 Jan29 January 17:06

    General rule of thumb for us anything under three figs left of the decimal point then pay cash. Anything over 3 decimal points to the left then pay points. Midpoint depends what looks the better deal at the time.

  • tom1 says:

    29 Jan29 January 20:25

    Have you looked at the new Hiltons in KL? two properties side by side, one (I think South) has a pool. Reviews look good, and cash rates are £20 when I looked (or I think 8k HH).
    I don’t know whether the location is less desirable though.
    Also, if you are chasing diamond, you could always switch properties one night if you really needed the extra stay.

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