SriLankan Airlines to increase London Heathrow services

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• filipino_chino says:

  1 Mar1 March 06:30

  Was it just me that did not get the emails this morning?

  Tweets went out on time though 🙂

  • Rob says:

    1 Mar1 March 08:08

    Just you I think. We culled 0.5% of the list last night who had stopped opening emails. There is a tiny chance you were accidentally caught in this if you read our emails without downloading the images,

    • RussellH says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:27

      How do you tell that people are not opening their e-mails?

      I am sure I am not the only person whose e-mail software ignores HTML stuff? And most of the ISPs that I use automatically scan e-mails for trackers etc and remove them.

      Just wondering!

      • Rob says:

        1 Mar1 March 21:46

        An email is like a webpage. It doesn’t contain the image per se, it simply contains a server address where each image is to be found. When you open the mail, your email programme runs off and fetches the images from Mailchimp. This means we know how many emails get opened (55% before anyone asks).

        As we pay by email sent, we cull people who don’t open 100 emails in a row. The bulk of these are people who have left their company and may well have resubscribed.

    • filipino_chino says:

      1 Mar1 March 21:03

      Don’t always open the emails, but i never download the images… my email reader is defaulted to raw txt – I guess the solution is to sign up again?

      • Rob says:

        1 Mar1 March 21:42

        Yes, hopefully it lets you. If there are problems let me know.

        Although you’ll get deleted again in 3 months if you don’t download the images once!

• Genghis says:

  1 Mar1 March 06:42

  OT Feb IHG Creation points have now posted to IHG acct.

  • Liz says:

    1 Mar1 March 07:44

    Finally – had my biggest ever spend so was keen for my points to post quickly – already half way to Spire Elite for next year!

  • Luthar says:

    1 Mar1 March 11:16

    Mine too. Do they normally wait until the 1st or is that just a coincidence?

    • Genghis says:

      2 Mar2 March 06:12

      Normally post day of or day after the number of points at Creation’s end goes down to zero

• David S says:

  1 Mar1 March 06:53

  Sri Lanka also fly their A330 between Colombo and Male with flat bed seats in Business. Nice way to arrive. Food and crew are fantastic. The lounges in Colombo and Male are reasonable but not great.

  • BJ says:

    1 Mar1 March 07:32

    +1, it is hard not to like Sri Lankan. Service and food is excellent, especially their local cuisine. The business seat is totally fine. Front row is best avoided though as screens are fixed much too low on the bulkhead. A good choice for couples flying economy as the a330 seat configuration means there is no problem getting pairs of window seats to themselves.

  • guesswho2000 says:

    1 Mar1 March 07:43

    Serendib lounge in CMB is certainly serviceable, Moet being the champagne of choice IIRC, but it’s for J-pax only. Serendiva is the OWS/OWE offering, which I believe is terrible in comparison.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

      1 Mar1 March 10:00

      I didn’t think Serendiva was that bad. Certainly not somewhere you’d go to get there early, and not the most inspiring space, but the fundamentals were all fine: good F&B, fast wifi and plenty of seating.

• Jamie says:

  1 Mar1 March 07:09

  10% discount on Sri Lankan Business class until 31st March too (but might be only for flights originating in Asia). Not sure whatvthese means in practice.

  SriLankan are also the only International Service to Gan Island in the South Maldives (a boat ride away from the Shangri-La). A very basic, windowless Business Class lounge at Gan too.

• TripRep says:

  1 Mar1 March 07:49

  Have to say I quite liked the appearance of the BOAC when I saw it at LHR last week, its the kind of PR stunt that Virgin would normally pull off successfully.

• Shoestring says:

  1 Mar1 March 08:42

  O/T Passports:
  [The rules for travel to most countries in Europe change if the UK leaves the European Union (EU) with no deal.
  After 29 March 2019:
  You should have at least 6 months left on your passport from your date of arrival. This applies to adult and child passports.
  If you renewed a passport before it expired, up to 9 extra months may have been added to your new passport’s expiry date. Any extra months on your passport over 10 years may not count towards the 6 months that should be remaining for travel to most countries in Europe.
  The new rules will apply to passports issued by the UK, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey.]

  That 6 months remaining thing is a PITA. Still plenty of time to renew your passport before Brexit day!

  • Alan says:

    1 Mar1 March 11:04

    Its a shame that the Passport Office dropped the 9 months remaining thing. You no longer get the extra added on to your passport.

    • ADS says:

      1 Mar1 March 14:34

      i hadn’t heard about the change. outrageous the way it received zero publicity from Home Office

      https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/09/passport-applicants-hit-out-after-being-given-shorter-than-expec/

    • RussellH says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:47

      The government have to raise cash to pay for Brexit somehow!

    • Alex Sm says:

      1 Mar1 March 19:19

      No shame, it’s just streamlined things to avoid confusion and disappointment leading to complaints and potential financial liability!

  • Anna says:

    1 Mar1 March 13:05

    We have to get international driving licences for GCM, or pay £20 for a local one on arrival (and it’s a British territory!). The international ones the Post Office gave us looked like something from the 1950s. I can’t for the life of me understand why it’s necessary when you only have to show you have a UK licence to get one anyway!

    • RussellH says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:39

      IDPs are actually issued by the AA (Automobile Association) – the PO is just their agent. The IDP only provides translations of the various categories into Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Italian, German, Arabic, Japanese and French. It is not, in itself, an alternative licence. You still need your UK Driving Licence.

  • BJ says:

    1 Mar1 March 14:19

    Except the UK is not leaving with no deal much to my delight. Only, it’s odds on we will be leaving with May’s deal…compared to which I would actually prefer to leave with no deal…what a mess, all in the interests of the Conservative and Unionist party.

    Not sure if I caught the news right the other night but I think they said we can have a choice of blue or burgundy passports in the future…don’t know what we would do without politicians!

    • Shoestring says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:56

      Can’t see why you would evaluate the odds of leaving with May’s deal as more likely than not!

      Probably true that the ERG has now realised that they stand to get no deal at all unless they hastily take a few steps back & say that they’re happy with the backstop after all so can sign up to May’s deal…

      Looking like a delay is now much more likely than it looked a few days ago…

      • BJ says:

        1 Mar1 March 19:01

        Would you bet against most Tory politicians protecting their own posterior in the first instance and that of their party a split second later? In the case of Labour it might take 60x longer, but then you’d still only be talking minutes.

  • RussellH says:

    1 Mar1 March 17:29

    Just been asked to countersign an application for my neighbour’s 7 month old. She wanted to be certain that the baby too had a ‘proper’ passport, with European Union on it.
    🙂

  • RussellH says:

    1 Mar1 March 17:48

    Anyone ever see this on the side of a Brexit bus?

  • Alan says:

    10 Mar10 March 14:56

    And be careful which one you get – Spain requires a different one to most of the rest of the EU (as the rules were agreed at different times).

• Anna says:

  1 Mar1 March 09:14

  OT – a few people mentioned getting a letter from HH visa about not accepting Curve payments though I read that as not accepting payment from Curve to pay off the HH card. However it looks as though I have a small payment elsewhere about to bounce back – do we think HH is going to block Curve altogether?

  • Alan says:

    10 Mar10 March 14:57

    Not seen any indication of that so far.

• Waddle says:

  1 Mar1 March 09:32

  OT: Going abroad soon so wondering what the best card combo to take is?
  I have a pre-loaded Revolut and Curve backed by my HSBC WE. Any way I can do some spending on Amex without taking a huge hit on fees?

  • Vivian says:

    1 Mar1 March 14:29

    Lloyds Avios Reward Amex if you already have one and hasn’t received any comms from Lloyds on terms changing.

    • Susan says:

      1 Mar1 March 14:38

      +1 – not sure about where they’re posting as it’s currently stuck in a draw but my just renewed card is still Avios branded and Lloyds has confirmed that it’s still 0% foreign transaction fee.

      • Waddle says:

        1 Mar1 March 16:20

        Thanks both. Unfortunately I entered the miles and points game only very recently and missed out on the Lloyds Avios Amex 🙁

        • Rob says:

          1 Mar1 March 21:48

          It may come back as Mastercard-only. Genuinely don’t know though.

      • Shoestring says:

        1 Mar1 March 21:17

        Amex Gold Credit card? Don’t worry about spending on transactions abroad. You get charged headline 2.99%. But you get back 2 points per £, so that is worth 2p or 2% rebate.

        You are also increasing your total spend towards £15,000, which gets you 10,000 Amex on the anniversary, or 0.67p rebate for every £ you spend abroad

        Hey presto. Your 2.99% fee for spending abroad has only cost you 0.32% – ie you spend £100 abroad, it only costs you net 32p in fees, hardly enough to get worried about.

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