Join Angela Hartnett for an exclusive meal at Murano with Marriott Bonvoy points

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• Russ says:

  4 Mar4 March 12:29

  OT as bits, I’ve got a search on my credit file just popped up from Amex called ‘Anti-money Laundering’. Never seen it before so should I be worried?*

  • the_real_a says:

    4 Mar4 March 12:41

    Standard check to make sure your name is are still at your address… no impact to your credit. Quite normal.

  • Genghis says:

    4 Mar4 March 12:42

    Standard soft search.

  • Russ says:

    4 Mar4 March 13:18

    Thanks guys, taken a load off. Haven’t had one of these searches for many a year and thought it may have something to do with my card details being stolen.

• AndyF says:

  4 Mar4 March 12:44

  OT: A couple of weeks ago a website was mentioned, that could search though Hilton honours availability throughout the world on selected dates. Does anyone remember this or have the link?

  • Rob says:

    4 Mar4 March 12:57

    It is Hilton’s Points Explorer tool if you google that.

• Michael says:

  4 Mar4 March 13:02

  OT: Has Marriot Bonvoy always been a Amex MR partner?

  • Anna says:

    4 Mar4 March 13:12

    No, as Bonvoy is a recent invention, I think SPG has been though.

    • Michael says:

      4 Mar4 March 14:03

      Ahh yes Sorry – I meant SPG in its previous form.

• BJ says:

  4 Mar4 March 13:27

  OT: I transferred 120k Bonvoy points to BA on Friday. 65k avios in BA today confirming that the 15k Bonvoy bonus (5k avios bonus) still attracts the 30% transfer bonus in the same way as old SPG days. Oddly, it posted as 52k and 13k on BAEC.

  • Colin JE says:

    4 Mar4 March 15:40

    That’s worrying. I transferred 6k points to BA beginning of Feb and still not appeared. When I queried it Marriot said it could take up to 6 weeks.
    Should I be worried?

    • Shoestring says:

      4 Mar4 March 16:03

      yes – should be pretty quick normally, my last transfer was similar to BJ’s ie a couple of days

      these CS staff do like to kick the can down the road, ‘wait 6 weeks, wait 3 months’ etc, not sure if it’s pure laziness or a policy of hoping some people will forget to chase up later…

• Matt says:

  4 Mar4 March 14:02

  Marriott Peak/Off-peak pricing:
  Does anyone know when this is due to start?
  Called the travel reps in UK today, but they had no clue – said something about “soon”, “maybe some hotels started it already” – but I checked 4 hotels and saw only the standard pricing?

  • Anna says:

    4 Mar4 March 15:04

    I think it’s officially tomorrow, but if they can hold off till the end of April I would be very happy!

• S says:

  4 Mar4 March 14:13

  Where are the rules for SPG amex free night certificate written? Amex website doesn’t mention restriction on categories.. I thought it was only valid up to 25k/night hotels.

  • Grant says:

    4 Mar4 March 14:49

    That’s my understanding too, but that is based on what I’ve read here rather than anything from Amex / Bonvoy.

  • Mr Dee says:

    4 Mar4 March 19:26

    You can use it for any hotel unto 25k point which would probably exclude certain categories but no issue for any up to 25k points

    • S says:

      4 Mar4 March 19:58

      Where does it actually say that though?

      • Mr Dee says:

        4 Mar4 March 20:48

        I have used 2 and the voucher literally says use for a redemption for up to 25k points? What are you trying to redeem?

      • S says:

        4 Mar4 March 22:10

        I haven’t earnt the voucher yet so cannot see the wording on the voucher. But the limitations *have* to be stated somewhere else. Amex website just says free night voucher, which without further clarification implies free night anywhere.

        I’m sure I’m missing the T&Cs cos Amex cannot expect you to spend £25k without understanding the quite significant limitation, or expect everyone to know because HfP says so!

• Grant says:

  4 Mar4 March 17:23

  Is anyone prepared to divulge how many times they are recyling initial credit card spend with the use of Curve / Revolut et al?

  • Mark says:

    4 Mar4 March 17:36

    First rule…..

    • Shoestring says:

      4 Mar4 March 17:43

      And that’s why Curve used as a debit card with free transactions to pay off credit card bills (when Curve *isn’t* a real debit card if the card behind it is a credit card – simples!) – has a very short life expectancy 🙂

      • Mr Dee says:

        4 Mar4 March 19:28

        Agree difficult to explain how you can spend so much on your cards if your salary doesn’t match which is now often recorded on the credit files and questioned by some lenders

    • Grant says:

      4 Mar4 March 20:11

      That was funny the first couple of times

  • BJ says:

    4 Mar4 March 19:25

    You must be a newbie, we don’t do things like that here on HFP 🙁

    • Genghis says:

      4 Mar4 March 19:57

      How vulgar

    • Grant says:

      4 Mar4 March 20:11

      Lol – I’ve been around long enough to know that a lot of us do it. Just wondered whether anyone was brave enough to admit the scale to which they do it personally given the relative anonymity offered. Seems they aren’t.

      • Graham Walsh says:

        5 Mar5 March 08:28

        Did it got a few months and got bored of the stupid £200 per transaction limit.

• lee says:

  4 Mar4 March 17:35

  Is Barclaycard now treating Curve Atm as cash advance or is this even still possible ?

  • Rob says:

    4 Mar4 March 17:35

    Don’t believe so.

  • Andrew L says:

    4 Mar4 March 18:18

    No. I withdrew £250 from my HH Barclays credit card a few weeks ago using my Curve card and, as always, was treated as a purchase by Barclays.

    • Shoestring says:

      4 Mar4 March 18:25

      a few weeks ago is centuries ago – it’s now all changing very quickly as banks & other credit card providers realise (belatedly) that transactions through Curve are exposing them to unacceptable risk & the least they should do is bill them as cash advances

      • Andrew L says:

        4 Mar4 March 20:35

        I can assure you that the only thing that has changed with Barclays is that they won’t allow you to pay your credit card bill with Curve anymore, which just eliminates all the idiots that are totally abusing the system whom will ruin it for everyone if they are allowed to continue taking the mickey.

      • Shoestring says:

        4 Mar4 March 21:01

        There’s no such thing as ‘abusing the system’.

        Either a process/ transactions is allowable under the bank/ credit card provider’s systems – or it’s not.

        There’s no ‘taking the Mickey’.

        There is a bank or credit card provider failing to recognise that another credit card payment #1 is using it to pay off credit/ charge card #2.

        So it’s a failure not at Curve but at Barclays or whatever. Barclays is liable for the repercussions or the falsehoods etc, that’s hopefully what Barclays have realised & that’s hopefully why they’re stopping it.

        Why would a responsible bank willingly allow customers to harm themselves with wrong/ misguided credit movements? Paying off credit card A with credit card B falls into this category.

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