Last day for Hilton’s UK, Europe and Middle East hotel flash sale

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• sunguy says:

  25 Mar25 March 12:51

  Oops…..

  BA plane lands in Edinburgh instead of Dusseldorf by mistake

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47691478

  Passengers and ground crew thought they were going somewhere different to the flight crew!

  • BSI1978 says:

    25 Mar25 March 13:07

    Have I read this correctly – surely the pilots would have clocked this prior to take-off? Do they board plans not know their final destination until the paperwork is handed to them?!

  • TripRep says:

    25 Mar25 March 13:26

    I’ve heard of TUI almost doing this last summer. People boarded a flight bound for LGW instead of East Midlands.

    Seemingly flight crew fail to actually check boarding passes, at all.

    But doesn’t the pilot normally announce destination/weather/duration to pax before pre flight safety brief?

    • RogerC says:

      25 Mar25 March 14:17

      Flew with this company from LCY the day before, ironically to Edinburgh, in place on a BA plane. No checks on boarding passes and poor English on the tannoy from crew. Still pretty amazed that not one passenger noticed they were going the wrong way!

      • BJ says:

        25 Mar25 March 14:55

        Probably just desperate to get a look…best place to live and work in UK, Europe and the world according to three different studies recently 🙂

    • Hugh says:

      25 Mar25 March 15:44

      Never happened to me but on a package ski holiday a couple of years ago I could tell by the route we were going that the coach taking us to the airport was going to the wrong airport. I had to tell the rep 4 times before she checked with the driver at which point there was a rapid u turn and frantic calls to the airport to try to hold the plane! We just got to the airport in time!

  • Graham Walsh says:

    25 Mar25 March 19:52

    My colleagues Sister was on that flight this morning

• youngtraveller says:

  25 Mar25 March 13:11

  O/T have you guys seen the news about the ba flight that landed in Edinburgh by mistake? No one noticed till they landed.

• Graham Walsh says:

  25 Mar25 March 13:20

  OT Still chasing Virgin Life Insurance points from last year, so make sure they’ve posted to your account. They know I should have them as they see I applied with the correct link. What’s funny is that the guy at Virgin Money called them Air Miles.

  • Matt says:

    25 Mar25 March 14:17

    Mine posted very timely after 6 months.

  • d4ve says:

    25 Mar25 March 18:21

    Mine posted but they appear on my statement on the day I took out the policy. Check back 6 months.

• Kenneth says:

  25 Mar25 March 13:31

  OT – I need some advice please.

  Have just returned from a fortnight in the US. Flew CW with Avios from Manchester to San Diego. My main suitcase did not arrive at San Diego. It contained clothes and two cased musical instruments that I needed for an event in California. BA lost my case for a 6 full days.It did eventually turn up at my AirBnB, delivered by FedEx. The trip was pointless without the instruments. I lost the Avios, taxes, an upgrade voucher, accommodation, car hire, etc. Contacted BA on my return and was told that BA do not guarantee that cases arrive on the same flight. And, because I did not buy any clothes and toiletries they said they had no responsibility. They offered me a miserly 15,000 Avios or a one-way upgrade voucher (don’t know the conditions attached) as a “goodwill gesture”. Have not accepted yet. My trip was a disaster. Any ideas whether anything can be done, please?

  • Matthew says:

    25 Mar25 March 14:12

    Travel insurance? I’d imagine a claim with that rather than BA for loss.

    • Kenneth says:

      25 Mar25 March 14:25

      I have a Platinum Card. I called them and told me that my insurance did not cover any of this. I couldn’t believe it. Neither can I believe that BA accept no responsibility.

      • Femi says:

        25 Mar25 March 17:10

        You mustn’t have explained yourself properly.
        Amex Plat insurance certainly DOES offer coverage for delayed/lost luggage. Read the policy. But then, you never bought any replacement clothes toiletries etc (why not?? how could you live without these)
        All very odd, I suspect you have not told us all the applicable detail.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:24

        Sounds like the case that went missing was the one with instruments.

        I have to say that reading this you should read the T&C’s of your Amex insurance policy and be really clear on what the issue was and why your claim is valid if something around the delay is covered.

        Sometimes not being covered is because they don’t understand the actual issue. I’m not sure many here do other than you had a holiday rather than worked/recorded music, was there a cost to this and does the insurance cover loss of income? Maybe you need another policy for future trips?

      • Jill (Kinkell) says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:41

        One of our cases failed to turn up in Denver last year. We were travelling First, so we got an automatic prepaid m/c with $300 for anything we might require. Case forwarded to us 24 hours later.

      • Shoestring says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:44

        @Jill – from whom?

  • Confused says:

    25 Mar25 March 14:17

    “I lost the Avios, taxes, an upgrade voucher, accommodation, car hire, etc.”

    but yet “Have just returned from a fortnight in the US.”

    Not sure I follow this. Lost instruments aside, it appears you ‘enjoyed’ two weeks in sunny California regardless?

    Are you saying you now didn’t take the CW flights (using Lloyds upgrade voucher), slept rough in California (appropriately as you had no change of clothes for a fortnight) and didn’t use your booked accommodation or use your presumably pre-booked car hire etc?

    I’d suggest you seek advice much faster in future (ie as soon as you realise such luggage has gone AWOL)

    • Kenneth says:

      25 Mar25 March 14:23

      Thank you for your valuable advice. And no, the second week was spent visiting friends as I had very little choice with reward availability. What I am saying is that the main purpose of the trip was to perform and record music. The money I spent in advance on car hire, accommodation and such was wasted because I could not do this. And California was not sunny. It was cold and wet. Luckily I didn’t have to sleep rough.

      • Anna says:

        25 Mar25 March 15:07

        I think you’d have to show that you suffered some sort of financial loss due to not being able to play the instruments. If you accept the Ts & Cs when you book your tickets (i.e. that your luggage may not arrive with you) then you haven’t got much of a case TBH. I would have thought valuable musical instruments would need separate insurance anyway?

      • SimonW says:

        25 Mar25 March 15:33

        I’d have thought you carry the irreplaceable instruments as hand luggage, or rent/buy another one on arrival if they go missing. If 2 of them fitted in a suitcase, I’m guessing they arent that large.

      • Evan says:

        25 Mar25 March 16:24

        Well Anna is right – you need first to establish your financial loss. What was it? I would have thought that the loss of a chance to earn money on your trip would be outside of your insurance terms with Amex and you’d be hard pressed with BA either – but I’m not clear if you are saying that….

      • Jon says:

        25 Mar25 March 16:54

        If you had no (other) clothes, and never bought any to replace them, how did you get by? And why did you ‘waste’ the (prebooked?) accommodation and car hire? Could you not just have used these regardless, if as you say, it was going to be wasted otherwise?

        What travel insurance did you possess? Amex Platinum or Bank policy or arranged personally?

        Lots of detail missing from your woe.

        PS How cold was it? current weather showing about 20 ish degrees

      • Shoestring says:

        25 Mar25 March 17:06

        Yep well known that BA will not compensate you for consequential losses (ie missed everything! as trip mostly pointless without the instruments) – (yes they would have refunded you urgent replacement clothing, toiletries etc, with receipts).

        Not worth pursuing with BA as they won’t budge & already offered you a reasonable ‘sorry!’ gesture.

      • Mikeact says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:06

        Seems to me that this guy, unfortunately, is not a seasoned traveller as the story does not seem to me to be from someone who knows their way around. Lesson learned.

      • Justin says:

        26 Mar26 March 10:07

        I guess BA/travel insurance would have covered you to buy/rent another instrument to do what you needed to.

• ahop says:

  25 Mar25 March 14:12

  OT: 1000 Lufthansa Miles and More about to expire. Anything I can do with them/do to prolong their life?

  • Rob says:

    25 Mar25 March 15:37

    No, apart from a small discount if you book a hotel via their portal.

• Shoestring says:

  25 Mar25 March 17:18

  FINTECH start-up Curve ….

  [EDITED as I have already had one formal complaint in the last 7 days from a national print title about Shoestring cutting and pasting entire or large chunks of articles]

  • Freddy says:

    25 Mar25 March 18:03

    Someone might wanna tell curve that everyone have scrapped their amex cards so may aswell not bother

    • Mikeact says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:13

      You mean Rob’s 13000 bloggers or his 30000 social media followers…or both ?

  • Shoestring says:

    25 Mar25 March 19:19

    OK, noted, no wish to do more than quote a couple of short, relevant bits:
    [As a result, Mr Bialick said, his business has spent millions of pounds on transactions fees and development work for a project that never launched….As well as launching a legal challenge, Curve said it is filing a complaint with the Payment Systems Regulator. “We have a very large set of investors and we have a lot of money in our war chest,” Mr Bialick said. “When someone is actively trying to kill you, that means you are disrupting the model.”]

    • Symon says:

      25 Mar25 March 23:43

      “When someone is actively trying to kill you, that means you are disrupting the model” Is he all there? Their business model is a dead end; and to be honest starting to look at little outdated. Who in their right mind would bother to kill off something that isn’t profitable and not that popular (Curve only has 500,000 cardholders according to the article).

• sprout7 says:

  25 Mar25 March 18:14

  O/T – I’m afraid I need some advice on the following strategy:
  I’m looking to align my wife’s BAE tier point year end with mine and despite numerous calls and mails to exec club they are unable to help. The only way I can think to do it is by transferring her points to her Avios.com account, closing her BA account (forfeiting an unused 2 for 1 voucher in the process) reopening a new BAE account in March / April (my year end is March 8th) and transferring the points back into the new account.
  Could anyone confirm if this will / won’t work?
  Many thanks

  • Rob says:

    25 Mar25 March 18:23

    Should work but seems a little extreme. It is pathetic that BA allows this situation to develop. We have four different month ends amongst the four people in our house.

    • sprout7 says:

      25 Mar25 March 18:42

      Yea it does seem bonkers. My main concern was reconnecting the new BA account to Avios but I guess we’ll give it a go. thanks

    • BJ says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:07

      Yes it is, but it is the only solution BA will offer sprout IME. Been there, tried that! I agree it is extreme though, with status lasting up to two years date differences should not be much of an issue if Mr(s) Sprout travel regularly. At the very least it should provide scope for managing the date of closure and rejoining.

  • ChrisC says:

    26 Mar26 March 08:22

    You are actively wanting to give up a potentially valuable 2 for 1 voucher just to tidy up some dates?

    You must be mad to give this up and then be willing spend X thousands of avios unnecessaryily on your next trip where you could have used the voucher and saved them.

    She would also lose any current status she may have and also the life time tier points – which may not bother you / here but it would other people.

    But if you want to waste the voucher and avios then go ahead. The only people who would benefit are BA.

    • sprout7 says:

      26 Mar26 March 13:00

      Following the change in Amex sign up bonus rules the 2for1 becomes less valuable to us as we will cross refer more frequently and obtain more vouchers than in the past. (I currently hold 2). Hitting the £10k spend target is not an issue.

      We intend to travel on more short haul redemptions in economy so having Silver status becomes far more valuable (and for long haul seat reservations). Therefore aligning tier point year end dates becomes significant if we are to maximise the effectiveness of tier point runs / holidays.

      I can assure you there will be significant benefits for me if she is able to get lounge access as well rather than me suggesting she sits outside while I go in alone!

• Shoestring says:

  25 Mar25 March 19:56

  O/T There are other cards. FWIW I took out a Sainsbury’s Nectar credit card this morning, it offers 28 months zero interest on both new purchases and balance transfers up to your credit limit. So you can buy new things for the next 28 months and pay no interest on your purchases, obvs only up to your credit limit. [I have no balance transfers but I guess you'd pay a small fee to transfer your balance from another credit card, then zero interest for the 28 month term.]

  Acceptance was immediate online – which is better than I can say we ever got for Amex card applications! 🙂 Credit limit £15,000. You *must* pay the minimum monthly amount each month or you will lose your 28 month free credit offer.

  Don’t do this unless you can pay off the balance in full before the 28 month term is up (when you start paying interest.)

  • BJ says:

    25 Mar25 March 20:17

    Didn’t you get a bunch of bonus nectar points for your next 10 shops in two months too? Presumably you also still get double nectar points at Sainbsburys for two years?

    • BJ says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:28

      “Earn 750 bonus points each time you spend £35 or more on Sainsbury’s shopping with your credit card, up to ten times in your first 2 months, that’s 7,500 points††.”

  • Mikeact says:

    25 Mar25 March 20:19

    What was the sign up ? i.e. How many Nectar?

    • Shoestring says:

      25 Mar25 March 20:23

      No, it’s like BJ says: loadsa points for Sainsbury’s purchases in the coming months but no big sign-up bonus

      • TGLoyalty says:

        25 Mar25 March 20:27

        That’s the problem. 5% off through my work discount scheme (which takes AMEX) is much better than double nectar.

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