New Hilton and American Express hotel cashback promotion launched

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• Graham Walsh says:

  4 Jun4 June 03:06

  OT Whats the best go to card for hotel check in abroad now that Lloyd’s is gone? I’ll use Curve for most things. Just noticed when I used it for Lyft just now it’s charged the estimated fair. I also remember that Uber wouldn’t take my curve card.

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:10

    Have curve sorted out pre-auths now? I’ve never used as my guaranteed card, just a normal CC will do, then pay on your card of choice at check out

    • Rooster says:

      4 Jun4 June 09:48

      No and they won’t be afaik

  • N says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:34

    Curve/lyft will sort itself out a few days later having charged the estimated fare.

    A refund or extra charge will come through eventually as a separate transaction.

  • Graham Walsh says:

    5 Jun5 June 08:08

    Thanks Ben. My other thought was Revolut but needs to be topped up. Not sure how it handles pre auth.

• guesswho2000 says:

  4 Jun4 June 03:11

  Related to Curve, has anyone had any joy getting them to increase the limit above £50k?

  I’ve been rather unhelpfully told to continue spending and it will be reviewed. I have 18p left of my limit, and 5 months until the rolling 12 months of transactions start dropping off.

  • Jon says:

    4 Jun4 June 04:37

    Yes, a couple of weeks ago. Messaged support via the app, got a very quick response saying “we’re reviewing it”, then a couple of hours later a further message to say my annual limit had been doubled to £100k (and the various other limits increased also).

    In case useful as a data point, I use Curve a lot, and put regular day-to-day spending through it, as well as my VAT every quarter, and the occasional overseas ATM withdrawal (not huge – maybe £75-100 a go). I was about £1200 off my annual limit at the time of request.

  • Anthony says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:59

    +1 CS told me my curve spending was not ‘Day to day’ (mainly HMRC) so increase refused until I was using the card ‘properly’ – but too late as I have hit the limit for year so it’s in the drawer for six months until the limit resets automatically. Seems a bit daft to me.

    • Anthony says:

      4 Jun4 June 08:01

      To clarify I was replying to guesswho2000

  • Polly says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:06

    They are petty good at increasing it to 100k etc. But, they will scrutinize and comment on spending habits. Ie, what exactly you are using your curve card for. Specifically their Fair Use policy.

    • Michael says:

      4 Jun4 June 09:00

      I’ve been using curve to fill up my NS&I account, I’ve hit the 10k limit – how do I contact them through the app to get them to increase it?

      • Jon says:

        4 Jun4 June 09:40

        From the Wallet screen: main menu button at top left, select Help & Support, then My Support Tickets (down at the bottom, separate from the rest of the list), then New (on iPhone anyway – don’t know whether it’s different on Android etc).

      • BFT01 says:

        4 Jun4 June 12:37

        Why do you still invest in NS& I there are much better returns than wasting your time on I may win something, these are a really poor investment.do some research on better savings accounts or better yet see an Independent Financial Adviser

        • pablo says:

          4 Jun4 June 12:47

          Highly unlikely that he’s in it to win it 😉

        • Peter K says:

          4 Jun4 June 14:13

          @BTF01 I think you just won the newbie comment of the day 😁

• Voltron says:

  4 Jun4 June 04:15

  OT – Is there anyway to extend Emirate skywards miles now the mbna card is gone?
  Credited a europcar rental but still looks like there is a hard expiry on the previous miles.

  • Neil says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:34

    Sadly not!

  • Rob says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:38

    There was always hard expiry – the MBNA card had no impact, did it?

    • Steve says:

      4 Jun4 June 08:05

      Rob is correct, Emirates has had a hard expiry for as far back as I can remember

• Howard says:

  4 Jun4 June 05:37

  Sorry to be off topic but not had this before. Was
  due to fly to Zurich st 7.00 am today from LCY and about 10.30 pm last night (with our friends) we had emails to say flight was cancelled. They said was for operational reasons. I noticed at check in seats were plenty available in both business and economy. It was the E170 from City. We are on a later flight but from LHR. Very inconvenient as City is 12 mins drive and now we have an expensive can to Heathrow. Any views?

  • Stu_N says:

    4 Jun4 June 06:49

    EC261/2004 doesn’t explicitly cover changes of departure airport in the same city area but I’d at least try a claim for the costs of getting to Heathrow.

    Have a look at compensation for short notice cancellations too. Unless it’s extraordinary circumstances (weather and ATC problems being the main ones), it you arrive more than two hours after your scheduled arrival time then you should be able to claim €250 per person for the cancellation.

    • Stu_Ny says:

      4 Jun4 June 06:58

      Edit – if you were meant to be on BA8763, per Expertflyer the cancellation reason is “FCRY” which is flight crew issue (i.e. staff shortage) so definitely not exceptional circumstances.

    • Stu N says:

      4 Jun4 June 09:01

      “…and, (if your new departure time is later than your previous departure time), even if you arrive earlier than 2 hrs difference vs the original arrival time, you are entitled to EUR125 each for the short notice (>7 days) cancellation of a short haul flight.”

      Are you sure about that, Harry? I thought even for short notice cancellations, if you left less than one hour early and got there less than two hours late, you got nowt.

      • Shoestring says:

        4 Jun4 June 09:56

        here’s another link with a handy grid
        https://www.claimcompass.eu/blog/claim-compensation-cancelled-delayed-flight/

    • lady London says:

      4 Jun4 June 12:25

      Statements of British Airways professing that getting to LHR is same as getting to LGW and vice versa because it’s all “London” sorely need to be tested in court. Not the same at all, for huge numbers of people, in time and / or costs.

      Appalling that the airline can even try to get away with this.

      • Shoestring says:

        4 Jun4 June 12:31

        People have taken them to small claims and BA always back down.

        They do rely on 95% of people either not complaining in the first place or else accepting the first / second compo refusal (by BA).

  • Will T says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:39

    We had a similar problem but in reverse: travelling from GVA to LCY early in the morning and flight was cancelled for same reason I think. Booked on later flight and landed 2 hours after original arrival time. We were able to claim for each passenger but also they covered our breakfast receipts at the airport as well as the taxi to gva (IIRC for the taxi part) but did not cover taxi from LHR to home. There were some other issues that I complained about: the phone number they gave me to sort a new flight out was closed for the night. Had to call USA BA to sort it out. (Ended up being connected to the same Indian call centre as UK numbers! – I pointed this out to BA)

  • Mike says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:01

    It’s probably too late now, but I had a flight from LCY cancelled due to snow last winter.
    I turned up at LCY anyway, went through the rebooking options with a ticket agent as I didn’t like the flight I’d been rebooked on.
    The flight I ended up on was from LHR, and a member of BA staff walked me to a taxi out front and handed the taxi driver a voucher for the cost of the fare…

• BSI1979 says:

  4 Jun4 June 05:40

  Morning Rob,

  A ‘rival’ but undoubtedly inferior site is reporting that BA are trialling the use of Avios for certain flight upgrades at the airport (T5) only.

  Apologies of I’ve missed something posted previously on this but do you know if it’s true and/or whether there’s any parameters set out for how many points are required to upgrade?

  Cheers

  • The Streets says:

    4 Jun4 June 06:58

    Was just about to post the same thing but was waiting for today’s articles

    • Sussex bantam says:

      4 Jun4 June 07:18

      There was a check in desk at T5 yesterday next to the Gold Wing which was offering this. I don’t know how it was set up though and there was a long queue so I didn’t go to ask

      • Rob says:

        4 Jun4 June 08:15

        It is ONLY where the app is offering you a cash upgrade. There are now 2 options – cash, or Avios based on 0.5pish. The cash option does not require a queue either!

    • Rob says:

      4 Jun4 June 07:35

      It is the equivalent of the cash upgrade, based on 0.5p to 0.6p per Avios.

      If the cash upgrade showing in the app is £59, the Club Europe upgrade will be around 12,000 Avios. Poor deal compared to paying cash (and you can pay cash in the app with no queue).

      Nothing to see here ….

      • Polly says:

        4 Jun4 June 07:45

        Also good for BA, as millions of avios floating around, and BA will swallow them up. Save them a fortune. Keeping the avios in house, as it were. And people get to fly F J or CE without much effort. But yes, not great value.
        Still don’t know if they will allow avios tkt upgrade tho. Handy just to pay the difference in avios, if possible.

        • David says:

          4 Jun4 June 11:42

          And good for us too – the more avios are redeemed by the masses for rubbish value, the less BA will bother to devalue the great redemptions that we all know about.

        • Lady London says:

          4 Jun4 June 12:27

          Good for the average punter though.

          Based on what Rob’s pointed out, I personally wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
          Especially as avios are so much more difficult to come by now with the demise of major schemes.

• Ben says:

  4 Jun4 June 06:12

  ‘£50 back on a £500 Bicester Village spend’ This offer is also available on the Gold charge card.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:14

    Or go to Swindon or Swansea, and pay considerably less than Bicester anyway.

    I needed a new carry-on for a hand-luggage only Delta Flight (max 56x35x23). Identical suitcase in the Timberland store at Bicester and Swansea. At Bicester it was £89, I didn’t buy it. Happened to be in Swansea the next day, it was £29.

    Priced for the local market…

    • Mikeact says:

      4 Jun4 June 13:55

      Or GunWharf, Portsmouth, for a far better day out as well.

• SG says:

  4 Jun4 June 06:59

  Morning all
  Topped up Revout for a now cancelled trip abroad spending
  Relatively new to Revolut and not sure what would be a sensible way of exiting about 1k sterling that would not “upset” Revolut?(free version,£200/month withdrawal limit)
  Would transferring to my current account and spend it be no/no,would transferring to someone else from Revolut account be better?(not a CC)
  Appreciate your suggestions

  • Alex M says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:01

    Transfer to your acc should not be an issue, from experience.

    • David says:

      4 Jun4 June 07:20

      Revolut pretends to be a normal grown-up bank account, so doing a £1k bank transfer should be totally normal…

  • John says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:26

    Move it out in 3 chunks, £200 cash, small purchase and bank transfer the rest.

  • MD says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:27

    Revolut is essentially a bank account (although they have no licence yet) so there’s no issue transferring the whole amount to your current account as a bank transfer.

    The limit you mention is for card withdrawals. There is technically a limit for account transfers and how much money you can put through the account p.a., can’t remember what it is off hand but it’s vastly higher than that. I move thousands through it regularly, you won’t have an issue.

    • Genghis says:

      4 Jun4 June 07:52

      I thought Revolut have now got a Lithuanian banking licence, passportable across the EU, they’re just not yet using it?

      • MD says:

        4 Jun4 June 08:03

        You’re absolutely right as ever Genghis, that was poorly phrased by me. Should have said “functional banking licence” or similar. Last I read they were still under investigation by the Lithuanian government!

        “Today’s resolution will request that a Lithuanian national security committee investigates Revolut in order to determine whether its activities are “in line with the national security interests of the Republic of Lithuania”.

        Admittedly that’s from April.

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:53

    You’ll be ok with £1k. I’m only aware of it being a “slap on the wrists” offence if you put huge volumes (amount unknown) through.

    • MD says:

      4 Jun4 June 08:09

      Yes if you transfer “too much”, nebulous and unknown quantities, they will freeze your account and ask for proof of income etc. Have read some horror stories. They did it to me when putting through circa £40k during last holiday (luckily as a true HfPer I had about 10 back up cards lol). In fairness they were very prompt and polite in replying to my messages, and a few bank statements and pay slips got things sorted in <24 hours. Presumably now with higher (though still annoyingly opaque) limits in the background. I've got Revolut metal though, if that matters.

      • Genghis says:

        4 Jun4 June 09:38

        From reports from others, they will ask for approval for every £25k of spending, i.e. if you’ve got approval for £50k pa then go over, if approved they’ll give you £75k. Under the old system, I got my annual limits upped to £75k and have never been asked since – not been spending that much a year on it.

        • lev441 says:

          4 Jun4 June 09:54

          Every £10k or so that I put on to revolut results in them blocking the account and having to send over self assessments/payslips/bank statements etc. Quite a tedious process…
          They didn’t like me transferring out to one of my other accounts, paying for business invoices, paying into financial institutions etc as against t’s and c’s.

        • MD says:

          4 Jun4 June 10:07

          Good to know, thanks.

        • blah says:

          4 Jun4 June 10:46

          If you go overboard they will close your account completely.

• Olly says:

  4 Jun4 June 07:24

  My Amex Hilton offer specifies payment at the hotel so I’ve taken that to be sale prices and the like, which are prepaid, are not included. I don’t remember previous offers I’ve used mentioning that.

  • Michael says:

    7 Jun7 June 09:59

    Did you get an answer to this? Looking to book for next week but without the sale price its outside the expenses budget.

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