American Express pushing a ‘buy Avios’ bonus – worth it?

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• P Roberts says:

  10 Jul10 July 07:47

  I appreciate my question is very specific to me but if anyone had any views I’d welcome them. We are booked as a family to fly to San Fran on the 13th. This was a holiday two years in the making. Saving up to fly club for the first time ever. If the pilots strike I presume we are stuffed and all BA have to do is refund the price of our tickets. But then the cost of trying to fliy with another carrier will be astronomical as everyone tries to do the same.

  Do you think they could use other airlines eg Qatar to cover the flights as they have spare capacity?

  What would others do facing the same problem?
  Thank you

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Jul10 July 07:56

    Did you pay something (fees at least) on a regular credit card (not a charge card)?

    • P Roberts says:

      10 Jul10 July 08:03

      Hi shoestring yes ironically on the BA amex.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Jul10 July 10:20

        then you’re covered by S75, that’s a credit card

        you can be proactive and just buy the cheapest reasonable equivalent alternative tickets & bill the credit card co later for the refund under S75 (no need to ask them for permission first)

  • pauldb says:

    10 Jul10 July 08:09

    BA are obliged to reroute you, not just offer a refund. But naturally there are limits to how many passengers they can reroute in short order with so many flights potentially cancelled.

    On the plus side, whereas most routes would see most passengers pushed back to a non-strike day, to the US BA will be very willing to reroute you on AA or Iberia, and maybe Finnair(!) and Aer Lingus too, so many passengers could be rerouted same day.

    But not all: it’s not clear how you put yourself at the front of the queue. BA won’t immediately cancel flights when the strike dates are announced, but they will probably announce a policy that those potentially affected can get themselves proactively rerouted. If you look out for that and call BA promptly you may improve your outcome.

    As Harry alludes too, it may alternatively be possible to push your CC company to provide (buy) you alternative transportation.

    • pauldb says:

      10 Jul10 July 08:13

      For completeness, should add that the CAA pushed Ryanait to rebook passengers on other airlines during their strikes, so BA cannot indefinately stick to only rebooking on its JBA partners. However they may wriggle out of this for a while!

      • P Roberts says:

        10 Jul10 July 08:23

        Thank you. Never even occurred to me that rerouting could be an option. So if you had the option which biz class would you try and get rerouted on if the product was the only consideration.

        • pauldb says:

          10 Jul10 July 11:26

          Don’t expect to have too much choice, if any, but the best discretion is to try and get on an AA 77W flight rather than one of their older set-ups. HfP has poisitve reviews of EI and IB. Delta and United have good seats too but that may be irrelevant.

    • AJA says:

      10 Jul10 July 08:26

      I think the unofficial policy for preferential treatment on rerouting is class of travel (e.g. First v Club),type of ticket (e.g. flexible v non flexible), then BAEC status Gold higher than Silver higher than Bronze higher than Blue higher than not a BAEC member. Also I believe fare paying passengers are ahead of Avios redemptions in the queue.

      So if you’re flying Club you’re more likely to be rerouted over someone flying WTP. But if there are lots of BAEC Gold’s flying in Club and you’re Silver or lower then they get rerouted before you do. Be prepared for a downgrade too, though you should be compensated for that, you could argue to receive tier points and Avios as per your original booking (assuming it’s not an Avios redemption ticket).

      I’m flying to Venice on Aug 11th from LGW, bought in the BA sale in May, mentally preparing for flight to be cancelled. I hope it gets sorted and strikes don’t happen.

      Good luck and enjoy SFO if you do get to fly.

      • pauldb says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:30

        If the first actionable event is them cancelling flights then yes they’ll prioritise rebooking. But from memory what they do first (while the strikes could still be withdrawn) is offer passengers the chance to proactively reroute. If that happens it will be done first-come-first-served.

      • P Roberts says:

        10 Jul10 July 15:12

        Thank you and great insight / advice.

• Harry T says:

  10 Jul10 July 08:12

  Very OT question regarding Revolut:
  I have some money in an Australian bank account. Can I transfer this to my Revolut AUD account for free and then exchange the money into my UK Revolut account for free, at the Interbank rate?

  I’m wondering if this would be cheaper than using TransferWise to transfer the AUD into my GBP First Direct bank account. I couldn’t see whether Revolut would charge for these transactions.

  Thanks in anticipation.

  • Pierre says:

    10 Jul10 July 08:28

    Yes, I do it all the time for EUR to GBP

    • Harry T says:

      10 Jul10 July 08:41

      Thanks, that’s brilliant. How does Revolut make money on foreign currency transfers if they don’t charge any fees for transferring?!

      • Rob says:

        10 Jul10 July 08:59

        Revolut doesn’t make any money, it is a money pit, same as Curve, Starling etc. Take advantage whilst the venture capital guys remain willing to fund it.

        • Optimus Prime says:

          10 Jul10 July 09:03

          I take it that switching a business account to Starling would not be a wise choice?

        • Rob says:

          10 Jul10 July 09:08

          HFP is at Metro, which is equally wobbly, but we never keep more than £5k in the account which is the cut off for free banking.

        • sayling says:

          10 Jul10 July 10:32

          I was really struggling to work out how Curve was making money particularly as each referral by an existing customer costs a tenner, thanks for clarifying, Rob.

          And hope you enjoyed your fiver from me signing up – found out the hard way you can’t go back in time to spend the fiver, so still waiting to spend mine!

        • Harry T says:

          10 Jul10 July 10:34

          Thanks, Rob – I intend to take full advantage.

        • The Original David says:

          10 Jul10 July 15:17

          All these payment aggregators make money by selling their consumer spending data to institutional investors. If they can see that spending at e.g. Tesco has dropped by 10% last month, how much will Goldman Sachs pay to find that out before Tesco announces their quarterly results? A lot.

  • Shoestring says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:23

    also send £100+ by Worldremit for the £55 welcome bonus

    • Harry T says:

      10 Jul10 July 10:34

      Thanks, will do. Got a link?

• Rob says:

  10 Jul10 July 08:59

  We are booked to fly to LA on 7 August, two reward seats in Club, for our family holiday. We have hotels, car hire (booked through BA), theatre tickets and other stuff already booked and paid for, and are due to meet to with other friends while we are there. We have been planning this holiday for two years, and it will be catastrophic for my family if the strike causes significant disruption.

  I’m struggling to think what I can do, but do I have any options I could take now to lessen the risk of disruption?

  • Rob says:

    10 Jul10 July 09:05

    No, unless you can pull the flights forward to 5th which is ok as within the 14 day notice period.

    However, if you booked via BA Holidays and it is a flight and car hire package you are fine. BA Holidays has a legal requirement to sort you out. That said, they can’t get you seats if there are no seats to be had.

    • Rob says:

      10 Jul10 July 09:32

      Sadly it was booked direct with BA rather than BA Holidays, and I subsequently added car hire with Avis booked via the BA website.

      The chances of moving my flights forward a few days at short notice seem slim to non-existent, as I would need to find reward seats to a West Coast destination during school holidays. Those will all have been snapped up months ago.

      If this holiday gets screwed by BA I will never forgive them.

      • roberto says:

        10 Jul10 July 09:47

        If the stike bites and you flying to LA (like the other poster going to SFO) I cant really see it being a huge issue , plenty of carriers fly to both places and nearby cities in the US so getting a reroute on a different plane wont be an issue. Yes it might be a little bit of agro and yes you might arrive a little later than planned but it wont effect you too much. Yes you might touchdown and swap planes in NYC but you will get there.

        People going on flights where there is one or two flights a week or limited options flying on other companies aircraft might struggle a little bit more. Places like the Seychelles (where I am due to fly to) may involve missing the odd day but as long as you have a back up plan and can find seats elsewhere or are happy to go via somewhere else you should be ok.

        All the best to everybody flying during the disruption. Its gonna be busy at the airports anyways , leave a little more time and drink a little more booze and fingers crossed we all get to where we are going without too much heartache.

        • Rob says:

          10 Jul10 July 11:46

          Thanks for that reassurance Roberto, much appreciated.

          I’ve never been caught up in industrial action before, so not much idea of what options there are to minimise disruption if the worst happens. I’d tolerate being a day late and taking an indirect route if necessary, with appropriate compensation, but if I am unable to have this family holiday because the disruption makes it impossible to travel within a reasonable timeframe of my booking BA will have lost my business forever.

  • First_Olly says:

    10 Jul10 July 09:17

    Rob, you book your hols like I do and the very reason I have, where possible, I have avoided booking flights with British Airways for fear of it going down the pan.

• Gringo says:

  10 Jul10 July 09:33

  OT: My Plat didn’t get one of the spend £X get Y MR points last week – but I checked again this morning and I’ve got “Spend £2,700 get 1,500 MR” – worth a check!

  • John Caribbean says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:03

    I got “spend £1800, get 3000MR”

    Need to figure out how to spend that in a month though…

    • Jovanna says:

      10 Jul10 July 10:09

      An offer has popped up on my account. It says spend £2500 for 1500 MR points. OFFER ENDS IN 2 DAYS.

      • Alex says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:28

        Yeah I got spend 1400 to get 400MRs, ending in 2 days too (I checked yesterday, it wasn’t there). It’s pretty poor both for the period of time and the amount of MRs…

        I’d much rather they gave me a “double MRs” for a month or something like that, even if at a few select retailers.

      • AndyF says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:31

        I had the same, its an exceptionally exciting offer!

        • davef says:

          10 Jul10 July 12:59

          Spend £4300, get 3000 for me. Dream on Amex, my spend for the next month is going on the Virgin card in protest.

      • allycat says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:47

        Just checked my ARGC and it has appeared on mine too now, spend £1900 and get 3000 MR points. Interestingly its start date is not until Saturday 13/07/19, then runs to 13/08/19. This will work out very well for me as I have a Jet2 holiday balance to payoff that I had put back to 19 July anyway to beat the next Amex statement date, plus a couple of hotels to book for a US trip starting Friday. Will need to book the hotel for Sun night on Saturday once in New York, but that should be fine. Will also stack with the Kaligo offer, very nice overall.

        • Craig says:

          10 Jul10 July 12:16

          Package holidays you can trust!

        • allycat says:

          10 Jul10 July 13:58

          Absolutely. I am a big fan of Jet2, both flight only and holidays. Best option by far for those who live in the frozen wastes of North Yorkshire. This one is for a “boys” weekend to Ibiza, cheaper to book a package to the hotel we were going to book anyway and travel on the same flights,saved over £200pp by doing a Jet2 package. My wife and I also used them for a long weekend in Budapest last year staying at The Corinthia Hotel which was “fab-u-lous daaarling” and I highly recommend it. We could book a Jet2 package with an Executive room with club lounge access (and all day dining and drinks if you wanted it) for a far better deal than Emyr Thomas could match I am afarid to say. Jet2’s selection of hotels and deals on short breaks seems very strong.

        • Craig says:

          10 Jul10 July 17:40

          They’ve come a long way in the 14 years I’ve worked for them!

  • Liam says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:23

    “Spend £4,200, get 1,500 MR points” appeared for me today on my Gold credit card (nothing on Platinum or Rewards cards). Pretty unlikely I’ll hit that.

  • Optimus Prime says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:26

    I have ‘Spend £350 at participating Hilton hotels and get 4000 MR Points.’

  • the_real_a says:

    10 Jul10 July 12:13

    I can beat that. Spend £13,500 and get 4k points… in one month.

    • Russ says:

      10 Jul10 July 12:38

      Rob did an exercise some time ago on buying MR. I think 4k MR points came in at around 40 quid. Was dependent on which program you then transferred them to……I think.

    • BJ says:

      10 Jul10 July 13:25

      Mine is simple, I got spend nothing get nothing 🙂

    • davef says:

      10 Jul10 July 14:20

      We have a winner!

• George says:

  10 Jul10 July 09:35

  OT: Want to take a BA reward flight with a friend on my 2-4-1. He has MR points and would like to contribute. We don’t reside at the same address, nor does he actually have a BA account. Is there any sensible way for him to put his Avios into the pot for the trip? Thought about adding him to my HHA at my address and seeing if the MR points will push across but there must be a better way! Thanks all

  • Anna says:

    10 Jul10 July 09:43

    I think adding him to your HHA is actually the only option but it’s straightforward enough – just make sure you have enough time for his account to be verified and for him to transfer his MR points.

    • Anna says:

      10 Jul10 July 09:45

      Though thinking about it, his address would need to match for the MR – BA transfer – would adding him as Friends and Family get around this?

      • sayling says:

        10 Jul10 July 10:14

        Would that work, though? I thought F&F just allowed you to book on someone’s behalf, not give you access to their Avios pool…

        Maybe there’s a way of pushing the MR into another scheme that allows transfer to another person?

        Failing that, could the friend not just link the MR redemption to George’s BAEC account anyway?

        • Nick_C says:

          10 Jul10 July 10:42

          Names on the Amex and BA accounts must match exactly for MRs to be transferred.

  • AJA says:

    10 Jul10 July 15:06

    George, how many MR points does he have? If it’s 27,000 or fewer I suggest he opens his own BAEC account, transfers his MR points into Avios and then transfers the maximum of 27,000 to you.

    Not sure how quickly that can be achieved or how much it costs to transfer 27,000 Avios to you?

    The transfer means any remaining Avios in his BAEC are protected for 36 months.

    I would advise against gaming the system. Don’t add him to your HHA if he doesn’t live with you.

    • Rhys says:

      10 Jul10 July 15:44

      Transferring 27,000 is only free if you’re a Gold member…see more here: https://headforpoints.com/2019/01/02/can-you-transfer-avios-points-to-someone-else/

  • George says:

    10 Jul10 July 19:20

    Thanks all – have decided to just use my MR and balance out on something else. The HHA stuff seems like a lot of effort for 30k avios when we can just use them on an EU flight. Cheers!

• Anna says:

  10 Jul10 July 09:40

  To what extent can you determine your re-routing if your flight is cancelled? In my experience (twice) BA are a total nightmare to deal with when it comes to cancelled flights, utterly intractable about not using other airlines. They only fly to NAS/GCM 4 times per week and that flight is usually full of families going on holiday at this time of year so seats are very difficult to come by near the time. Re-routing via the USA is the only alternative – doable as we have ESTAs but would we be entitled to use another carrier to go direct from MAN to NYC or PHL? Also, if you are re-routed in another class of cabin, do you retain your rights to things like luggage allowance?

  • Anna says:

    10 Jul10 July 09:54

    Also, BA have declined to engage other than their initial fob-off to our delay compensation claim – I am going to wait until the required 8 weeks have passed and then submit it to CEDR.

    • Lady London says:

      11 Jul11 July 01:42

      CEDR was less recommended by Shoestring and at least one other poster, than going straight to MCOL. Letter before Action also a good idea 2 weeks before giving them 14 days. Then personally I’d MCOL but please keep us informed.

  • Rob says:

    10 Jul10 July 09:56

    Let’s be realistic. It’s August. There are no other flights which can mop up this sort of capacity, irrespective of your legal position. Most people are simply not going to be travelling or rebooked many days later.

    • Adam says:

      10 Jul10 July 10:15

      is it worth looking at other options now if dates are not flexible, so we can get flights on other airlines booked as soon as the strikes are announced?

      • Russ says:

        10 Jul10 July 12:06

        We went with this. Fully flexible tickets on other airlines just in case. Only European flights so not as problematic as perhaps someone who has a long haul coming up.

    • SimonW says:

      10 Jul10 July 10:38

      Flights booked on a BAPP card are covered under Section 75 though I think. (Which I’m assuming a lot of people on the site will have done). S75 covers consequential losses. So rebooking on eg Easyjet at the current price should be covered??

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:05

        yes

    • Anna says:

      10 Jul10 July 11:14

      As you say, there would be no chance of getting everyone onto direct flights but I’m fairly sure I could get us to GCM via the US if I needed to – but would BA be obliged to pay for this? Just to complicate matters, my son and I are on an avios booking using Lloyds upgrade vouchers while OH is on a BA package holiday 😫

      • Anna says:

        10 Jul10 July 11:21

        It would cost an arm and a leg just to get us there in economy though, which is why I would be very nervous about booking it myself. We do have excellent travel insurance through work but it really should be BA’s responsibility – however I don’t trust them at all.

      • AJA says:

        10 Jul10 July 15:15

        Anna, ironically your OH is better protected than you are, BA Holidays is ATOL protected so they will do more to help. Whether they’ll look more kindly on you as you’re travelling together but on different bookings is another thing entirely. Your OH may get rerouted ahead of you.

  • Charlieface says:

    10 Jul10 July 14:25

    EC261 they need to get you to your destination in a reasonable timeframe. If you think waiting 3 days out of your 7 da holiday (for e.g.) is unreasonable you’re prob right

• FlyingChris says:

  10 Jul10 July 10:06

  What about return journeys/ being stranded away from home. We fly out to Asia late July for 3 weeks, returning mid August on a 241 Club ticket on a route with one BA flight a day. If there were to be mass cancellations – presumably BA has a responsibility to get us home/pay for accommodation? How has it worked in the past?

  • Rob says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:26

    BA will get you home when it can, which could be a few days, and pay for a hotel in the meantime.

    • Sussex Bantam says:

      10 Jul10 July 11:57

      We fly out before the possible strike dates but home afterwards. Is there any way to volunteer to be stranded for a few extra days in the sun ?!?

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Jul10 July 17:12

        with Volcanic ash disruption, EasyJet were happy for me to choose our return date (+3 kids) so I went for the next weekend flight as opposed to the first possibility a couple of days earlier, all in primary school at that time so kids not missing anything much

        that was from the comfort of our place in the sun – I think a better-informed me would have charged a few meals to them as well but I let duty of care slide

• ChrisC says:

  10 Jul10 July 10:08

  Calm down.

  That’s the date the earliest a strike can happen not the date of an actual strike.

  • Adam says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:16

    In the past, how long have they waited to strike?

    • Shoestring says:

      10 Jul10 July 11:15

      they don’t hang around

      cabin crew often time it for Easter hols – I think timing it for significant disruption will always be par for the course

  • Rebecca says:

    10 Jul10 July 10:36

    I’m flying on 16th, 18th, 20th & 22nd… Slightly concerned.

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