News in brief:
British Airways adds more rebooking help for strike-affected flights
British Airways has made another tweak to its rebooking rules in order to help people who are impacted by the pilot strike on 9th and 10th September.
If your outbound flight has been cancelled due to the strike, BA is now protecting your inbound ticket. The return would usually be cancelled automatically when the outbound was cancelled.
Assuming you have made your own alternative arrangements for the outbound, you can now turn up at the airport for the return and be accepted for the flight.
With rebooking now mainly complete, British Airways has reopened flights for standard cash sale on 8th, 11th, 12th and 13th September. If you wanted to fly on those dates but saw no availability – or only highly priced flexible tickets – you should check again.
More rebooking options are now available
A substantial number of additional airlines have agreed rebooking deals with British Airways this week. If you changed your flights last weekend, I would recomend taking a look at this list to see who has been added during the week.
A lot of new options are now available and you may want to ring back and try to change your flight again if your original rebooking was not to your liking. Some are restricted (Singapore Airlines is only accepting Economy passengers and will not allow connections beyond Singapore) but most are accepting BA passengers on any route in any class.
Emirates Skywards launches European football redemptions
Last week we covered the first batch of Arsenal football tickets to be released to Emirates Skywards members this season.
Emirates has now opened up European tickets too for those clubs it sponsors. These seats are usually cheaper (in points) than Arsenal and offer you the chance to combine a short break with some football.
Tickets are available via the ‘Culture & Sport’ section of the Emirates Skywards website here for:
Real Madrid
AC Milan
SL Benfica
Hamburger SV
Note that you are restricted to two tickets per game per Skywards account. All teams except Hamburger have both standard and hospitality options. As with Arsenal, tickets are being released in batches with only September and occasionally October available.
Transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Emirates Skywards are instantaneous if the accounts are already linked and should be pretty quick even if they are not. You can redeem for someone else BUT the name must be provided at the time of booking. At Arsenal, photo ID is required on the day.
How to earn Emirates Skywards miles via UK credit cards
As a reminder, Emirates no longer has its own UK credit card. However, you can earn Emirates Skywards points by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards. These are:
American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – 10,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
The Platinum Card from American Express – 30,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
American Express Rewards credit card – up to 5,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus
Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Emirates Skywards miles. The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Emirates Skywards mile.
About Head for Points
Hi. Does anybody know why my BA flight on 8th is showing options to rebook & refund?
my flight on the 13th shows the same, it might a domino effect of the strike.. your flight isn’t cancelled (as yet)
Does NatWest have the 10% off Etihad offer as well?
Some of the comments on S75 protection with credit cards above are a little optimistic.
EACH ITEM needs to be over £100 (and less than £30,000). However, that amount doesn’t need to be charged to a credit card for S75 protection. A deposit or small payment will suffice.
Of course, BA and others make separate transactions for each traveller, so what is one transaction for 2 tickets to me is 2 credit card transactions to BA and AmEx. Check your AmEx statement for proof. I can’t remember the last time I bought BA tickets for less than £100 each, though, . Whether a claim for 2 tickets costing a total of £100-£199 needs to be tested, I fear.
Helpful MSE advice at:
– https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases/
@Roger* – it has already been tested – the Ombudsman ruled that buying (say) 2 tickets with 1 card payment, £51 each, giving a total over £100 *was* covered by S75
so BA’s quirky way of listing/ processing each ticket individually also doesn’t matter, provided your single card ‘swipe’ was over £100
Yeah, that was my point in the first page. Thanks for confirming.
Interesting that MSE says you’re still protected even if you cancelled the credit card you paid with.
The protection applies because the service was paid with consumer credit, not because a credit card account is open or closed.
OT: Going to a resort property soon which, at the time of booking, had an executive lounge. Checking to see if the price was any better this evening, since I booked a few months ago, and it was my last chance before getting locked in without cancellation rights, I saw a banner stating the lounge is no longer available.
My room selection alone would not have granted me access to the lounge, but my status would have.
Would you expect compensation under these circumstances? I think it would be fair, as I factored in to the overall stay price the money I would save on free drinks in the lounge, which helped influence my decision on where to stay. I’m curious to hear the views of others though, not just on fairness but also likelihood of success, and what level of compensation to consider reasonable.
Just to clarify, the price today was worse/I’m still on the original booking made when the lounge was available.
No grounds for compensation as you never paid for lounge access. Status is neither here nor there; even if lounge is a guaranteed benefit, say for Hilton Diamond, then it is only a benefit if there is a lounge available during your stay. Sometimes lounges close for a refurb and hotels open temporary alternatives, sometimes they use pool bars if they have new lounge, and sometimes they just give free drink voucher or nothing. With high status you should get something but compensation – no.
How about looking at it from the point of view that had you known at the time of booking, it might have been a deal breaker/you’d have booked a competing resort that would still have a lounge?
Given your above opinion though would you be inclined to leave it, or would you raise it and hope to benefit from some good will?
Your best bet would be to ask for a F&B credit per night to be applied to your bill – does no harm to ask. Otherwise I would cancel – if the booking is non-refundable and the hotel won’t play ball, ringing the programme should get it fixed.
Thanks very much Rob. I’m going to try that, as it might put me some or all of the way towards being in the position I expected to be in.
IIRC emirates emailed ex MBNA cardholders a while back about the prospect of a new UK credit card. Any news or update on this?
Not that I have heard.
OT- no champagne in the Gatwick south BA lounge this morning for my holiday Buck’s Fizz ! They said they aren’t getting a delivery until 8am and had a busy weekend ! We suggested they go get some from the First Lounge but they said they didn’t have any either 🙄. First World problem I know but on top of cancelling our return flight because of the strike I’m not impressed.
Bloody Mary?
have a great holiday
Bloody Nora I say 🤣
No champagne here either 🙁
As a result of the BA strike we ended up with a 12 hour layover. The lounge arranged for us to go on a tour of Windsor through London Magical Tours, much better than staying stuck at the airport as they picked us up and brought us back for the next flight. Hope its useful for anyone in a similar situation:
http://www.londonmagicaltours.com/london_layover_aiport_tours_londonaiporttours.html
We ended up flying back with Virgin. First time with them and impressed!
Hi Rob – thanks for covering the Emirates option. Do you know whether the VIP boxes are priced per person? Or the price is for admission for 2 people?
It is per person. There is no obligation to book pairs, you are OK to just book one seat.
Thanks
I’m looking at 11th TLV to LHR, only offering selling class Y in Economy!
does that mean everything else is sold out?
Just wanted to say thank you for the update re BA’s rebooking policy. Having had a frustrating couple of calls last week where BA refused point blank to book me on an LH flight to LHR (offering me only London City or LGW on a downgrade to economy), I tried my arm today and got rebooked into LH business class for the flight I’d originally asked for last week. I took a look on line before calling and if they’d done it last week it would have been £650 each, today that was showing as £980 each (although I guess the airlines do better rates for each other?).
Anyway – it’s a big relief to me and I very much appreciate the update. Would definitely recommend trying it to anyone else caught up in this.
1F
OT – Anyone flying with EY over Christmas?#
They seem to have cancelled some flights.
My existing flight with 3 hour layover has now been changed to 19 hours!
Still waiting to see when they cancel flights for 27th?! Avios club ticket from Durban so want to reroute not a date change which they won’t do till cancelled.