Hyatt gains two Manchester Oxford Road hotels from IHG on 10th January

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• Liam says:

  11 Dec11 December 05:43

  OT — a little Curve/HMRC advice please. For the first time this year I had to fill in a tax return rather than having everything taken care of by PAYE, so I have a low-five-figure tax bill to pay by the end of January. From everything I’d read previously I’d assumed I’d be able to put this through Curve (linked to my Virgin Mastercard) without a fuss. I have two (connected) problems: 1. My Curve daily limit isn’t large enough for me to pay this bill in one go. 2. From everything I’ve read it seems like you can’t make multiple payments to HMRC from the same card toward the same tax payment. I feel like I’m missing something here but I’m not sure exactly what. How have other people managed to use Curve with HMRC successfully?

  • Qwertyknowsbest says:

    11 Dec11 December 06:28

    To answer your 2nd question first, you can make multiple HMRC payments (I do frequently) for the same liability.

    As for Curve limit, you can get Curve to increase limits as they see you use the card frequently. They may require additional information from you, credit card statements etc.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    11 Dec11 December 07:45

    The consensus is the second isnt so much a rule as a wish and you can make all the payments you like. I would make the fewest possible, but you certainly can make more than one

    • Rob says:

      11 Dec11 December 08:33

      You can’t make multiple tax payments on DIFFERENT cards.

      (Although I have, with no ill effect. The issue is all around refunds and where they go, I think – although my refunds go by BACS!)

      • jc says:

        11 Dec11 December 10:03

        Source?

        The only official request I can see is “If you’re unable to pay your Self Assessment tax bill in full by card, you should use another payment method like a bank transfer.”

        Nothing about paying it in one payment, or using one card, or even that you have to switch to bank transfer for the whole amount rather than just for the remainder.

        • Rob says:

          11 Dec11 December 12:08

          There was definitely a stated rule along these lines, but it was badly written and implied you couldn’t make multiple payments when they actually meant you can’t use multiple cards.

  • jc says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:58

    Can’t see any official restriction on this. And it works fine. Pay the Curve limit (or just below) each day.

    The only request I can see is that HM ask you not to use card if you can’t pay the whole thing by card. Nothing about same card, or one payment only. Though I’m open to being corrected.

    You could ask Curve to increase limits but depending on the support rep you get it can take a long time for a reply, they don’t like to do it if you’re only making HMRC payments, and they don’t like to do it until you’re close to your limit.

  • 1nfrequent says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:45

    You can make multiple payments to HMRC from the same card – I used my CUrve to pay my bill a couple of weeks ago and divided it into 2 payments without any issue.

    1F

  • Liam says:

    11 Dec11 December 17:15

    Thanks everyone.

• Shoestring says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:14

  Why haven’t I received my Avios (British Airways points)?
  We have become aware of an issue whereby the payouts dated the 15th and 19th November were not sent by Avios as we expected. We are working on resending these so the points should be showing on your British Airways accounts as soon as possible.

  • Craig says:

    11 Dec11 December 08:47

    14 Nov – 7 Dec, 5 missing!

• Choons says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:36

  I would’t mind giving the marathon a go, it’s already at 22,000 points though, which is more points than I have. Nice package but not sure I’d want to fully indulge in the breakfast and dinner before the race.

• Andrew says:

  11 Dec11 December 08:40

  I stayed in the CP Oxford Road last week, sharing it with the Tottenham Hotspur team in town to play Manchester United.

  It’s 10 minutes from Oxford Road at a brisk pace, so allow 20 minutes to walk to Piccadilly or the actual city centre. You have to walk past the Principal and a HIX to get there, and the new-ish Holiday Inn City Centre is in a good location near Piccadilly too.

  The hotel is fine, though the air conditioning is particularly noisy for a new hotel. The Staybridge part seems to be the top colour of the exterior with CP below.

  There’s no reason to choose this hotel over the city centre ones unless you need Hyatt points or need to be at the University or a gig at the Academy, as you literally have to walk past some good hotels to get there.

  That said there’s a great BrewDog Outpost bar round the corner, so there is a highlight!

  • Dan says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:05

    I was at the Staybridge last weekend. Very nice rooms / apartments. Good breakfast offering. Mon – Wed there is lounge food and drink in the evenings. Same IHG points as the CP. Was very impressed!

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    11 Dec11 December 13:35

    Watched this being built stage by stage as was visiting Manchester Uni regularly at the time. Yes, wouldn’t stay here unless the price was exceptional or was visitng university as the location is really designed for that. Melia, Radisson, IHG, and even Premier Inn have good options for city centre visits. They were obviously aware of their existing portfolio during construction so the quick rebranding does point to something unexpected for IHG. Maybe the anticipated university-related business hasn’t materialised?

• JamesLHR says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:09

  OT – Etihad Guest miles expiration. Despite all the media fanfare about the miles now not expiring, my brother got the below message from them after enquiring about some miles due to expire. Seems quite poor to have released to the media the information without even having a date confirmed for the implementation:

  Please be advised that Guest Miles expiration changes will be valid for the mileage you earn after its officially implemented.

  Kindly note your miles will expire as per original Terms and conditions under which you have earned them. You’ll find them in “Section 5 Earning Etihad Guest Miles.”

  So the validity of your Guest Miles is fixed as per your Etihad Guest Tier status detailed below:

  – 2 years from the date they are earned for Bronze members
  – 2.5 years from the date they are earned for Silver members
  – 3 years from the date they are earned for Gold and Platinum members

  When the new policy is implemented you will be timely notified, currently we only have the information it should start sometime in first quarter of 2020.

  • Neil Donoghue says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:20

    Same rule applies to Cathay Pacific! Any points earned before the 1st of January 2020 will still expire unless you pay $40 – Perhaps give them a call and see if you can pay a one off fee.

• SammyJ says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:28

  O/T BA Amex Offers – if you use an offer that results in a statement credit refund do you forfeit the Avios for that transaction? On my transactions I have Morrison’s, Red Letter Days and John Lewis showing ‘0 Avios’ when all were for over £50

  • Peter K says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:57

    You get the avios and the statement credit. They are supposed to claw back the avios on the credited amount but in my experience don’t always.

  • MattB says:

    11 Dec11 December 11:24

    The 0 points is related to the adjustment for statement credit, just says that particular txn had no avios awarded/refunded. Should be an earlier credit of avios for the initial purchase. Can be hard to track if you have lots of txns.

• Mike says:

  11 Dec11 December 09:41

  I predict even the “cheaper” marathon package will hit 150k points and there won’t be much between the winning bids.

  • Rhys says:

    11 Dec11 December 09:45

    Indeed, value here is the marathon itself and not the hotel stay/package!

    • steve says:

      11 Dec11 December 09:56

      Yeah they had three packages on last year around this time for this year’s marathon with a one night stay at holiday Inn Camden lock and all of them went for over 250,000 points so I expect these will jump a lot towards the end of the month also.

      • Simon says:

        11 Dec11 December 10:49

        Good to know what they went for last year Steve, thanks, the odds of getting in via the ballot are so slim these days not surprised they went for a lot.

        • steve says:

          11 Dec11 December 11:19

          Yeah I was trying to get one last year but was too rich for my IHG points balance.
          Unfortunately looks like it will be to steep for me again this year as I redeemed a few hundred thousand points for accommodation in Berlin during the Berlin marathon back in September 😡

        • Simon says:

          11 Dec11 December 11:50

          I was at Berlin as well but used Accor points, got in again for next year as well although having to pay cash my points supply is running low.

• joe bloggs says:

  11 Dec11 December 10:15

  IHG is effectively selling access to the London Marathon ? Sounds like a major PR screw-up.

  Are they a sponsor ? Can anyone that gets one allocated by ballot, auction the place off, sounds like a money earner.

  Even if IHG are in a unique position, I would have thought the right thing to do was to market the auction as all equivalent funds go to a charity, given that there are many many people who would like to run it for a charity, who can’t get an entrance.

  • Andrew says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:42

    Wouldn’t it have been easier just to look to see if IHG are sponsors first rather than launch into a hate ridden diatribe?

    It only took me a second to find that they are.

    Indeed, they have a dedicated booking page for marathon packages.

    • joe bloggs says:

      11 Dec11 December 11:32

      Hate ridden diatrite…go gettem’ tiger…..lol…, you need to chill, one is glad you aren’t in charge of hate crime determinations…so funny.

      I postulated that it was a PR screw-up. I know that IHG have sponsored in the past. Their sponsorship of the event is not mentioned on the auction package info. HfP did not pickup they are a sponsor of the event. Given the rather low amount of revenue in the grander scheme of things they will make from these two auctions, especially compared to their spoonsorship, not going for the PR by putting the proceeds to charity would seem to be a missed-beat.

      • Andrew says:

        11 Dec11 December 11:43

        The London Marathon *is* a charity. Charity Number 283813

        So when they bought the sponsorship package they were already making a generous donation to a charity.

      • Rob says:

        11 Dec11 December 12:02

        I knew they sponsored it last year (we took the kids down to watch it) and I was guessing it was a multi-year deal but, as you say, IHG doesn’t mention it in the auction.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          11 Dec11 December 14:56

          Holiday Inn is a sponsor

  • TGLoyalty says:

    11 Dec11 December 10:52

    Charities already have guaranteed spots and they are effectively for sale as you have to agree to fund raise a certain amount to gain one (£1k+ from stories I’ve heard).

    Sponsors like IHG also get entries in exchange for cash. I don’t see the PR screw up here as IHG has put their hand in their pocket for the slots and are free to do what they want with them

    2 nights at the 02 are worth c100k alone add in breakfast, massage and coach its not a bad deal in exchange for what will probably be 250k points

    • Chas says:

      11 Dec11 December 13:01

      To secure a charity place for London, you generally have to pledge to raise at least £2k….

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