Qatar Airways launches free flight ticket changes FOR ALL whilst S7 launches full refunds

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• Roger says:

  7 Mar7 March 12:26

  OT_ HMRC

  Rob,

  In current Corona virus madness, do you think any miles / points opportunity may arise for payments (ideally with Amex) to HMRC? Even with some token fees of say 1.5-2%, I am sure there will be many takers.

  • Polly says:

    7 Mar7 March 12:58

    Billhop 2.99%

    • Ken says:

      7 Mar7 March 13:19

      3% just too heavy.

  • Genghis says:

    7 Mar7 March 14:17

    “Token fees” of 2%? So what’s the advantage? Pay 2% for something worth 1.5%? Hmm.

    • Roger says:

      7 Mar7 March 14:18

      With Amex, Yes. Possibly with BAPP it still makes sense to me!

      • Mac says:

        7 Mar7 March 21:04

        If you are paying 1-2% then you need to think outside the box more

        • Roger says:

          7 Mar7 March 21:14

          Care to expand…

• @mkcol says:

  7 Mar7 March 13:00

  Stumbled across Hilton Milton Keynes (not the Doubletree) has been rebranded as Delta by Marriott Milton Keynes. No idea when it happened, however I recall it was an utter dump of Crossroads standards when a Hilton.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    7 Mar7 March 14:54

    Wow.. missed that
    But yes it was utterly terrible and last time I was st the DT it was v nice- hard to see how anyone was licking the Himtkn other than to avoid the mile long walk to your room often at the DT…

  • Lady London says:

    7 Mar7 March 15:28

    I had to do a contract in Milton Keynes and found all the central hotels utterly overpriced relative to their quality. It’s your typical business city where something you’d pay £65 for is £185 in the week. I was lucky that contract turned out to be able to be done remotely with the odd visit to Hamburg (another place with a lot of overpriced hotels as it’s very much a business city these days). For MK Central I believe the Doubletree? Was the best of an overpriced lot.

    • Spursdebs says:

      7 Mar7 March 16:11

      The prices at MK doubletree is often dependent on MK dons playing as it’s next to their stadium.

    • Rob says:

      7 Mar7 March 16:11

      Hamburg is crazily cheap. You can often book the Park Hyatt via Emyr for little more than the value of the $100 F&B credit and free breakfast!

      • Lady London says:

        7 Mar7 March 17:01

        Wish I’d known that then Rob. But I did notice that also like a lot of “business” cities with prices for midrange that were well in excess of value, for only about 35 euros more you could book top end. Which was much better value.

        When a Conrad or a Park Hyatt or Sofitel is within 30-35 euros or eo of a decent HIX and it’s competitors then you know something’s wrong with that hotel market. Even the Ibis Budget was 65-70 and could be more.

        I did actually contemplate going high end – net 145-185 Euros at that time. As compared to 105-135 for midrange. But client’s travel policy forbids it even though would have been proper value for the 30-40 extra. It’s just not worth showing a client that demands you follow their policy a receipt for a nicer hotel that they won’t let their own staff stay in. Immaterial if you are picking up the difference – they worry about “the look” and discontent amongst their perm staff.

• Roger says:

  7 Mar7 March 14:17

  Just to confirm Curve indeed charges 1.5% fees on payment to HMRC.
  Had to confirm first hand!

• George K says:

  7 Mar7 March 14:35

  OT: I managed to get my foot in the door before this month’s Bonvoy category changes for a 5-night resort redemption in the Peloponnese (feeling a bit smug for trading 160k points and €20 for what is currently a €1800 cash stay). Anyway, so I checked to see how much it was now after the change and it jumped by 50%, which, in all honesty, I didn’t expect. A friend of mine saw the same in another property. I was expecting something in the region of 30%, max.

  Having not tracked redemption changes before, I just wanted to ask if a 50% increase is.. normal. Was it like that the previous years?

  • Rob says:

    7 Mar7 March 14:54

    Not many things moved more than 1 category, so it is possible that it has also now become a peak date – those two things together may account for a 50% increase.

• Yawn says:

  7 Mar7 March 15:31

  OT There is very good and by KLM standards – very – cheap Flying Blue award availability. Just booked a trip from AMS to Dresden and Prague for 15,000 points return. I’d reckon it would normally be double that…

• Shoestring says:

  7 Mar7 March 15:48

  I can’t see what she did wrong?

  [Mother-of-two, 47, who demanded six Bloody Marys in 15 minutes and attacked British Airways cabin crew in drunken rage shouting ‘You have a massive a***!’ at one avoids jail
  Emma Langford demanded six Bloody Marys within 15 minutes of taking off
  She had to be handcuffed and strapped to her seat after attacking BA crew
  Langford had taunted staff about the £8,000 return fare and called them ‘fat’
  The mother was today given a suspended sentence at Isleworth Crown Court ]

  • Shoestring says:

    7 Mar7 March 16:12

    aha! she did actually attack the crew when they refused her more drinks – not good

    ironically, she was on her way to a rehabilitation clinic in South Africa, probably thinking ‘one for the road, one last time’

    • Shoestring says:

      7 Mar7 March 17:20

      *didn’t see/ register that bit about her attacking the crew, I thought she just got on drunk, asked for 6 Bloody Marys, insulted the fat-arsed cabin crew member then got locked up

      • Lady London says:

        7 Mar7 March 17:32

        suspended sentence probably so she could proceed with her plan to dry out. BA needed to say “Even if you’ve paid £8.000 you don’t get to say our crew has a fat arse” (even if they have).

        • Anna says:

          7 Mar7 March 19:48

          Did she ask for 6 Bloody Marys all at once or was she knocking them back at a rate of 1 every 2 minutes?!
          Also, she needs to start reading HFP if she paid £8k for her ticket 😂

• Shoestring says:

  7 Mar7 March 16:24

  decent prices Virgin Atlantic in Premium
  https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flight-deals.html?cabin=Premium&intcmp=hp_premium_70off&cjevent=77413877608f11ea8017006e0a18050e

  New York return £525
  LA £668
  SF £620
  Manchester – NY £650
  LHR-Shanghai £749
  LHR-Tel Aviv £561
  others

  Apologies if I missed already posted

  • Lady London says:

    7 Mar7 March 17:08

    Hum. Rather than wait for BA to compete on PDX or SEA or open the odd PY award seat I might take a look at how much % of Virgin Gold status a trip to the West Coast with Virgin might get me. Ta @Shoestring.

    Personally I think panic might die down in very few weeks. Even though people will still be being infected. So maybe better to jump now while there’s still panic before airlines attempt to recoup losses in the summer.

    • Shoestring says:

      7 Mar7 March 17:16

      another 6 weeks of ‘down’ then ‘up’ starts?

      • Lady London says:

        7 Mar7 March 17:28

        Could even be 3 or 4 before panic keeps stopping people travelling. It has 2-3 to run I would say. After that it depends if something comes up that the Press (including internet channels these days) can write about instead! Then it will be off the front page and, if noore shocks and other news, quietly left low if other news continues. Beware “silly season” for possible short term reactivation.

        This does not take away from the fact that people will still be getting infected and I for one am going to keep staying away from anyone vulnerable or their family. Next regular trip to Northern Italy is also in doubt.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    7 Mar7 March 19:34

    Thought you might like to read this https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

• Andrew says:

  7 Mar7 March 18:07

  Bits:-

  First Direct Visa Offers are offering 10% funds return on payments at Travelzoo. The terms specifically exclude overseas package holidays and flights.

  I’m not entirely sure how the data is shared between Travelzoo and Visa

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