The new HfP chat thread launches – Sunday 22nd March

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Roger says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:41

  OT – HMRC Payments
  Is Tesco Clubcard the only viable option now to pay HMRC to earn fee free miles?
  I have 5 figure bill to pay to HMRC for VAT.
  With curve fees it is no longer attractive to use that option.

  • Rob says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:16

    Miles & More

  • Jim says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:21

    I assume you mean your Tesco bank account. Call from them last week saying I have been paying VAT through my account (they can tell which type of tax) and that is against the rules as not a personal tax. Told if do it again account will be closed

    • Roger says:

      22 Mar22 March 11:25

      Hmmm, good to know.
      I will use my business bank account debit card without earning a single point.
      First in many years!!!

      • Lady London says:

        22 Mar22 March 11:50

        Why not just pay the £15pm to Rev for the time you need

    • Dino says:

      22 Mar22 March 11:31

      Been paying VAT thru Tesco Bank for a while now. No phone call received (yet!)

  • ADS says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:44

    didn’t the Chancellor just suspend all VAT payments due ?

    • Roger says:

      22 Mar22 March 15:38

      I think that only applies to current quarter, not the quarter finished at end of last month

      • Jack says:

        23 Mar23 March 01:04

        Think you misunderstood – VAT payments due 20/3 – 20/6/20 have been deferred to end of year

        • Rob says:

          23 Mar23 March 09:28

          But let’s clear up some nonsense. We have the Government going around saying that deferring VAT is ‘a £30bn cash injection into the economy’. Only if you are so stupid as to spend the money which you will still owe in VAT at the end of the year ….

• Boots says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:42

  Opposite to most of the issues right now, but trying to book a new BA flight for Tuesday (essential travel to get home, not taking a holiday!) using the voucher they’ve given for a flight we couldn’t take last week. As it’s using voucher we can’t book online, but also can’t get through to the main call centre as they keep hanging up automatically. Any suggestions of other numbers to try?

• Barry says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:47

  My BA gold card expires shortly, does anyone know any one world partner that offers a status match?

  • Lady London says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:52

    Statusmatcher dot com

• Anna says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:47

  Andrew Neil tweeting that he can’t get a refund either!

  • Doug M says:

    22 Mar22 March 10:58

    Didn’t quite get all the support he hoped though did it.

• Jack says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:49

  Just on testing for covid-19, surely there should be more effort into making testing available to as many people as possible, and then at least you would know if you had it and could plan your life accordingly. To date the numbers tested have been really low and that just helps spread fear rather than sound decision making.

  Why after 3 months isn’t there an easier way to test?

  • Richard says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:11

    My understanding is that there aren’t currently enough resources for the sheer number of tests required for the whole population. It’s not just test kits but they have to be processed and there is not sufficient safe secure laboratories to test huge numbers of such highly virulent strains of virus.
    The gov are working hard to extend tests in the first instance to hospitalised people and key workers. The more key workers able to work the better for us all and then after that it could be extended our further into the general population to find who’s got it now , who’s had it and has some immunity and who’s not had it so is at risk.
    It’s a numbers game, simple as that and until they develop a quick easy test we have to be patient. It’s not a simple cash thing, it’s expertise and available resources and physical test kits. That’s my understanding at least

    • Cat says:

      22 Mar22 March 11:40

      Teachers and their households should be included in that list – we are, after all, babysitting the kids of nurses and doctors for the foreseeable future. That last thing we need is teachers feeling pressured into going into work by overbearing senior management, because it’s only a bit of a cough, it’s probably nothing, infecting children who are still in school, who then infect parents who work at the hospital, who then have to self isolate, meaning that the NHS is stretched even thinner.

      • Polly says:

        22 Mar22 March 13:54

        Cat,
        Our friends and friends kids who are front line medics, still don’t have their PPE. Working with flimsy masks. Gloves and a plastic apron. It’s truly awful. They all expect to get it at some point. As I am out of the registration over 3 years, can’t go back frontline. But can do advice centre work, if needed.
        So Cat, keeping any schools open is probably not the right approach, even tho the key workers are needed, someone has to mind them.
        But you def should have PPE too. It’s such a difficult balancing act for gov. Economy v containment. But they did waste 2 weeks with the herd immunity theory, sadly.
        Stay safe Cat, you are doing a sterling job.

        • Cat says:

          22 Mar22 March 14:22

          Thanks Polly!

          Just a few alcohol wipes for door handles would be nice!

    • Ken says:

      22 Mar22 March 11:51

      While this is true, we effectively wasted 8 weeks, due to a combination of wishful thinking and a model of herd immunity that vastly underestimated the number of deaths and peak NHS surge.

      It was only on 13th March when better they remodelled and realised that strategy would mean at least 250k deaths.

• roberto says:

  22 Mar22 March 10:55

  Spain just extended lockdown for another 15 days.. Now until the 12th of April.

• Concerto says:

  22 Mar22 March 11:03

  This chat possibility could really take things in an interesting direction and this could become the most important discussion place for all travel and flight related issues. Flyertalk has become so horrible that I now spend most of my (online travel reading) time here.

• Mike says:

  22 Mar22 March 11:06

  Could we have a chat page – that doesn’t mention COVID 19 !!!…honestly I would rather talk about BREXIT (er no I wouldn’t)

  • Lady London says:

    22 Mar22 March 11:13

    Good idea.

    • Novice says:

      22 Mar22 March 11:30

      I have already suggested in older comments and Rob has agreed I think that this should be a place ppl can spread positive energy by telling amazing redemption stories and travel aspirations/bucket list items etc.

      I know what’s going on. I am current with govt guidelines (they didn’t much change my behaviour as I already live like this mostly) but I’m sick of reading negative stuff even here.

      So please everyone spread good energy so we can get to travel sooner.

      • Henry says:

        22 Mar22 March 14:42

        Yeh, that will allow us to travel sooner.

  • Chris says:

    23 Mar23 March 10:41

    I agree. I have just spent over half an hour trawling through this Head For Points chat, and I find only a few chats that are relevant to travel using points. Maybe 5 minutes out of 30 reading points related chats.
    There are 100’s of chats out there about Covid-19, and this is not (in my opinion) the place for more (whether fact, or hearsay, or just plain rubbish and misinformation) unless it is about cancellation policies, or flights that are still running.
    It would also help if you answered the questions posed, and keep quiet if all you have to say is “I don’t know, but I just wanted to say something because I am so intelligent”)
    Sorry Rob, this is a hugely useful forum, but it would take me hours and hours to trawl through the irrelevant parts to get to the “meat”.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.