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The new HfP chat thread launches – Sunday 22nd March

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Starting today, we have decided to run a daily chat thread on Head for Points.

Historically, the daily ‘Bits’ articles were the defacto repository for random comments and questions.  It is unlikely that the news flow will be so big over the next few weeks that we will need many ‘Bits’ articles, however.

The comments under this article are where you should post questions about travel and, indeed, anything else on your mind.  At this tricky time, and given that many of you are stuck at home self-isolating, we want the HfP community to have a place to chat.

Please only comment under the main articles on the site if your comment is directly related to the topic of the article.  This has long-term benefits as its keeps the commentary relevant for people who read those articles in the future.

We will review how this works after a few days:

we could potentially split it into a daily travel and non-travel chat thread

we may install some basic forum software

we may start suggesting potential topics for daily discussion

Let’s see how it goes.

We have sent this initial article to our email subscribers so they are aware of what is going on.   From tomorrow, email subscribers will not receive a link to the daily chat thread.  If you visit the site, however, a new chat thread will be opened each morning.  Regular articles will continue to be emailed.

We will do a separate article in a day or so about how we plan to run the site over the next few weeks.  Take care!

Category

General

Comments (386)

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

  • ADS says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:24

    “basic forum software” – yes please !

    for less frequent commenters (like me) it would be great to get a notification when somebody replies to a comment i’ve left !!

    • Cat says:
      22 Mar22 March 11:31

      …and for people whose work is somewhat all-consuming! I really struggle to find the time to trawl through the comments during the day, and often don’t spot a reply until I’ve finished marking in the evening, by which time most people have stopped reading!

      • Shoestring says:
        22 Mar22 March 11:33

        are you still going to be marking? how’s your school operating the essential workers clauses for the kids still going to school? rota system?

        • Cat says:
          22 Mar22 March 11:53

          I fully intend to for my year 10 and 12 students, yes. I’m not having them fail next year.
          Year 7-9 can go play games on MyMaths.
          Rota system was not finalise don Friday, due to the constantly expanding definition of a Key Worker. The plan is that all staff will be in tomorrow, and initial plans will be laid out. They indicated that there would be teams – team A would be babysitting one week, then team B, then hopefully team C. That’s the best way, because if one of the kids brings it into school while asymptomatic and passes it on to staff, hopefully by the following week, that household would be self-isolating, so it might not be passed onto the next team, who could still run the school / babysitting service.
          School has been completely mad for the last couple of weeks. I was so exhausted on Friday night that when I got home I sighed a sigh of relief, opened the fridge door, and then poured milk into my wine glass. It took a good 3 seconds of staring at the glass before I could work out what I’d done.

          • Anna says:
            22 Mar22 March 12:36

            Milk wouldn’t have worked Cat! But yes we are both key workers but can manage to keep our (Year 9) son at home, I don’t think there will be much teaching going on anyway in schools. Been told we are expected to deliver the full curriculum but I’ve said he only has to do the subjects he’s taking next year, no point in creating extra work for anyone. Not that that would help you Cat, as they all have to do maths! But it might make sense to divide the work up so that teachers delivering those subjects don’t do as much babysitting.

          • Sandra B says:
            22 Mar22 March 13:49

            Been there and glad to have retired. It brings its own “sandwich generation” problems but at least my wine glass doesn’t have milk in it anymore! One good point is some families are going to realise the problem doesn’t lie with the school! Hope you get some “me” time. It ain’t easy being an educator.

          • Cat says:
            22 Mar22 March 14:29

            I’m too much of a control freak to delegate the setting of work for my classes to anyone else Anna! I don’t like not being in the room to ascertain whose attention is wandering (they usually get a question sprung on them suddenly). For Maths – use the MyMaths and the Corbett Maths websites. Both are brilliant.
            Sandra – the parents that finally realise that the problem might actually be their child will probably think it’s the school’s fault for making him/her that way…

  • Voltron says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:24

    Does anyone else get the caller ID of “Deep Clean Services Limited” when they phone AMEX?

  • Vit says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:40

    Just want to thanks Lady London for advices yesterday with regarding to Qatar Airways flight cancellation.

    Something to add for any of those who might be in the same boat is that even you booked your flight via an agent (in my case Lastminute.com), if your flight has been cancelled, you are given option to request refund / voucher once you log into your Manage Booking online. The refund link allows you to fill in details etc., I am still negative that this will be successful as my booking is through an agent but at least it will give you some sorts of evidence to show that you have tried your best to cancel the flight if your agent is as useless or too busy as mine.

    Cheers,
    Vit

    • Reeferman says:
      22 Mar22 March 12:05

      A new Qatar twist!
      Having spent 1 hours and 45 mins waiting to speak with them this morning to cancel a flight (Qatar had cancelled one leg, putting me back in CPH over 6 hours later than originally scheduled, giving me an opportunity to cancel un EU261) I was told that cash refunds are no longer permitted – only vouchers!
      I explained this was illegal un EU law etc – but to no avail. I now have to send an email – which I’ve done.
      On-line , I see that Qatar’s cash refund request code had now disappeared – it’s vouchers only!

      • Lady London says:
        22 Mar22 March 12:50

        Just record that you made reasonable efforts or got them saying “final answer” or their statement that they refuse to deal with it and go straight to insurance (best) or s75 on credit card if applicable or chargeback

        No one should sit around on this

      • Vit says:
        22 Mar22 March 12:52

        Yes, that’s the case after mass cancellation they’ve done a couple day ago and saw it this morning too via here. https://www.qatarairways.com/en/refund-request.html

        I did not mentioned any EU law in my correspondence but insist on FULL REFUND and not voucher.

      • Novice says:
        22 Mar22 March 13:00

        I’m no expert hence the username but I can see in not so distant future some airlines who are not European might say well they are not EU so they don’t have to listen to EU or European law.

        • ChrisBCN says:
          22 Mar22 March 13:26

          The rightful response from the EU would then be to tell them that cannot fly in the EU

        • Lady London says:
          22 Mar22 March 22:41

          The thing is, there’s the law, and there’s also practical reality.

          Any business that refuses to obey the law believes they will be worse off if they obey, than if they do not.

          So you have to think about the relative pain level that company believes they will experience if they do not obey.

          It’s possible a non European airline like Qatar believes they can just keep your money and they are harder to punish as outside jurisdiction

          It’s possible a European airline like BA believes they can just keep your money because they would rather use your money to pay their own staff and bills, they’re quite big and it suitts hem so they figure they will be allowed to get away with it for a very long time. Do you remember the Judith Kerr book about the elephant that came and sat on your couch?

          Who is big enough to tell the British Airways elephant to get off their couch? BA figures no one is so big as them. So they figure they can keep your money. Regardless of the law that says the elephant has to give your money back.

          The commonality of this approach is that “possession is 9/10ths of the law’. Your problem is time is the biggest risk to your money. So long as they have it, it might disappear. So don’t wait. Do everything now to make them give your money back as that’s safer for you. There are a lot of people who still don’t get what the law says they should because time let something more happen. So reduce the time

      • Ricatti says:
        22 Mar22 March 15:29

        You should write an urgent email to CAA about Qatar (or email to the responsible air regulator of the European country of departure/arrival).

        Contacting the EU and Commission (since it is in their purview) is also a good idea.

        • Reeferman says:
          22 Mar22 March 20:35

          Many thanks all.
          I’ve emailed Qatar in the first instance.
          I will, however, contact the other bodies you mention.

    • Derawill says:
      24 Mar24 March 12:00

      I had a booking LGW-DOH-SEZ-DOH-LHR through BA on Qatar for all legs except the last & had no notification at all that Qatar had cancelled the first leg (departing today). I was checking the Gatwick website & found that LGW-DOH departures had an extra leg – LGW-LHR on National Express! I called BA yesterday & got through after 10 minutes on hold only for the line to drop out after a few minutes talking to an agent. I called again & got through after 2 minutes (it was obviously my day) and after putting me on hold for 5 minutes while he checked the facts he agreed to refund the cash – so it is possible. Do I remember correctly reading somewhere that Tier Points will still be awarded for an airline cancellation? I was looking forward to retaining Silver with the 560 points from this trip.

  • Doug says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:44

    Thanks Rob I really appreciate if you developed a better user experience. I know that you are afraid of losing income, but I’m certain that the users would appreciate if they could waste less time, I guess the commentatorship are 30% retired and won’t mind refreshing pages many times.

  • Dean says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:46

    Has anyone else noticed that BA have reinstated schedules that were only a few days ago cancelled?

    I noticed a few days ago LHR – JFK was reduced to BA113/114 pairing around 1-20 Apr yet today itamatrix is showing an increased schedule.

    Anyone else noticed similar? Any ideas why? (Cash flow on refunds?)

    I have been tracking this as in a one of the “lucky ones” on 113/114 and waiting to see it canx.

    Cheers

    • Christopher Clift says:
      23 Mar23 March 16:03

      Maybe BA are only taking US citizens to the States, since, as I understand things, the US is not allowing UK (or mainland Europe) citizens to land in the US.
      BA have cancelled flight from GWK to JFK on Monday 30 March so it stands to reason that I will not be able to use the return flight (BA0114) overnight from 19 to 20 April. Since both flights are on the same booking I expect a full refund of Avios (they were both redemption flights) plus taxes AND seat reservation fees – these alone amounted to £424. To be fair I have spoken to BA and they have assured me that all the cash AND Avios will (eventually) be refunded. Just waiting to see whether a flight on March 31 from New York – La Guardia – to Miami (AA booked with Avios, but on a separate booking) will also be cancelled. Taxes on that flight were only (only!!) £38.
      Stay well everyone and PLEASE remember to keep your distance IF you venture out at all.

  • Geoff says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:48

    Please please please use some “proper” forum software, so we can have an army of volunteer moderators and threads can be clean and helpful.

    The constant thread jacking and OT posts put me off from being a more active member tbh

    • Shoestring says:
      22 Mar22 March 11:52

      isn’t a daily Chat thread going to stop most of the O/T posts?

      • Jason V says:
        22 Mar22 March 12:42

        The match starts at 3:30pm

        • James says:
          22 Mar22 March 14:09

          Has anyone got any good recommendations to watch on netflix?

          • Novice says:
            22 Mar22 March 15:19

            Check Geektown website. All the latest lineup for all tv.

          • Christopher Clift says:
            23 Mar23 March 19:51

            Not Netflix, but if you are into Classical Music, log into Berlin Philharmonic website and go to Digital Concert Hall. Everything they have performed since – not quite time immemorial – but there is loads of stuff – concerts, interviews all in HD and Digital sound. And it’s free for at least 30 days, but probably for much longer.

        • Shoestring says:
          22 Mar22 March 15:59

          as in: O/T posts on proper subject threads

          obvs Chat thread is for O/T stuff which may or may not get deleted if it’s not HFP-relevant or interesting in its own right

  • ee says:
    22 Mar22 March 11:56

    Here is a question. On my BA Amex Premium Plus, I’m about to receive a large refund that will almost take me back to square one on qualification for my next 2 for 1. I’m minded to either downgrade the card or straight up cancel to get the pro-rata refund. Usually I cancel cards once the balance has been zero for a month or so, but at the moment there is a small balance owning.

    So for the options:

    1) if I cancel the card, how does the outstanding balance get paid off? Do they just bill me on the normal cycle, from where my direct debit will take care of it? Then how do I reclaim the refund? How do they reclaim the avios earned on the refund once the card is closed? Does that come straight out of my BA avios balance?

    2) if I downgrade the card, the balance will turn positive by a mid 4 digit sum, which if the current situation persists will take me the rest of the year to work through. Could I ask for the refund to be sent back to my current account? On the avios side, does a negative balance sweep across to BA monthly like a positive one, or would it just sit as a negative balance reducing down as I spend each month?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      22 Mar22 March 12:29

      If you cancel the refund for card fee will go against any outstanding balance. You Will be billed as per your normal cycle if you owe them and need to phone to claim anything they owe you either transferred to another card you have or to your bank account.

      If the card has any Avios which haven’t transferred to your BAEC account they will be forfeited if your account is in minus nothing will happen.

      If you downgrade then the minus avios balance will just sit on your account and any spend will offset against it and you won’t earn anything until you’re back into positive – bad idea really.

      • ee says:
        22 Mar22 March 13:12

        Thanks that’s really helpful!

      • Genghis says:
        22 Mar22 March 21:31

        Note also that a refund does not count as a payment. Ie. If the statement balance is £2,000 and you receive a £1,000 refund taking you to £1000 on the account, the £2,000 still needs to be paid, taking you to £1,000 in credit.

        • Charlieface says:
          23 Mar23 March 00:55

          Don’t think that’s true. It’s just a bug on the website. Every time I cancel I pay the remaining balance excl fee refund. Never had a problem or letter from them, nor a hit to credit report

        • pigeon says:
          23 Mar23 March 12:36

          As per other posters, never had an issue when subtracting a refund from the monthly payment.

          • Rob says:
            23 Mar23 March 12:46

            It can be an issue if you are not fully clearing your balance. Obviously if you clear the balance it counts.

            If this rule wasn’t in place, someone who had no money could simply buy something for £100, refund it immediately and claim that the £100 refund was the ‘monthly minimum payment’ which is clearly absurd.

          • Genghis says:
            23 Mar23 March 17:34

            Indeed. It’s only as issue with large refunds as otherwise a refund kinda gets buried with normal day to day spend.

  • Sandra says:
    22 Mar22 March 12:40

    My sons student girlfriend was flying home EDI – LHR – MOS on 5/4 with BA all booked as a through flight (we are supposed to be on holiday in the Highlands for a week from 29/3 but that’s a different story), returning a couple of weeks later MOS – LHR. BA have notified her the LHR – MOS flight is cancelled but that’s all, not the EDI – LHR leg or the return yet. She’s now staying with us anyway as she and her parents think it’s safer than Russia and obviously if she can’t fly there the return flight isn’t needed. I assume she’s entitled to a full refund for all of it, does she need to call/contact at some point to claim it or will that just happen automatically after 5/4? She wants cash rather than being stuck with a voucher. Thanks all in advance.

    • Lady London says:
      22 Mar22 March 13:05

      @Sandra to summarize the hundreds of comments across this thread and site from today and all immediately preceding days if even 1flight on a booking is xancelled, gets a new flight number or is significantly moved and the first flight on the booking departs from Europe the following applies

      1. You have the right to a full cash refund. you do not have to take any voucher. They cannot deduct any change or cancellation fee even if the booking conditions say so provided its them changing it not you.
      2. Either call BA or your travel agent to get refund. Agent can charge an admin fee if it’s in their conditions that you were notified of.

      If you can’t get through to BA look at the top article on this site marked “featured” and carefully try the workround.

      If you are still unable to advise BA or travel agent you are using your right under eu261 for a refund make sure you contact both by a method you can prove to demand your refund.

      Keep on it because actually getting the refund has risks related to time, whatever your rights

      • Sandra says:
        22 Mar22 March 13:35

        @ Lady London Thank you, that’s what I thought and your clear summary explains it all really well. Since her and my son are now home from university with lots of free time getting through to BA will at least pass some of the time!

        • Madeleine says:
          22 Mar22 March 15:34

          I’m positive they’ll think of other things to be doing with their free time

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