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News: the day HfP nearly caused a divorce, £100 Mr Porter cashback from Amex

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News in brief:

The day HfP nearly caused its first divorce

Back in 2016, Head for Points had a day when it picked up a lot of traffic from Mumsnet.

This is not a normal source of new readers.  I clicked through to the linked page and found this in the forum:

“Looking for a missing pair of trousers in DH’s [Dear Husbands] wardrobe this morning, I came across a policy doc and “thank you for buying tesco pet insurance” letter.  Says it’s for “Smiles”, doesn’t specify the type of animal, dated January this year, £80ish for the year.

We do not have a pet.

I will, of course, ask him when he gets home, but any ideas WTF might be going on v welcome…”

This was followed by a great discussion. For some reason the thread was deleted from Mumsnet and so I have never mentioned it on here again, despite the entertainment value. However, over in our forums, in a discussion over the current Nectar pet insurance deal, DevonDiamond managed to find an archived version.

Click here to read the Mumsnet thread.

The answer is almost certainly in this 2016 HfP article.

There was potentially a clue for the wife in the name of the cat, Smiles.

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Comments (27)

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

  • BJ says:
    15 Feb15 February 05:37

    LOL, had forgotten all about Smiles, did any HfP reader ever confess to being the ‘owner’ ?

    • Mikeact says:
      15 Feb15 February 09:49

      Me too..it was my daughter that rang me about it….thought I might know something about the background to the story, not that I was bothered….too busy taking out insurance for the guinea pig.

  • ringingup says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:11

    No MrPorter cash back offer for me… maybe it’s because I used it already in December?

    • Andrew J says:
      15 Feb15 February 07:22

      +1 I used the spring and the winter offer last year so perhaps they are going down the new customer acquisition route this time.

  • Andrew J says:
    15 Feb15 February 07:57

    If you didn’t get the MR Porter offer then you might have the Browns 15% back offer – they sell pretty much the same stuff and if you’re spending £700 or more will work out better. There’s also a new customer 10% off at checkout code displayed on their website.

  • Magic Mike says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:10

    The day I nearly caused a divorce was when I suggested a nice holiday in San Francisco, with the routing AMS-LHR-JFK-PDX-SFO…

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      15 Feb15 February 08:43

      😀
      The awesome Mrs Squirrel is a tight Yorkshire girl, and was VERY enthusiastic last time I showed her the price difference of positioning to Gothenburg rather than flying from Heathrow…

    • Hbommie says:
      15 Feb15 February 10:10

      I usually get 🙄🥱

  • Andrew. says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:54

    The day I nearly caused a divorce, was after a customer expressed disappointment in our customer comments book that my new cashier (who was my area Director doing a back-to-the-floor day) wasn’t as pretty as my previous cashier.

    It was a joint account, so the response letter was addressed to both account holders…

    “Dear Mr & Mrs Smith. I’m sorry that you were disappointed with the attractiveness of the cashier who served you on Friday…”

    *Snicker*

  • LS says:
    15 Feb15 February 08:59

    Didnt you already do an article about this?
    https://www.headforpoints.com/2016/03/29/meanwhile-on-mumsnet/

    • Russ says:
      15 Feb15 February 09:54

      Oh it’s a bit of fun, lighten up. I can remember when one of the big car hire company’s had a flash hire bonanza for a zillion points per hire. Normal, intelligent blokes took out car hire simply to sit in Tesco’s car park waiting to take them back. Sad bunch or points warriors??

      • DevonDiamond says:
        15 Feb15 February 10:13

        The tale of the guy who flew to Tenerife or similar to hire 100 cars over a weekend is quite something as well!

        • Russ says:
          15 Feb15 February 10:42

          I’d forgotten about that Points collecting at it’s finest!

          #NevermindGreta

          • Londonsteve says:
            15 Feb15 February 13:00

            What about the 9000 Avios per flight offer run by Iberia? To this day I think that was some kind of a mistake and should have been 900 per flight, or only apply to long haul flights. I had to book without an IB Plus number as the booking system wouldn’t proceed with the number in place, after which CS refused to honour the deal because I hadn’t provided an ID at the time of booking. Crap IT and anything to get out of an ‘accidental’ offer.

          • Rob says:
            15 Feb15 February 13:27

            It wasn’t a mistake. We actually refused to write about it and went back to IB to question it. They came back in writing to confirm that they meant it work as it did and that we should push it hard, so we did.

            It was an outstanding offer for us. Every other airline we deal with pays us a teeny tiny (usually 1%) commission on flight sales, and only when the flight has been taken. Iberia, on the other hand, pays a flat €3.50 and pays as soon as you book … 🙂

    • Rob says:
      15 Feb15 February 10:16

      Doesn’t it say that above?!

      I’m slightly bemused by your suggestion that six years isn’t a big enough gap before mentioning a topic again 🙂 Most stuff on here we recycle far more regularly!

    • CarpalTravel says:
      15 Feb15 February 19:59

      How long did you spend digging into the barrel to fish that old page out?!

      You must really hate it when Rob posts the “what you missed this week” threads….

  • pbcold says:
    15 Feb15 February 12:23

    I, along with 99.9% of people, am delighted that you have posted this – thanks Rob.

  • Lady London says:
    15 Feb15 February 13:55

    A reminder that the new game in town for pet insurance is sainsburys bank + nectar.

    You may get an invitation in a specific email, as I did, or you may find it come up in your offers.

    I think an HfPer might have said they even combined it with a volde-entrance, but that might have been Tesco.

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

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