News: Norse drops San Francisco flights, new Hampton Budapest hotel opens

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• Jetset Boyz says:

  8 Sep8 September 06:45

  Other European airlines are also trimming their SFO schedule, plus BA is axing SJC come end of October. The Bay Area is probably the most notable victim of the pandemic. The rise of WFH and homelessness in the area has caused load factors to markedly drop off.

  Also seen cheap business class fares to SFO with BA ex-Europe.

  • The Original Nick says:

    8 Sep8 September 07:36

    From where ex-Europe?

    • Metty says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:13

      I have a trip next June booked for £1177; just tried random date 4-Jun-24 DUB-SFO via LHR JFK and return 11-Jun SFO-MAD via JFK LHR and it’s £1246 rtn. Depends whether you just want a cheap Business fare or for the Tier Points. If the latter you could go via LAX both ways (although if the LAX-SFO sectors are Alaska may have to chase BA for the TPs to credit as integration of Alaska still seems incomplete). So ‘cheap’ fares are still out there.

    • Brian says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:20

      Budapest, according to loyalty lobby.

  • Dan says:

    8 Sep8 September 08:09

    California in general has also had a max exodus of tech workers and tech companies due to the high taxes and high cost of living. Many of these have fled to other states such as Texas.

  • Bernard says:

    8 Sep8 September 08:26

    That’s not correct.
    While BA has trimmed SJC, other European carriers have not cut. A quick look at Aeroroutes will confirm that.
    While that doesn’t suit the narrative that San Francisco is ‘over’, it’s best to look at the facts, not the narrative found in some press.
    Indeed, there are keen hotel rates (outside evens like Folsom and big conferences) there which for hotel rewards makes San Francisco an excellent destination. (Like any city, there are bits you stay out of, but there’s a lot to see and do there).

    • jj says:

      8 Sep8 September 10:23

      The data suggests that @Dan is correct. I can’t comment on flight schedules, but California lost 700,000 people net to migration (international and domestic) in the two years to Jun 2022. Texas and Florida gained 787,000 and 651,000 respectively. Data comes from Wikipedia.

      Few things capture the business community’s zeitgeist quite like the post-ski hot tub conversation in a luxury Colorado hotel. This year, the guests (primarily drawn from the financial services and real estate industries) in the coastal cities could talk of little beside the mass flow of professionals into low-tax states with higher quality of life. I spoke to several who had already moved, and all had friends and colleagues who had headed south.

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  8 Sep8 September 07:59

  NEW HAMPTON 🎉🎉

• Richie says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:17

  Norse are adding routes at from CDG.

• jj says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:21

  The four ugliest buildings in Budapest used to be the Intercontinental, the Marriott, the Sofitel and the Hilton. Now we can add a fifth.

  We need a campaign to boycott ugly hotels. Beauty matters.

  • Brian says:

    8 Sep8 September 09:22

    Surely if you stay in one of them, that’s one fewer ugly building that you might see from your bedroom…

    • Rob says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:40

      Which is the gold coloured one near the castle? That was something else.

      • jj says:

        8 Sep8 September 10:26

        @Rob, the Hilton is near the castle. One side is a beautiful old building; the other, to quote the former prince of Wales is a monstrous carbuncle.

        • Chas says:

          8 Sep8 September 18:03

          It’s certainly “interesting’…!

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      8 Sep8 September 20:40

      That sounds like the marketing copy for the Holiday Inn Brighton…

  • BJ says:

    8 Sep8 September 15:46

    In that case you might have the misfortune to stay at the Kimpton Clocktower, fab building but absolutely dire hotel IMO. There are many other examples around UK the world.

• David S says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:24

  Norse are starting a Paris-Los Angeles flight next summer. Are we seeing them move away from London?

  • Rhys says:

    8 Sep8 September 08:26

    Still more routes from London than any other city

  • Lady London says:

    8 Sep8 September 12:12

    I’d far prefer to enforce my EU/UK 261 rights in the UK rather than try to do so in France and I think certain airlines are sadly a higher risk of having to do this than others.

• drdan says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:43

  Doesn’t Norse simply risk becoming the next Wizz-Air.

  I’m happy flying Ryanair but wouldn’t book Norse, certainly without Section 75 back up with all these cancellations…a self fulfilling prophecy of no-one booking, so cancel, so no-one booking.

  More R+D with respect to routes would have seemed prudent…just my 2 cents…

  • JDB says:

    8 Sep8 September 08:48

    s75 doesn’t really give you much back up in these circumstances and, for example, it only applies to the cardholder, not even one’s spouse that you buy a ticket for, let alone supplementary cardholders.

    • ken says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:56

      “not even one’s spouse that you buy a ticket for”

      Do you mean that you travel with your spouse and you pay for both tickets then their ticket isn’t covered by S75 ?

      If so that is complete rubbish.

      The S75 link would clearly be satisfied is as much as having your spouse with you also benefits you. To state otherwise would be absurd.

      The same debtor-creditor-supplier relationship would hold if you bought a gift for your spouse, or your dependent children.

      Where is wouldn’t hold is if a spouse bought a single air ticket on your credit card, or purchased a gym membership on your card.

      Plenty of Case Law / FOS decisions demonstrate this.

    • Dan says:

      8 Sep8 September 15:42

      ken is right. I don’t understand what jdb is talking about. S75 would be ideal for this circumstance – if Norse folded/cancelled you’d get a full refund or rebooking onto another airline, for you and the family

    • Dan says:

      8 Sep8 September 15:49

      that was harsh! I’m sorry. let me rephrase: I agree with Ken and I’d appreciate hearing what makes jdb think differently 🙏

      • JDB says:

        8 Sep8 September 16:58

        @Dan – It’s not my view, but repeated FOS decisions – I have copied a paragraph below from a July FOS decision.

        Also, I’m not sure how you suggest s75 would actually pay for the additional cost of rerouting on another airline. I do not believe there is any case of s75 being used in this way as a back door to UK261. The contract or Conditions of Carriage – ie the part for which the card provider and airline are potentially jointly liable is actually rather unhelpful in this regard and for air tickets purchased on their own, you also can rely on the Consumer Rights Act. If you end up taking the card provider to the FOS, you can’t expect the FOS to apply UK261. You will surely get a refund but beyond that it’s not quite as easy as many like to suggest.

        “Covering section 75 first, I noted there was an obstacle to Mr H being able to claim in respect of both his and Mrs H’s shares of the holiday. This was because I considered, bearing in mind general legal principles, that Mr H would be able only to claim for his losses associated with the holiday. Mrs H could potentially have been able to claim for both of them because she had been the person who booked and had a special status under the contract with J which enabled her to claim on behalf of other members of the party. But she was not the person who had paid with a credit card. I concluded Mr H could claim only in respect of his half of the holiday.”

        • Ken says:

          8 Sep8 September 18:43

          But this is an illustration of the care people should make when booking.
          Mrs H made the booking and made it in her name but using Mr H card.

          The claim would have stood if Mr H had made the booking in his name.
          The case even refers to it.

          DRN-3121981

          Mr H and his wife are financially interdependent. The S75 succeeds for him and his wife. It would also succeed for dependent children.
          In fact in this case part of the claim doesn’t succeed because 2 of the 4 people on the booking are adult children and NOT financially dependent.

        • JDB says:

          8 Sep8 September 19:15

          @Ken if you read the decision, it does NOT succeed on s75 for Mrs H – the FOS finds a neat way to give her the same compensation because Creation failed to do a chargeback on the basis they thought it would fail. Thus Mr H’s s75 succeeds and Mrs H succeeds on the basis of chargeback.

        • yorkieflyer says:

          9 Sep9 September 01:05

          Using section 75 I had my credit card pay for the full cost of rebooking aborted Oasis HK tickets for 2 pax a few years ago

    • Ken says:

      8 Sep8 September 21:37

      @JDB

      I have given you a case reference which has no mention of chargeback & succeeded as stated in the reasoning that husband & wife are considered interdependent as far as 2 airline tickets are concerned.
      And adult independent children would not succeed, because they are financially independent.

      A further case DRN-3136350 demonstrates that S75 can in certain circumstances be used to recover consequential losses, in this case replacement flights.
      Why ? Because it gives a cardholder a ‘like’ claim against the credit card company for breach of contract.

      Feel free to post some similar case references that support your contention that a spouse doesn’t have interdependence or that where all efforts to mitigate losses have been taken then S75 doesn’t cover consequential losses.

      • JDB says:

        8 Sep8 September 23:34

        @Ken the case to which you refer is really rather ancient an superseded by multiples decisions – look at the one to which I referred from July DRN-4224227. Ultimately, anyone relying on s75 as some magic wand that some posters here suggest are likely to be very disappointed. The scope is very specific and the breach of contract in respect of air tickets is particularly problematic. If you wish to take the risk and make the claim fine, but nobody should be under any illusions.

  • Andrew. says:

    8 Sep8 September 08:58

    Would any reasonably sensible person book a flight, holiday or even order furniture without using a credit card?

    There are £230ish return fares to East Coast USA on Norse in upcoming weeks. I can manage with a Boots Meal Deal + spare drink on a 7 hour flight to Boston, it’s all most working people will have during a 7 hour working day anyway.

    Pay by Credit Card, have Travel Insurance, the only real risk is disappointment and a touch of kerfuffle.

    • BJ says:

      8 Sep8 September 15:49

      My parents, despite my repeated warnings.

    • John says:

      8 Sep8 September 15:57

      Well I use chase debit 1% back for £40 flights on easyjet :p

      • Gordon says:

        8 Sep8 September 17:06

        If I hear correctly chase gives you a total cash back of £15! I may be corrected!

        • Chrisasaurus says:

          8 Sep8 September 20:47

          But since 1% of £40 is 40p that’s not really relevant…

        • Gordon says:

          8 Sep8 September 20:58

          How do you know how much John has spent on his chase card! He might not get that 40p because he has reached his maximum cash back! So it is relevant!

• StephenO says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:52

  Your comment on the Courtyard Oxford… I have achieved 1.8p/point on most bookings there. It is a Courtyard which probably limits the points they can charge but due to the nature of Oxford (very high demand, very few hotels) the prices go absurdly high. These points have helped me throughout my son’s time at uni there!

  • MF176 says:

    8 Sep8 September 20:06

    Peculiar pricing indeed- just looked at a day next week and Courtyard is £334 or 20,500. Moxy Slough comes up as a nearby alternative – £123 or 35,000!!!

• Nick says:

  8 Sep8 September 09:13

  Congratulations on your wedding @Rhys! You kept that quiet 😄

  • Brian says:

    8 Sep8 September 09:24

    And he’s switched to the other side!!

    • Rob says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:38

      The ‘Author’ tag on HfP articles doesn’t mean much, to be honest! Either we all contribute bits or one person does the first draft (and their name would go in automatically) and then others expand / amend.

      • Gordon says:

        8 Sep8 September 17:12

        I was pulled up on this last year by Rob I believe!
        Mentioning the author tag in the article and was told it does not necessarily mean much!

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