Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Forums Daily chat thread Click here for today’s chat thread Chat thread – Monday 20th January

  • Rob
    HfP Staff
    2,705 posts

    This is today’s chat thread.

    If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.

    AB29 11 posts

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to update frequent flyer details on a BA Avios booking so I can use Royal Jordanian status to select a seat? Or will that only work for cash bookings?

    S879 150 posts

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to update frequent flyer details on a BA Avios booking so I can use Royal Jordanian status to select a seat? Or will that only work for cash bookings?

    Yes, I have done it via Royal Air Maroc or by contacting BA via X.

    tomhenri 8 posts

    Morning. I’m trying to get back to BHX from AMS. My direct flight with KLM has been ‘disrupted’. We have been rebooked via CDG. This means we are going to get home at least 5 hours late. What are my rights in this situation? Is there any action I can take to hopefully improve the situation. One thought I had was to ask to be upgraded to business so that we have a half decent lounge to wait in at CDG. KLM have offered me compensation. The email does not really explain how their compensation works. Its offers me 220 euros non-refundable or 320 euros refundable. If anyone has insight to how this works, I would appreciate it.

    Ps we are staying at the intercontinental Amstel on Rob’s recommendation. I agree it’s a lovely hotel.

    JDB 6,205 posts

    @tomhenri – sorry to hear about your disrupted journey. I don’t quite understand what you say KLM has offered you, but the correct statutory compensation sum for a journey of this distance is €250/£220 paid by bank transfer, athough an airline is allowed to offer this (or a greater sum) by way of points or travel voucher with your express agreement. This all assumes the delay was within KLM’s control. I doubt they will upgrade you but KLM would theoretically be liable for refreshments relative to your delay but that’s probably no more than €15.

    BA Flyer IHG Stayer 3,074 posts

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to update frequent flyer details on a BA Avios booking so I can use Royal Jordanian status to select a seat? Or will that only work for cash bookings?

    Yes.

    There are literally dozens of threads on how to do it in the BA forum as well as in the most recent article on buying RJ status!

    tootsci 179 posts

    On the prevailing theme of changes to loyalty programmes in response to customer feedback, I just had this email from Eurostar

    “As a valued Eurostar customer, we would love to hear your thoughts on the Club Eurostar loyalty programme.

    To help improve the loyalty programme and the benefits it offers, we’d like to invite you to take our quick and easy survey. It takes around 10 minutes to complete and, as a thank you for your time, you will be entered into our quarterly prize draw to win a GiftPay gift voucher worth £250/€300.”

    Not sure I am really a valued customer as I’ve not been on the Eurostar since late 2023, but if anyone is a regular and gets this email might be worth taking a closer look rather than hitting delete

    ianwardz 57 posts

    Currently sat in SilverKris Lounge at Singapore after a crazy night, last night at the hands of BA.

    We were booked CW on BA16 SIN-LHR. In the lounge we were sought out and told that due to a delay on the flight coming in from SYD which would give us a tight connection to NCL at heathrow, that they had moved us to BA12.
    Ok, would prefer BA16 as it has Club Suite but it’s a night flight so no biggy.
    We went to the gate and waited to board. Departure time (23:15) came and went and suddenly the gate manager told us the flight was cancelled due to staff illness.
    Carnage ensued and eventually we were told the name of a hotel to go to in town (Sheraton Towers) and that the taxi would be paid for by the hotel.

    I did attempt to get back on BA16 but got no joy there as gate staff were not interested, the BA lounge had closed and the phone lines were busy.

    We decided the best option was to go to the hotel and to be fair, everything was sorted included the taxi fare.

    At about 1am I got an email saying that we were booked on the now ‘delayed not cancelled’ BA12, delayed until midnight tonight, but with a new flight number BA3590.
    I called BA and managed to get transferred to a slightly earlier SQ flight. Glad I did as the delayed BA12/BA3590 has now been cancelled and some people are now not booked until tomorrow or even Wednesday.

    The way BA handled this was as expected, shoddy. Communication was poor or non-existent.
    Hats off to Sheraton for how well they dealt with everything, allowing us to keep the room until this evening and giving us cash to pay the taxi back to the airport.

    SilverKris lounge is big & busy but the food and drinks are excellent.
    Fingers crossed everything goes to plan tonight.

    davestat 49 posts

    Just arrived in Phuket today. Regarding Lounges, the quite large Plaza Premium in KUL was rammed despite an exorbitant walk in fee(north of £50). Another two flights with MH today – they are light years ahead of BA in terms of keeping you informed of flight details- check in, gates, delays and luggage carousels. They are on the Amadeus platform. 25 minutes delay and you get notified, gate gets changed and you get notified. BA – have had a flight cancelled at the gate, with no notification whatsoever. BA just don’t seem connected to Customers and the tech must be so easy to get right.

    Only downside here is that half of Russia seems to be on holiday here. Only saying this from the perspective of what used to be just a busy resort to now being absolutely heaving.

    phantomchickenz 561 posts

    Morning. I’m trying to get back to BHX from AMS. My direct flight with KLM has been ‘disrupted’. We have been rebooked via CDG. This means we are going to get home at least 5 hours late. What are my rights in this situation? Is there any action I can take to hopefully improve the situation. One thought I had was to ask to be upgraded to business so that we have a half decent lounge to wait in at CDG. KLM have offered me compensation. The email does not really explain how their compensation works. Its offers me 220 euros non-refundable or 320 euros refundable. If anyone has insight to how this works, I would appreciate it.

    Ps we are staying at the intercontinental Amstel on Rob’s recommendation. I agree it’s a lovely hotel.

    I had very similar a month ago – was due to fly LHR-AMS on KLM, but was bumped onto Lufthansa via Frankfurt. We were staying at the Amstel as well!

    If you are the same as me, you will already have a voucher emailed to you for the value of 320 euro, to be used on another AF/KLM booking. This voucher can also be exchanged for cash, but at the reduced value of 250 euro (all figures per person). Details can be found here: https://www.klm.co.uk/information/refund-compensation/compensation

    A bit of a pain, but the compo went a long way toward covering our long weekend costs.

    Alex 58 posts

    Booking reward flights on BA I still see an option to pay only £1 alongside the Avios. Does this mean that if I need to cancel this reward booking I will lose only £1? I think I remember there was an update somewhere here saying that BA started charging £35 for every reward cancellation, and I wonder how do things work now?

    BBbetter 1,254 posts

    Just arrived in Phuket today. Regarding Lounges, the quite large Plaza Premium in KUL was rammed despite an exorbitant walk in fee(north of £50). Another two flights with MH today – they are light years ahead of BA in terms of keeping you informed of flight details- check in, gates, delays and luggage carousels. They are on the Amadeus platform. 25 minutes delay and you get notified, gate gets changed and you get notified. BA – have had a flight cancelled at the gate, with no notification whatsoever. BA just don’t seem connected to Customers and the tech must be so easy to get right.

    Only downside here is that half of Russia seems to be on holiday here. Only saying this from the perspective of what used to be just a busy resort to now being absolutely heaving.

    Plaza premium accepts PP cards which are bundled in many credit cards in that region as there are no EU/UK style interchange fee caps. So not surprising.

    Gordon 199 posts

    @davestat – I am not surprised by the tourism volume you mention, amongst other things, as the TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) have made a a number of changes to its visa regime, increasing the number of countries whose nationals are eligible for visa exemptions from 57 to 93, who are now eligible to stay in Thailand for 60 days, up from 30 days previously.
    They want to bring tourism up to pre pandemic levels, as an estimate, tourism accounts for 12% of its GDP, and nearly a fifth of its jobs.

    It also introduced the Destination Thailand Visa, which allows foreign digital nomads, freelancers, and remote workers to stay in Thailand for up to 180 days per visit, on a multiple-entry basis, for a period of five years. On top of this, the TAT has taken steps to reduce bottlenecks at the country’s airports, particularly at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, where it has an automatic passport control system.

    I’m not sure how efficient the new barrier system will be
    (I will find out later this year) hopefully better than LHR! using them yesterday at T5, I had the Seek assistance notice, so went to the manned immigration booths (luckily it was deserted) asked the officer what the error was, and he said there wasn’t one, he just said, the barriers are used thousands of times a day and sometimes they don’t work correctly.

    davestat 49 posts

    Just arrived in Phuket today. Regarding Lounges, the quite large Plaza Premium in KUL was rammed despite an exorbitant walk in fee(north of £50). Another two flights with MH today – they are light years ahead of BA in terms of keeping you informed of flight details- check in, gates, delays and luggage carousels. They are on the Amadeus platform. 25 minutes delay and you get notified, gate gets changed and you get notified. BA – have had a flight cancelled at the gate, with no notification whatsoever. BA just don’t seem connected to Customers and the tech must be so easy to get right.

    Only downside here is that half of Russia seems to be on holiday here. Only saying this from the perspective of what used to be just a busy resort to now being absolutely heaving.

    Plaza premium accepts PP cards which are bundled in many credit cards in that region as there are no EU/UK style interchange fee caps. So not surprising.

    Luckily I persuaded OH to use her PP passes which normally go unused. It was interesting watching certain people trying to access the hotels lounge in Langkawi. People who clearly hadn’t stayed at the hotel or were flying economy. First time in a Max as well. Thoroughly impressed with the J layout. Never had so much room on a short flight.

    Wallaj4 6 posts

    @ Gordon. – regarding the automatic gates at Bangkok Airport . travelled through first week January , security was super quick plus when you went downstairs to passport control , you normally join the queue . there was no queue at all , straight to the e-gates and through!

    Gordon 199 posts

    @Wallaj4 – Thanks for the update, that’s good to know.

    BSI1978 25 posts

    I can’t believe the main Tier point changes thread has been shuttered.

    We could have got to 4k @Rob! 🙃

    Ant M 100 posts

    Is there a new date yet for when the EU EES system will start? It’s been postponed so many times I’ve lost track – the last update I recall said “in 2025”

    davefl 2,002 posts

    EU EES

    Not yet, and they said whenever it actually happens it’ll be phased in rather than the November big bang that was last scheduled.

    aq.1988 614 posts

    Received a suspicious message from someone purporting to be from the hotel where I’ve booked an upcoming trip, on Booking.com.

    They contacted me on WhatsApp from a business account, but had my full name, hotel name, dates and even the exact amount due.

    They claimed that because I’ve not provided my credit card number yet, my booking could be cancelled. The booking was “pay at property”, but could be believable to cover against no-shows.

    Reached out to the hotel on booking.com, and they confirmed it was a scam.

    I mentioned it to one of my colleagues, and he said he had received something similar in the past.

    Just a warning to be vigilant, especially as the fraudsters somehow have access to booking details.

    BA Flyer IHG Stayer 3,074 posts

    I can’t believe the main Tier point changes thread has been shuttered.

    We could have got to 4k @Rob! 🙃

    I’m not surprised. After 3 weeks of its existence there wasn’t much new to say.

    And TBH there was so many snide comments and insults addressed to one particular user that made me not want to read much of it any more. A reminder that we can disagree but we shouldn’t be disagreeable when we do so.

    BBbetter 1,254 posts

    Received a suspicious message from someone purporting to be from the hotel where I’ve booked an upcoming trip, on Booking.com.

    They contacted me on WhatsApp from a business account, but had my full name, hotel name, dates and even the exact amount due.

    They claimed that because I’ve not provided my credit card number yet, my booking could be cancelled. The booking was “pay at property”, but could be believable to cover against no-shows.

    Reached out to the hotel on booking.com, and they confirmed it was a scam.

    I mentioned it to one of my colleagues, and he said he had received something similar in the past.

    Just a warning to be vigilant, especially as the fraudsters somehow have access to booking details.

    Quite a few such leaks happening.

    https://loyaltylobby.com/2025/01/18/fake-hotel-payment-requests-continue-case-voco-singapore-orchard/

    ed_fly 389 posts

    I can’t believe the main Tier point changes thread has been shuttered.

    We could have got to 4k @Rob! 🙃

    I’m not surprised. After 3 weeks of its existence there wasn’t much new to say.

    And TBH there was so many snide comments and insults addressed to one particular user that made me not want to read much of it any more. A reminder that we can disagree but we shouldn’t be disagreeable when we do so.

    I’m probably not perfect with regard to my tone on these forums, but increasingly posting less due the tone of discussion and replies.

    Gordon 199 posts

    I can’t believe the main Tier point changes thread has been shuttered.

    We could have got to 4k @Rob! 🙃

    I’m not surprised. After 3 weeks of its existence there wasn’t much new to say.

    And TBH there was so many snide comments and insults addressed to one particular user that made me not want to read much of it any more. A reminder that we can disagree but we shouldn’t be disagreeable when we do so.

    I saw the headline, and I think we all knew it was going to happen, I’ll be perfectly honest, I started to read the comments from page 1 to 3 then just switched off, I don’t even know the final tally, No amount of moaning, sniping or criticism is going to change anything, I would like to think most of us are too long in the tooth and realise this.

    yorkshireRich 264 posts

    I see Grantley Hall which was reviewed by Rob a while back, is now part of leading hotels of the world group.

  • The topic ‘Chat thread – Monday 20th January’ is closed to new replies.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.