Chat thread – Saturday 18th March

[Erico1875]

It’s not £200 either.
I’ve done £300 a time to Monzo.
“The COOP” not to be confused with regional versions such as Scotmid etc

[Bagoly]

So now we have an additional proven strategy for getting airlines to cough up for compensation – send in the bailiffs.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64999557
We passengers should all be grateful to Russell Quirk because it prompted Wizzair put out this: “Since December, Wizz has paid all CCJs where it received the judgment, and is continuing to work to settle all other outstanding claims as quickly as possible.”
And presumably they will now pay CCJs fairly promptly going forward to avoid repeat embarrassment.
Even settle before it gets to CCJ stage?
And that’s the sort of story that gets board directors at other airlines asking “Do we settle CCJs?”

Although what is the “where it received the judgement” caveat?

[timrogers]

Anna wrote:

timrogers wrote:

I reached the reduced Tier Point threshold for BA Silver by the end of December, but my BA app still shows “60 more needed” to retain Silver. Is this normal? Or is something odd going on?

As long as you’ve changed to Silver there’s no problem. Mine shows I need 50 TPs but I hit Silver last October and it’s shown as such ever since.

I was already Silver, and I still show as Silver, so I’m not too sure where I’m at given that it says I still need 60 TPS.

[phantomchickenz]

Richie wrote:

Is there such a thing as a southern hemisphere equivalent to a quiet greek island in Dec/Jan?

Anything in the South Pacific. Touristy, yes, but nowhere near the crowds you get in the Mediterranean. For a particular treat, go for Aitutaki.

[Anna]

@Tim – people who qualified or re-qualified under the reduced TP offer will still see the usual requirement in their account – so it took 450 TPs to attain or retain Silver but the system still thinks you need 600 and shows the deficit it “thinks” you have.

[Richie]

phantomchickenz wrote:

Richie wrote:

Is there such a thing as a southern hemisphere equivalent to a quiet greek island in Dec/Jan?

Anything in the South Pacific. Touristy, yes, but nowhere near the crowds you get in the Mediterranean. For a particular treat, go for Aitutaki.

Thanks, will do a bit of research.

Any thoughts regarding Boracay in the Philipines?

[Lady London]

Bagoly wrote:

So now we have an additional proven strategy for getting airlines to cough up for compensation – send in the bailiffs.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64999557
We passengers should all be grateful to Russell Quirk because it prompted Wizzair put out this: “Since December, Wizz has paid all CCJs where it received the judgment, and is continuing to work to settle all other outstanding claims as quickly as possible.”
And presumably they will now pay CCJs fairly promptly going forward to avoid repeat embarrassment.
Even settle before it gets to CCJ stage?
And that’s the sort of story that gets board directors at other airlines asking “Do we settle CCJs?”

Although what is the “where it received the judgement” caveat?

Thanks for this Bagoly. What a good day it has been with this and Creation.

Interestingly it was only £60 to send in the bailiffs. For many of us determined to receive what any miscreant airlines have been told by courts to pay us but haven’t, this is close enough to what we’d pay to see other forms of entertainment.

I knew other expenses of sending bailiffs do get added to the amount the airline or whoever hasn’t paid up after a judgment against them must pay you. So I’d felt sending in the bailiffs worth considering. There were however dark mutterings on HfP that this would somehow still be expensive. So it’s great to see that at Luton at least it’s just £60 to send in the bailiffs…. The same as 1 and a half lounge entries on the door really.

I nearly choked on my coffee seeing Wizz’s lying comments. When the interweb is full of people saying Wizzair left them stranded without help after cancelling flights at zero notice and Wizz has even ignored the few that got MCOL judgments against them and over and over again and simply did not pay up.

Now thanks to Bagoly we all know the solution 🙂

PS I think “where it received the judgment” means from Wizz “Catch me if you can”. Now we can.

Thanks again

[Richie]

Should the CAA have more teeth to prevent this Wizz air stupidity?

[GillyDee]

Swifty wrote:

Thabks to everyone who replied to me yesterday about my amb query. You were absolutely right. I have been assertively requesting upgrades/free extra pax/water/minibar spends at hotel receptions and getting them for years by mistake.

That’s why I said technically! Keep on being assertive – it obviously works.

[GillyDee]

Thanks as well to the responses re the works on my shared drive. To be clear, the contractor was supposed to cover the bloomin’ great hole with a steel “bridge” so we could drive over it. I suspect the hole was too big – but the area had been safely blocked off with barriers. I was narked because some weeks ago we made a conscious decision to drive home at night after the flight because we’d have access to the house. Had we known that wasn’t the case, I’d have booked the Sofitel earlier and not ended up paying the rack rate. I’m still going to ask the builder – doing an assertive Swifty! Nothing ventured…

[Aston100]

Bagoly wrote:

So now we have an additional proven strategy for getting airlines to cough up for compensation – send in the bailiffs.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64999557
We passengers should all be grateful to Russell Quirk because it prompted Wizzair put out this: “Since December, Wizz has paid all CCJs where it received the judgment, and is continuing to work to settle all other outstanding claims as quickly as possible.”
And presumably they will now pay CCJs fairly promptly going forward to avoid repeat embarrassment.
Even settle before it gets to CCJ stage?
And that’s the sort of story that gets board directors at other airlines asking “Do we settle CCJs?”

Although what is the “where it received the judgement” caveat?

What isn’t clear to me is how did Wizz sort out the £4.5k so quickly there and then with bailiffs already sizing up the office furniture.

[sloth]

Richie wrote:

phantomchickenz wrote:

Richie wrote:

Is there such a thing as a southern hemisphere equivalent to a quiet greek island in Dec/Jan?

Anything in the South Pacific. Touristy, yes, but nowhere near the crowds you get in the Mediterranean. For a particular treat, go for Aitutaki.

Thanks, will do a bit of research.

Any thoughts regarding Boracay in the Philipines?

Heading there in July, so if you can wait that long for a review…

Everyone that I’m aware of that has been says it’s great but head for station 2/3, not 1 apparently…

[BuildBackBetter]

Richie wrote:

Any thoughts regarding Boracay in the Philipines?

Visited pre-covid. Small island but a good long sandy beach. Suitable for honeymooners or romantic couples. Avoid staying close to the White beach. At night it turns into a party place.

[zapato1060]

Aston100 wrote:

What isn’t clear to me is how did Wizz sort out the £4.5k so quickly there and then with bailiffs already sizing up the office furniture.

With the impending bad publicity, HO would have quickly asked for sort code and account number for the impressive Mr Quirk.

[yorkieflyer]

Richie wrote:

Is there such a thing as a southern hemisphere equivalent to a quiet greek island in Dec/Jan?

Gili air or Gili Meno but don’t tell anyone else please

[polly]

@Richie
Lombok

[Lady London]

@Aston100 it’s amazing what money can suddenly be found to be paid when bailiffs appear. That’s the point of sending them to premises operated by whoever hasn’t paid up on a court judgment (eg MCOL).

Bailiffs will be selling off whatever items are found on the premises apparently owned by the money-ower at second-hand rates and not generously calculated at that. So 10 airline agents’ office chairs, purchased at £500 each, might be lucky to be taken as £50 each towards the debt. So the amount of stuff that can be legally seized by bailiffs for an unsatisfied judgment, is disproportionate.

Of course the cherry on the cake would be if the Daily Mail is having a slow day and willing to send along a crew, or random videos by spectators posted on Twitter and YouTube with the airline’s name prominent.

[Super Secret Stuff]

Richie wrote:

Should the CAA have more teeth to prevent this Wizz air stupidity?

Yes, and I believe they legally do. Problem is they don’t have experienced staff from industry that have commercial acumen. They now recruit with a heavier focus to fill the void. However as the heathrow charges example shows, they’re still inept

[Richie]

Thanks Polly and Yorkieflyer.

[Joecooljoe]

JamesK wrote:

Anyone have any good recommendations for mid range hotels in Tampa? Travelling with 2 boys (11 & 9) this summer. Will have a car Keen to goto Busch gardens and the beach. Not wedded to any hotel group. Thanks in advance…

We stayed at the Doubletree Redington beach during feb half term which was glorious – it is right on the beach, good restaurant/bar and can walk to a bunch of restaurants etc. I think it was about $300/night cash but we used HH points.

Tampa was great – definitely one of our fav places in the US..