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jj wrote:
You’re thinking of the Miro lounge. I’m still in the Schengen area.Sorry, yes, I always get them muddled up. But the same thing stands, only one lounge Schengen side too which means the top tier airlines send their passengers there.
There are top tier airlines operating within Schengen?! 🙂
I wonder how un-seasoned travelers can deal with this BS.
Many of them don’t. I used to run a travel booking website. Slow the site down and bookings fell, sometimes precipitously. Whilst some people try and try again, some business will be permanently lost because of these issues. My kids, for instance, wouldn’t dream of calling an airline to book at ticket, if it doesn’t work online, they won’t be booking at all. They might try a phone and a computer, if they both fail, that’s them done.
Where I used to work falling booking rates were such a good indicator of site problems we ended up using this as a key alerting trigger. If bookings dropped over what was normal for that time period, even if the monitoring said all was well, we knew that (most often) something, somewhere, was busted. Even bad pricing decisions couldn’t drop the booking rate as fast as an undetected broken (but still running) application server.
The cost to BA must be staggering, and I bet it’s unquantifiable, as they never have a long enough run of perfect service to be able to baseline against time of day/day of week/seasonal fluctuations. They don’t know what good looks like.
The new website is slower than the old one … how did that get signed off and into production?
So true: “they never have a long enough run of perfect service to be able to baseline against (…) fluctuations.”
So far, the new website is just the front-end as far as I experienced. I have never experienced an improved back-end. It also seems to crash more often. The agent this morning told me “they had an issue charging my card”. All other steps were good, but they couldn’t charge my amex! Perhaps the most significant bit of the whole operation.
It is 2025, we are still debating whether a flag carrier airline has an operational website. Imagine.
jj wrote:
You’re thinking of the Miro lounge. I’m still in the Schengen area.Sorry, yes, I always get them muddled up. But the same thing stands, only one lounge Schengen side too which means the top tier airlines send their passengers there.
There are top tier airlines operating within Schengen?! 🙂
You’re right, the top airline flew (once) between Glasgow and JFK! We should bring Global to Schengen!
Good morning/afternoon from the Hampton by Hilton in Arequipa, Peru where my ears are currently being assaulted by easy listening versions of 90s indie classics, including Garbage Only Happy When It Rains and Alanis Morisette Ironic.
Can’t really complain though as they’ve let me have breakfast after a very early arrival off an overnight bus from Nazca, despite not being able to check in until later. Although a budget brand Hilton, what I’ve seen so far is very nice, set in a lovely historic building and the breakfast was decent (no powdered scrambled eggs here!)
There are top tier airlines operating within Schengen?! 🙂
Haha I did pause when I wrote that, and decided that Lufthansa would have to count 🤣
@tootsci – What were your impressions of IB business suite in the end? Have a great trip.
Don’t suppose anyone was at the drinks reception for a certain law firm in Westminster Abbey Gardens last night? An absolutely spectacular location.
Unlike the..errr..Hilton Olympia. Potentially the worst in the city? 1970s grimly-carpeted room with aircon noise even with the aircon off?! Flimsy lock & chain which fortunately worked as the cleaner tried her luck not long after 8am! V glad I don’t have the family in tow.
At least the view from the breakfast area is lovely, and it’s within walking distance of Queen’s Club!
eeek! I’ve got that booked for a couple of nights August… with kids in tow.
To be fair, I arrived tired in the pitch black and walked the 15 mins from the tube and took a wrong turning, so all that part was on me!
There were lots of kids at breakfast having a whale of a time, staff were nice…and a Tesco Express across the road for the last-minute emergencies: you’ll be fine!!Just had email from Amex! Not sure if this has been posted before….
Important Changes to American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card
We’re writing to let you know about an important change to the way you earn bonus Membership Rewards® points.American Express strives to deliver incredible rewards, value, and service through the Gold Card. As a consequence of rising costs of providing your account, we will be changing the qualifying conditions for your Membership Rewards bonus.
Currently, for every £5,000 of eligible spend, you will receive 2,500 bonus Membership Rewards points, up to a limit of 12,500 bonus points in a membership year.
From 15 October 2025 onwards, for every £10,000 of eligible spend, you will now be awarded 5,000 bonus Membership Rewards points. This will be subject to a limit of 10,000 bonus Membership Rewards points in a membership year.
If you have spent £5,000, and provided this spend is charged to your account by 14 October 2025, then you will receive 2,500 points.
However, if you have not spent £5,000 by 14 October 2025, your spend will carry forward, and you will need to reach £10,000 spend in your membership year to receive 5,000 bonus points.
For details of your membership year, you can contact us via Live Chat through our Online Services, or by calling the number on the back of your Card.
Your base Membership Rewards earn rate remains as 1 point for every £1 of eligible spend.
With this new Membership Rewards bonus structure, if you spend £10,000 in your membership year, you will earn 10,000 Membership Rewards Points plus 5,000 bonus points. This still equates to 1.5 times your base earn rate.
Just had email from Amex! Not sure if this has been posted before….
Important Changes to American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card
We’re writing to let you know about an important change to the way you earn bonus Membership Rewards® points.See thread here…
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/changes-to-gold-preferred-rewards-card/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
Just seen the video, looks horrific.
Miracle of miracles, a sole British survivor on board the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner flight, he was in Seat 11A, he should play the lottery the first chance he gets!
I just tried using Air Asia customer service which is basically a chat bot (named Bo).
I don’t think there is a way to speak to a human.
Frustrating as hell.I guess BA customer services are at least better than that lot.
To be fair the face of Bo was quite efficient at refunding my cancelled flight earlier this year
Don’t suppose anyone was at the drinks reception for a certain law firm in Westminster Abbey Gardens last night? An absolutely spectacular location.
Unlike the..errr..Hilton Olympia. Potentially the worst in the city? 1970s grimly-carpeted room with aircon noise even with the aircon off?! Flimsy lock & chain which fortunately worked as the cleaner tried her luck not long after 8am! V glad I don’t have the family in tow.
At least the view from the breakfast area is lovely, and it’s within walking distance of Queen’s Club!
eeek! I’ve got that booked for a couple of nights August… with kids in tow.[/quote
Oh I don’t know, the Hilton Kensington is possibly worse?Edit – woops. Will post in BA forum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t
Flight from Ahmedabad to LGW, terrible news for all those affected.
Just seen the video, looks horrific.
i agree. Awful news. Looks like the plane just didn’t take off, looks like it was landing. The fireball and smoke plume make me think the there is very little chance of many survivors. Very sad.
Given what we know about the very poor front of house operation at Air India, I’ve always wondered what it was like below stairs and frankly avoided them and was unconvinced by recent hyperbole.
Very early to say but it looks like their may be parallels with Spanair 5022, how awful.Incredible that there is a survivor from that Air India crash.
I see the comments section on the Daily Mail is doing it’s usual thing.@Aston100 The Daily Fail? To be fair the comments on the Telegraph aren’t any better. Really sad to see this bringing out the worst of humanity.
11A is first row of economy next to emergency exit. Coincidence?
Can’t believe he walked away, lucky manYay, the site is back up.
Yay, the site is back up.
The domain is configured! (Whatever that means 🤔)
It means Rob put £1 in the internet meter.
Which one of you hacked the site?
I just tried using Air Asia customer service which is basically a chat bot (named Bo).
I don’t think there is a way to speak to a human.
Frustrating as hell.you can eventually get a human – a ‘live agent’ but takes a lot of time and judicious menu selection and prompts.
Sometimes it’s a case of submitting the details and then they contact via message to their support portal – to which you have to reply within 24-72 hrs otherwise they close the case…
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