Chat thread – Thursday 17th April
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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.
Just woken to a £75 ‘credit for membership fee’ on my Platinum Amex. I vaguely remember a discussion about this – difference between old fee and new. But no idea why I’ve got it. Nice surprise though.
Couple of MBNA offers for IHG – 5%. Use by 22nd May,
Also one for Sainsburys with a low £ 40 minimum spend. Don’t recall seeing Sainsburys on MBNA before.
IHG currently 6% on TCB (but that seems to swap with 3% almost weekly)
Good morning from Petite Anse Kerlan, on Praslin island, where the sun is shining brightly and the sky is ludicrously blue, in defiance of the Met Office predictions.
I’m lazing around, killing time until my (reef safe) sunscreen has sunk in sufficiently, to go snorkelling.
Fingers crossed for turtles!
Oh and good morning from the Riu Plaza Berlin where the welcome gift for status holders is a table cloth emblazoned with the loyalty club logo.
Kettle issues though as turning it on blew a circuit breaker last night!
Good Morning from Rome, it’s p*ssing down as per the BBC weather app.
Good morning from the Italian Lakes where the weather is best described as chuffing wet. Happy holidaying everyone.
Good morning from the Italian Lakes where the weather is best described as chuffing wet. Happy holidaying everyone.
Have a great holiday, but I’m afraid there’s glorious sunshine on the North Wessex Downs for now!
Good morning from Bolton where I am taking an 8 year for brunch and the Minecraft movie! With a medium jacket on it’s alternately freezing and boiling depending on the cloud movement.
@Cat, good luck with the marine life! Seychelles definitely on the list now I’ve realised the time difference is only 3 hours.Have the kimpton Fitzroy booked for this Saturday. Originally booked it for around 75,000 points. It’s gradually kept going down. In the last week I feel like I’ve been cancelling and re-booking everyday. Yesterday morning at around 5am it went down from 60,000 points to 55,000.
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
It’s not just you. I did similar for the IC Baku and saved about 30%
@yorkshireRich Not just you, just cancelled and rebooked Bali and save 8k points.
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
Believe you can use Maxmypoint tool for this. I have never tired but read about it online. Surprised there aren’t many more such tools.
Indirect EMIRATES SKYWARD CREDIT CARD for the UK — NATWEST REWARD CREDIT CARD.
For people who do not meet the cut of annual income of 20k+ or other requirements to qualify for Amex, Natwest reward credit card could be the way. Because their criteria is to have an annual income of 10k+ and the annual fees of £24 is also waived off if you hold a Natwest reward. This credit card gives you Natwest reward points at the rate of 1% when used at supermarkets and 0.5% when spent elsewhere including petrol stations. So as long as you use this only at supermarkets (aldi, lidl, tesco, sainsbury, morrison, M&S etc) and use avios/virgin points credit card for other expenditure, it should be worthwhile.
I think this is particularly useful for people closer to London Stansted, as Emirates is the only direct flight available as of now, to Dubai.
(P.S. My main job pays less than 20k and I haven’t completed 3years yet in my current address, however I got approved for this credit card recently).Have the kimpton Fitzroy booked for this Saturday. Originally booked it for around 75,000 points. It’s gradually kept going down. In the last week I feel like I’ve been cancelling and re-booking everyday. Yesterday morning at around 5am it went down from 60,000 points to 55,000.
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
Come and say hi, I only live around the corner! I hope you have a lovely stay, and that your room is big enough to swing a cat (no guarantee it will be)… Lovely bar though, and a decent restaurant if you haven’t made any other plans.
Morning All,
Anyone ever had any successful experience on recovering forfeited Amex MPs after not using the points after the 30 day cancelation of a card?
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
The moment I book a room, I usually set up a change detection bot to check for price drops…
Got a notification from nectar app. 25% bonus for transferring Nectar Points to Avios between 11-30th April. Not sure if it’s been covered yet, I certainly was not aware but it seems to have been running for almost a week now.
Got a notification from nectar app. 25% bonus for transferring Nectar Points to Avios between 11-30th April. Not sure if it’s been covered yet…
BTW https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/04/15/nectar-to-avios-transfer-bonus/
For my own sanity, please tell me it’s not just me that’s this sad/obsessed and keeps checking these type of things.
The moment I book a room, I usually set up a change detection bot to check for price drops…
How do you set up one of these bots?
I have some payable cashback from TCB US. I know at least a few HfPers earn there as well. What options do you cash out into? I’ve seen things like virtual Visa cards, Amazon.com (I have an Amazon.co.uk account that charges in £ and accepts Amazon giftcards in GBP denominations) and PayPal (I have a standard account that has had credit in GBP). It’s incredibly rare that I buy things in USD and I have been to the US once in the last ~20 years, so anything that effectively can give me GBP credit somewhere would be wonderful!
Just cash out to Paypal. Your GBP Paypal account will accept the USD fine and will convert them to GBP to withdraw to your bank.
I receive money from class action lawsuits all the time on my UK Paypal account, from when I lived in the US (~$45 a couple of weeks ago from Meta, e.g.).@Yorkshirerich, definitely not sad! 55k is amazing value on a Saturday night.
I’ve been doing this with cash prices recently as I mainly save my points for GCM these days (apart from the recent points “sale” where I got a few bargains in FL), I’ve also saved on those – about £200 in Madrid so far!
Quick Q – we’ve had to cancel a planned trip to London which was using my IHG Ambassador free night certificate. It expires on 1st August and we’ll definitely not be able to use it by then.
Anyone have experience of getting it extended please? How would I be best to go about that?
Wife +2 went to Bergamo with Ryanair last week. Unusually, both flights delayed.
We had been recommended Discover Cars as a broker for hiring a car. She hired a small (Aygo-sized) automatic for 5 days. £18! Added on some insurance with ReduceMyExcess for about £15. When she got there, was given an Nissan Juke hybrid- so then only used £13 on petrol. I challenge anybody to beat that for car hire in Europe.The catch? The actual hire company (U-Save) was offsite and wife had to wait for a shuttle to collect after landing. Not sure if it was due to late arrival of the flight, but by this point, one guy was doing the whole thing- collecting bus loads from BGY, driving 10 mins, then processing the cars out, before returning to collect the next batch of customers.
Arrived at pickup spot 19:15, collected by van 19:38, car handed over 20:32. Just as bad on the return, with another British family ahead of them saying “it was cheap, but I wouldn’t use them again!” I guess it’s an example of getting what you pay for!
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