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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.
Good morning from the wonderful Kantouni Beach Boutique Hotel on the beautiful island of Kalymnos, thank you to Marshy11 for recommending the hotel a good while back. We love the Greek islands and this one is lovely. I also made one brilliant final use of my Gold Sparrow status at Gatwick last Friday, when the Lounge Lady mistakenly showed myself and OH into the first class lounge at 5am! You’ve got to love HfP!
Nutmeg have an offer for 5,000 if you invest minimum £500 in one of several products they are offering for new clients only
I can’t see that they’ve had a higher offer for new clients in the pastAnd the previous big offers have been for transfers in the past that I can remember
For anyone interested, Easyjet are releasing their summer 2026 flights next Tuesday 22nd July.
Nutmeg have an offer for 5,000 if you invest minimum £500 in one of several products they are offering for new clients only
I can’t see that they’ve had a higher offer for new clients in the pastAnd the previous big offers have been for transfers in the past that I can remember
BTW Avios credited within 55 days.
@chelseafifi – enjoy the rest of your holiday in Kalymnos. We went many years ago when we spent a month island hopping.
We’re BA silver and have been shown to the F lounge a number of times recently at LGW towards the end of the day flight wise (around 6pm) when the Galleries Lounge has been closed. There were still around 4 or 5 BA flights remaining. For our last flight, I would think there were less than 20 people in the Lounge. Our flight was full and had 5 rows of CE so not many passengers from the remaining flights seemed to have used the Lounge.
Nutmeg have an offer for 5,000 if you invest minimum £500 in one of several products they are offering for new clients only
I can’t see that they’ve had a higher offer for new clients in the pastAnd the previous big offers have been for transfers in the past that I can remember
This is quite good, considering Nutmeg had an ISA transfer promotion in 2024, with a minimum £5K transfer for 2.5K Avios.
…We’re BA silver and have been shown to the F lounge a number of times recently at LGW towards the end of the day flight wise (around 6pm) when the Galleries Lounge has been closed. There were still around 4 or 5 BA flights remaining. For our last flight, I would think there were less than 20 people in the Lounge. Our flight was full and had 5 rows of CE so not many passengers from the remaining flights seemed to have used the Lounge.
Has also similarly happened to me. BA Golds on the last Vueling flight of the day might also be to ‘blame’.
Nutmeg have an offer for 5,000 if you invest minimum £500 in one of several products they are offering for new clients only
I can’t see that they’ve had a higher offer for new clients in the pastAnd the previous big offers have been for transfers in the past that I can remember
Quoted fees in the Nutmeg FAQ for 0% growth are £50+
Wouldn’t it be better to just use something like InvestEngine who don’t charge any fees and worst case you can use the £50 you’re saving to do an Avios booster for more points? (genuine question – my understanding of S&S charges are limited)
@AndyGWP – while no investment decision should ever be made on the basis of Avios, Nutmeg (now owned by Chase) is a pretty decent product and while it is right to be very focussed on fees/charges as they erode long term gains, the obsession with fees and corresponding rush into the lowest cost index funds has distorted the market and thrown up more rewarding opportunities for absolute total returns. Index funds are great and definitely have their place but they, and chasing the very lowest fees should just be part of a strategy for long term investment such as pensions.
We’re flying from Vancouver to Calgary. Anybody has experience of WestJet? Is there a better internal Canadian airline recommendation?
IndyWe’re flying from Vancouver to Calgary. Anybody has experience of WestJet? Is there a better internal Canadian airline recommendation?
IndyFrom experience, AC and WS are both on par – service is about the same, re-routing is about the same. AC app mostly works, forgotten about the WS one. People rave about Porter, largely for the free snacks. Flight time YVR-YYZ must be about an hour? Flair is like Ryanair, so don’t bother.
I’d preference price over anything else.
Is anyone else having issues with booking reward flights on BA.com? Every search I’ve tried for the last 2 days results in the “Error- There was a problem with your request, please try again later.” message.
Any solutions appreciated!@Indy500 I flew WestJet Calgary to Vancouver on Monday and Victoria to Calgary, also WestJet, the previous week. We did the same Calgary to Vancouver flight in January 2024 with Air Canada and in my opinion, Air Canada provided a much better hard product and service level than WestJet. WestJet feels comparable to Wizz Air. You get a complimentary soft drink and small snack for flights over an hour duration. We would rather have flown Air Canada again but the price difference was too much to justify for the short flight times. WestJet app is decent enough, our Monday flight was delayed by an hour due to thunderstorms in Calgary and the app kept updating with revised flight times. If you have hold bags price up both the basic price plus gold bag Vs the econoflex price which includes a gold bag as standard. For our dates the latter wasn’t much more expensive but included the flexibility to change flight date/time and only pay the fare difference.
@Indy500 Westjet are absolutely fine, ended up booking after Flair cancelled my flight. This was Calgary to Toronto, the lounge at Calgary was excellent.
Does FlyerTalk or anywhere similar have threads where you can ask people to look for reward flight combos, take up a challenge to find good connections etc?
Is anyone else having issues with booking reward flights on BA.com? Every search I’ve tried for the last 2 days results in the “Error- There was a problem with your request, please try again later.” message.
Any solutions appreciated!I booked avios flights last night using the app with no issues at all (except there being no availability on my preferred flight but that’s a totally different issue).
@Indy500 I second @strickers re the Calgary WestJet lounge if you happen to be flying back to Vancouver from there – best lounge I’ve ever accessed using my Priority Pass. Very clean with lounge staff constantly clearing away plates and glasses. Each table/seat has an individual QR code that you scan to access the online menu and order food and drink to the table at any time (all free). Orders are delivered quickly and it’s better quality than most lounge food.
As an aside re Calgary, we were there for four days for the Stampede and the homelessness and open drug taking situation downtown has really deteriorated since our last visit in Jan 2024, people on every street corner and we saw more than one ambulance attending to overdoses. It was much worse than Seattle a fortnight ago, which we were expecting to be terrible but was no different to some areas of London. We didn’t get any hassle in Calgary but there’s litter and needles everywhere and the whole place smells. Shout if you want any food/drink reccs for Calgary or for Banff/Jasper if you’re visiting either on your travels. The craft brewing scene in Alberta (and BC) is thriving!
Is anyone else having issues with booking reward flights on BA.com? Every search I’ve tried for the last 2 days results in the “Error- There was a problem with your request, please try again later.” message.
Any solutions appreciated!I booked avios flights last night using the app with no issues at all (except there being no availability on my preferred flight but that’s a totally different issue).
Hmm, I’ve having the same issue on the app.
We’re flying from Vancouver to Calgary. Anybody has experience of WestJet? Is there a better internal Canadian airline recommendation?
IndyFrom experience, AC and WS are both on par – service is about the same, re-routing is about the same. AC app mostly works, forgotten about the WS one. People rave about Porter, largely for the free snacks. Flight time YVR-YYZ must be about an hour? Flair is like Ryanair, so don’t bother.
I’d preference price over anything else.
YVR-YYZ (Toronto) will be about 4.5 hours, whereas YVR-YYC (Calgary) will be about 1,5 hours.
Is anyone else having issues with booking reward flights on BA.com? Every search I’ve tried for the last 2 days results in the “Error- There was a problem with your request, please try again later.” message.
Any solutions appreciated!This appears to be a sporadic issue, I’ve logged in and booked flights ok in the last few weeks, but I have also encountered issues, is it down to their IT upgrade, I don’t know.
I did receive an email containing a Transcript of a conversation I had with Kate, the virtual online assistant, something I’ve never received before.
@Indy500 I second @strickers re the Calgary WestJet lounge if you happen to be flying back to Vancouver from there – best lounge I’ve ever accessed using my Priority Pass. Very clean with lounge staff constantly clearing away plates and glasses. Each table/seat has an individual QR code that you scan to access the online menu and order food and drink to the table at any time (all free). Orders are delivered quickly and it’s better quality than most lounge food.
As an aside re Calgary, we were there for four days for the Stampede and the homelessness and open drug taking situation downtown has really deteriorated since our last visit in Jan 2024, people on every street corner and we saw more than one ambulance attending to overdoses. It was much worse than Seattle a fortnight ago, which we were expecting to be terrible but was no different to some areas of London. We didn’t get any hassle in Calgary but there’s litter and needles everywhere and the whole place smells. Shout if you want any food/drink reccs for Calgary or for Banff/Jasper if you’re visiting either on your travels. The craft brewing scene in Alberta (and BC) is thriving!
We’re there for the ‘26 Stampede staying at the Fairmont. We’ll also be in Banf for 4 nights and 3 nights in Jasper. Rocky Mountaineer down to Vancouver for 6 nights at the Fairmont there. Craft beer/food recommendations always welcome!
Indy
@Indy500 I was planning on doing a mini trip report on a standalone thread in the next week or so anyway so I will post the recommendations on there so they don’t get lost 😊 You’ll have a great time at the Stampede, just make sure you buy your tickets for the individual events (rodeo/evening show) early otherwise you’ll be left with all the extortionate ones!
@JamieK – I was having the same issue a few days ago, and was recommended on here to try using Chrome, which worked. I had been previously trying to do it on my Iphone via Safari.
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