Chat thread – Wednesday 21st May
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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.
Presently in the Gold Lounge at Doha after our 10hr flight in from Seoul with QR. Mrs P and I have access to Al Mourjan, but thanks to the RJ Golden Sparrow deal (a gift that keeps on giving) I have managed to sign young Miss P into this lounge as she is in economy.
Having read the HfP review from last month I expected it to be busy, but it’s about 75% full so not so bad for the time of day. Decent food and drink options (including champagne) and the shower rooms are empty. This is a decent lounge if you have OW Sapphire. Find it by gate A1.Good morning all from the JAL lounge in Shanghai on our way to Osaka and Tokyo. Have spent the last 3 days in Shanghai staying at the mandarin oriental which was nice but not Forbes 5 star quality but a good deal on 3 for the price of 2. Shanghai was surprising on how technologically advanced and pretty much everything is an electric vehicle. It does put the U.K. to shame in someways.
Lounge here is a contract one but the fresh noodles are good as are the Japanese cheesecake pieces.
Good morning all from the JAL lounge in Shanghai on our way to Osaka and Tokyo. Have spent the last 3 days in Shanghai staying at the mandarin oriental which was nice but not Forbes 5 star quality but a good deal on 3 for the price of 2. Shanghai was surprising on how technologically advanced and pretty much everything is an electric vehicle. It does put the U.K. to shame in someways.
Lounge here is a contract one but the fresh noodles are good as are the Japanese cheesecake pieces.
Morning! I’ve just been looking at that exact Mandarin O. offer – could you tell me what didn’t impress you so much about it? We’ll be with an 11-yr old if that makes any difference!
My plan B is the Conrad, where I stayed when it was Le Meridien. It’s not on the same level, but it’s also nearly half the price…
Good morning all from the JAL lounge in Shanghai on our way to Osaka and Tokyo. Have spent the last 3 days in Shanghai staying at the mandarin oriental which was nice but not Forbes 5 star quality but a good deal on 3 for the price of 2. Shanghai was surprising on how technologically advanced and pretty much everything is an electric vehicle. It does put the U.K. to shame in someways.
Lounge here is a contract one but the fresh noodles are good as are the Japanese cheesecake pieces.
Morning! I’ve just been looking at that exact Mandarin O. offer – could you tell me what didn’t impress you so much about it? We’ll be with an 11-yr old if that makes any difference!
My plan B is the Conrad, where I stayed when it was Le Meridien. It’s not on the same level, but it’s also nearly half the price…
We stayed in the twin star suite with daughter and wife. It was a nice room. Very large and good views but the hotel itself isn’t ideally situated for a lot of the city. I would say something on the other side of the bund like the Waldorf Astoria or Fairmont are probably in better areas. It is a decent walk to go to metro and across the city. Not alot of restaurants etc are near the hotel. However it isn’t really far walking from the big towers etc. the service was very haphazard sometimes nice sometimes cold, sometimes very lacking in understanding and language barriers. Like I say it was okay but isn’t the quality of other 5 star Forbes hotels we have stayed in.
And good morning from Faro Airport. I changed our transfer to 15 minutes earlier to reduce stress but it was fine.
Check in queue for Jet2 – zero minutes.
Security queue – one minute
Immigration queue – backed up past security but eight happy stampers limited the wait to 30 minutes and that was with a bit of queue jumping from others.The great injustice is they were pulling families with infants out of the main queue to put them in the priority queue. While waiting for the boys at the toilets (of course) which were a good few minutes ahead of our starting position, I saw a family plucked out. I saw that same family towards the front of the priority queue as we were stamped so you actually got to wait longer if you had a baby.
Poor folks – I feel their pain.
Some of the babies were articulating their displeasure very vocally but it was all concentrated in that queue of doom.
Meanwhile Kermit even helped with the luggage and didn’t complain so I have no idea what is going on.
Duty Free question. At the end of our holidays, I like to take the £20-odd worth of foreign currency and use it in duty free – topping up the bill with my credit card.
Nornally, I would buy some cheap brandy for cooking. But we are returning TYO-DOH-EDI on Qatar with a three hour transfer.
This time I fancy some decent Sake. If I buy some in Narita, will there be an issue with it in my hand luggage during the transfer at Doha? Do I need a special bag?
ps. I dont like Toblerone – that would be the easy way!
@Colin, Qatar has strict rules on bringing alcohol in (unless it’s changed recently), but I don’t think it affects transit passengers. People have definitely had (e.g.) bottles of whisky confiscated when entering the country.
There might be individual airline rules, although I can definitely confirm that QR allow you to bring duty free on board when you’re leaving, that you’ve bought in DOH duty free anyway!
I really like the SL Man newsletter I signed up to through an article link? here on HfP some time ago.
It’s aimed at blokes and I wish I had time to read more of it. I pick out odd links and they’re always good and a huge percentage of the time, have things on a topic not found elsewhere. Or just a really good assembly on a topic.
Today’s example is an article on new tending-to-be trendy bits of Stockholm. Not just trendy but useful information there.
https://slman.com/culture/travel/europe/things-to-do-in-stockholmI don’t sign up for a lot and scorn über-trendy things but I think the SL Man newsletter gets it right again and again. I wish I was a bloke, almost!
@Sinead, @Rob if another run / deal with / some sort of coverage for SL Man could be done I think it would be of value to many HfP readers.
Absolutely not a commercial post from me I just think good work and the SL Man newsletter’s good balance of putting up info and earning a living should be pointed out.
@LadyLondon I sometimes give it a read, it’s like Tatler if it was more inkeeping with the times. It belongs to the SheerLuxe brand – you may want to check SheerLuxe out too as they’re female focused
Yeah I suppose a bit like Tatler used to be a very long time ago. Funnily enough I’ve never been ‘grabbed’ by the female side of Sheer Luxe, and I think SL Man and their useful newsletter fills a gap for time poor blokes with some disposable income that do have a bit of style and want to stay up to date but could do with some time-saving pointers.
VS dynamic pricing strikes again! Decided to see if, on an LHR-JFK, upgrading points ex-LHR and cash ex-JFK would work well.
And, it does – I managed to get 500 points + £105 for the outbound, and £110 for the inbound. Not at all bad.Seriously 500 points, or did you miss a 0 off?! which cabin?
LGW experts – am I correct in thinking that the walkways which run over the railway linking the terminal to the short stay car parks are at level 2 of the car parks, and that the southern most walkway is closest to BA desks / bag drop? That being the case, would a parking space on level 2 in the middle (red?) short stay car park be the most coveted for a swift transfer from car to the bag drop?
@chrisw1983 thanks, that’s really useful: OH and son would definitely rather be in
an in.your-face location as soon as you step out of the door! The WA is another possibility
although the lower rooms (if not banking on an upgrade) look a little dull. Think it’ll
be the Conrad.@chrisw1983 thanks, that’s really useful: OH and son would definitely rather be in
an in.your-face location as soon as you step out of the door! The WA is another possibility
although the lower rooms (if not banking on an upgrade) look a little dull. Think it’ll
be the Conrad.It’s actually and perhaps oddly more ‘in your face’ from the opposite side from the Bund but the Mandarin is just a tiny bit too far and also not as good as it should be. All this as previously posted! Plenty of great restaurants around there as well.
In my previous employment we investigated a local credit card process centre where call handlers who were porrly paid were being paid by criminals to disclose details of peoples details and credit cards.
@JDB I have your food recommendations filed away!
I’m also guessing you and your better half didn’t do a day at Disneyland…;o))
@JDB I have your food recommendations filed away!
I’m also guessing you and your better half didn’t do a day at Disneyland…;o))
Funnily enough not! Everything else you are likely to see will be so much more amazing that Disneyland will seem like a half day trip to Croydon! If I had a ½ day to fill, I would go to Xinchang Ancient Town, about 30 minutes in a taxi from Pudong or there’s a metro.
In my previous employment we investigated a local credit card process centre where call handlers who were porrly paid were being paid by criminals to disclose details of peoples details and credit cards.
I’m sure that’s replicated in numerous companies, e.g. where staff have access to loyalty scheme details!
Greetings from the new No1 lounge at Heathrow T2, my first time here. For such a small space with no windows, the fit out is pretty decent, it’s definitely the best experience I’ve had in a Priority Pass lounge for a long time! Even at about 90% capacity it feels very civilised. Rhys’ review in March proved very helpful in finding the lounge: https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/03/31/review-the-new-no1-lounge-heathrow-t2/
@NorthernLass 500(!) from U to P. Not the cheapest overall redemption I’ve had, but I’ve had 500 point upgrades occasionally in the past.
I got asked the following today and I don’t think it’s ever come up before.
A friend of mine has signed up for an amex gold and wants to put a holiday on it to trigger the bonus.
But then wants to spread the payment.
Can he then do a balance transfer from a 0% card to clear the Amex and still keep his bonus etc
I couldn’t see why not but wasn’t 100% sure so thought I’d ask.
It’s theoretically possible but a reader had their Amex account closed recently, and transferring a £5k (IIRC) balance could have been the reason. The thread is knocking around somewhere!
*Amex does offer a payment plan system now, but there are charges attached.
Amex don’t seem to like balance transfers. I did a balance transfer last year from a non Amex account to a non Amex account. Within about a month Amex blocked my BAPP account until I could prove my income was more than £35k pa.
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