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Off to Antarctica in December!
Big hassle getting tickets for over the festive season – no help from BA or Iberia, and Amex 241.
Found the cheapest flights were into Sao Paulo – for just under £2,000 each, we got Lisbon-Sao Paulo with TAP in biz, return to Oporto in biz with connection to Lisbon in “executive” economy! So beware that “Executive” might not mean “Business”. BA had something similar from Malaga, via Madrid, to Sao Paulo. At this time, it seemed to be £5k upwards for business to BA.
Both our flight options were only bookable via dodgy online travel agents or BA and TAP’s multi-flight booking pages, but BA’s were impossible to find on their “new” site – had to use Google to find one!
I am now getting seriously fed up with trying to spend money/miles with British Airways. Never going to say never again, because I have loads of miles and vouchers, but my enthusiasm is waning – especially when cash prices are coming back down.
(I enjoy a slightly convoluted route, means we come across some unexpected things. May well come back to Sao Paulo via Brasilia – the only city to be shaped like an aircraft, so how can I miss it!)
Just back from Jerez, which was fantastic. Highly recommend. Also, when the trains are 5-10 euros each way to get to Cadiz and Seville it shows what a mockery our train network us, as LNER have just quoted me £130 to Edinburgh in a few weeks (first was £400+)!
While train travel in Spain is definitely cheaper than the UK I do think you are comparing apples and oranges – sounds like you are travelling from London to Edinburgh which is somewhat further than Jerez to Cadiz or Jerez to Seville. It’s even further than Jerez to Madrid. My South Western train journey to Waterloo takes roughly 1hr and costs £17 each way without any discounts. If I did it regularly I’d get an annual network rail card which would reduce that fare to around £11 which isn’t vastly different to the higher fare you quote. Bear in mind salaries in the UK tend to be higher than Spain too.
US road infrastructure is largely funded from federal or state taxes and look at the state of that. Trains are pretty expensive and very limited in routes.
Wrong. US trains are cheaper than the UK, much cleaner, better maintaned and have very friendly staff. I’ve travelled extensively on them and it’s generally been a very pleasant experience. The Acela business class trains are very good indeed.
Off to Antarctica in December!
December??
It’ll be cold!Definitely something strange with BA redemptions today – there was loads of availability on various Canadian routes I was looking at yesterday and over the last few weeks for June/July 26, and today everything’s completely disappeared….cant be right?! Must be a system issue?
I have mentioned this before and checked again via Silver line. We have 2 CW Avios redemptions confirmed for 5th July London->Vancouver. Today there are 9 CW seats available but cannot be be booked for cash. Rep could not explain why and, as previously, was completely mystified. Weird?
Off to Antarctica in December!
December??
It’ll be cold!Oh! Aaargh!
I thought it was summer down there. And I was looking forward to swimming with penguins!Long shot, but does anyone know how to find a hotel ID for Accor group hotels? Trying to get TCB to chase missing cashback for me and they are insiting they need a hotel ID to submit a claim to Accor.
Thanks
Long shot, but does anyone know how to find a hotel ID for Accor group hotels? Trying to get TCB to chase missing cashback for me and they are insiting they need a hotel ID to submit a claim to Accor.
Thanks
I had the same a couple of years ago…it turned out that the hotel ID number is the first part of the hotel email address that should be mentioned somewhere in your booking confirmation
Eg my confirmation included the following
IBIS STYLES BUDAPEST AIRPORT
Hrsz. 072 3, Liszt Ferenc, International Airport, Terminal2
1185 BUDAPEST – HUNGARYimg View the map
Find out more about the hotel
Contact the hotel by email: hb0i7@accor.com
And TCB said that the hotel id they needed was hb0i7
Hope this helps
URGENT: Avios availability for Male (Maldives) in January/Feb 2026 – currently wide open. A load of seats opening up about two hours ago – for some reason it’s not showing on the site yet – but when I called, I had the largest choice I’ve ever had for Male.
Long shot, but does anyone know how to find a hotel ID for Accor group hotels? Trying to get TCB to chase missing cashback for me and they are insiting they need a hotel ID to submit a claim to Accor.
Thanks
I had the same a couple of years ago…it turned out that the hotel ID number is the first part of the hotel email address that should be mentioned somewhere in your booking confirmation
Eg my confirmation included the following
IBIS STYLES BUDAPEST AIRPORT
Hrsz. 072 3, Liszt Ferenc, International Airport, Terminal2
1185 BUDAPEST – HUNGARYimg View the map
Find out more about the hotel
Contact the hotel by email: hb0i7@accor.com
And TCB said that the hotel id they needed was hb0i7
Hope this helps
Thank you. In my case the hotel’s email address is *@Rixos.com and as such does not have the same format as the Accor email addresses. I have given them the 4 letter code at the beginning of the email address but they are still looking for something formatted the same as your hotel’s ID. I have emailed the hotel and Accor Customer Relations to see if that gets a result.
According to MMB there is only one club world seat left on my flight this week.
I haven’t reserved our two seats.
So assuming this isn’t BA IT errors, should I expect to be downgraded?When do you fly? IME of CW prior to being able to select for free, you may well find you’ve been allocated seats already when you check in at T-24. It seems to happen between 5 and 3 days out from my own observations.
Oh! Aaargh!
I thought it was summer down there. And I was looking forward to swimming with penguins!It will be summer… so just slightly warmer than the crazy cold of winter 🙂
@NorthernLass – And as you and me well know, even if you do select them, or are allocated them, the musical chairs can kick in at a moments notice!
@Aston100 Not being available to you doesn’t necessarily mean occupied. If it’s before T-72 the bassinets will still be blocked, if after T-72 other seats will probably be blocked to give some flexibility for check in staff.
If you’re looking in Expertflyer it stopped showing blocked seats a while back.
@Gordon, TBF to BA, the only flight where they’ve done that to me was to OPO last year (though they went all out for it with all the seating, time and equipment changes). Now IB, on the other hand – well basically do not plan anything else for the day you’re booked on one of their flights. I actually got yet another notification of a time change today, by 7 hours!
@Aston100, pay heed to @AndrewT, he is very wise and can enable you to do things like bag the front row pair of PE!Oh! Aaargh!
I thought it was summer down there. And I was looking forward to swimming with penguins!It will be summer… so just slightly warmer than the crazy cold of winter 🙂
I hope the chocolate doesn’t melt. Poor birds!
Uber have reduced the uber credits cashback for non uber one customers down to 3% now, has gone down pretty quickly from 10% to 5% and now to 3% within a couple months
Just back from Jerez, which was fantastic. Highly recommend. Also, when the trains are 5-10 euros each way to get to Cadiz and Seville it shows what a mockery our train network us, as LNER have just quoted me £130 to Edinburgh in a few weeks (first was £400+)!
While train travel in Spain is definitely cheaper than the UK I do think you are comparing apples and oranges – sounds like you are travelling from London to Edinburgh which is somewhat further than Jerez to Cadiz or Jerez to Seville. It’s even further than Jerez to Madrid. My South Western train journey to Waterloo takes roughly 1hr and costs £17 each way without any discounts. If I did it regularly I’d get an annual network rail card which would reduce that fare to around £11 which isn’t vastly different to the higher fare you quote. Bear in mind salaries in the UK tend to be higher than Spain too.
That was my thoughts when I read it. Jerez to Cadiz is 34Km Seville 91km. Knock off a 1/3 to convert to miles
What are people’s opinions on the Thistle at Heathrow? Probably between that and the premier inn. On the last night MAN-LHR then the morning LHR-HND so will just be in, sleep, out.
Photos of the thistle look a bit underwhelming but thinking with it being a flying stop the bus ride is worth it to save £100 vs the Sofitel.
Off to Antarctica in December!
Big hassle getting tickets for over the festive season – no help from BA or Iberia, and Amex 241.
Found the cheapest flights were into Sao Paulo – for just under £2,000 each, we got Lisbon-Sao Paulo with TAP in biz, return to Oporto in biz with connection to Lisbon in “executive” economy! So beware that “Executive” might not mean
“Business”. BA had something similar from Malaga, via Madrid, to Sao Paulo. At this time, it seemed to be £5k upwards for business to BA.
Both our flight options were only bookable via dodgy online travel agents or BA and TAP’s multi-flight booking pages, but BA’s were impossible to find on their “new” site – had to use Google to find one!
I am now getting seriously fed up with trying to spend money/miles with British Airways. Never going to say never again, because I have loads of miles and vouchers, but my enthusiasm is waning – especially when cash prices are coming back down.
(I enjoy a slightly convoluted route, means we come across some unexpected things. May well come back to Sao Paulo via Brasilia – the only city to be shaped like an aircraft, so how can I miss it!)
Oh well done!
Think I’m going to book 1st on Lufty for our trip, I couldn’t even cancel a reward booking on BA useless site today so I’m ( insert adjective of choice here) if I’m giving them a lot of my money, and I’m just not doing the 1am fight for a reward seat thing this time. I’m looking forward to trying different airlines and if that means a Frankfurt connection so be it.Have a fab trip, I’ve got to wait a bit for our trip but got Iguza falls side trip to work out before Antarctica.
What are people’s opinions on the Thistle at Heathrow? Probably between that and the premier inn. On the last night MAN-LHR then the morning LHR-HND so will just be in, sleep, out.
Photos of the thistle look a bit underwhelming but thinking with it being a flying stop the bus ride is worth it to save £100 vs the Sofitel.
Review of the pods and HfP’s Thistle review is linked in there https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/03/28/thistle-heathrow-hotel-driverless-pods/
On Amex plat, they are offering up to 5 supplementary cards. I have one platsupp. can you still get supplementary GOLD cards?
Wrong. US trains are cheaper than the UK, much cleaner, better maintaned and have very friendly staff. I’ve travelled extensively on them and it’s generally been a very pleasant experience. The Acela business class trains are very good indeed.
… which would make sense, as apart from the most heavily used services, all passenger railways in the world loose money apart from those running on tracks that are primarily in existence to carry freight (which much of the US network is).
Hi all
Some advice please
Qatar flights to male have just been changed. I was on the 777 Doha to male, the CP wet lease plane. Was looking forward to it, but my flights have been changed and I’m now on an A320 in I. I know there are 2 types of J on Qatar, I’ve flown both previously and really liked the flat bed, very much less so the recliner. I’ve looked on seatguru and searched by flight number but can’t find any definitive answer as to which one I’m going to get on November! Any ideas?
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