[blue_wolf]

SDC is also one of the main reasons I booked economy plus fares (including checked baggage), so they’re not entirely ‘free’ changes to me either. If BA removed them, I’d be more likely to book HBO fares, so it’s not quite so clear cut for BA.

[blue_wolf]

People are also more likely to fly premium cabins on overnight flights. For example from NYC back to London, most flights are overnight, so where someone might have tolerated Premium Economy on the daytime outbound, they may want Club World for the overnight return flight, further reducing availability.

[blue_wolf]

FlyingTayto wrote:

It is substantially better for you as someone else is paying the fare.

If you had to fly to Paris last minute on personal funds, would you have picked BA or a LCC?

Avios redemption 😉

If not available, BA up to a point (to earn TPs, which benefit me immensely on work economy trips), LCC after that (although I haven’t flown an LCC in 3+ years).

[blue_wolf]

Those here are correct that it is indeed not my own personal money. But it’s my corporate budget and my discretionary spend and I’m accountable for the outcome of these trips. The company I’m in doesn’t have kickbacks or corporate negotiated deals. Spending £500 with BA costs us £500.

Of course, for leisure travellers, the vast majority are worse off, and that includes my own personal trips (although these are mostly booked with Avios anyway).

But last September, I booked a short-notice £3000 PE flight LHR-YVR for work. This earned 90 TPs each way, and in fact earned fewer TPs than someone who booked DUB-LHR-YVR 3 months in advance for half the price.

At least when I get forced into booking expensive last-minute fares for work out of my budget, I’m rewarded amply for the higher-than-usual spend.

There are many parallels here to the switch to revenue-based Avios-earning.

[blue_wolf]

Will depend on the corporate travel agent. The past two I’ve used (Concur + Amex GBT, and Navan) both book in a way that means BA can access the fare data, and this is displayed on the Avios statement (under “eligible spend”).

[blue_wolf]

Mine posted within the same line item transaction as the actual flight TPs with no delay for all flights I’ve taken this new membership year. For example, from the BA app:

Palma to London Gatwick
Class: Economy (V)
Departure Date: 6 April 2025
BA2673
Booking Reference: XXXXXX
Total Eligible Spend: GBP 97.24
Exchange Rate from EUR to GBP: 0.82760
Bonus Tier Points: 75

875 Avios, 173 Tier points

[blue_wolf]

Every company I’ve worked at has asked me to upload the EUR hotel invoice on the expense system, but set the currency as GBP and the amount as the actual GBP amount I was charged on my Amex statement. I attach a copy to the report of the Amex statement (downloaded as PDF from the Amex ‘search transactions’ page) to justify the conversion rate. The currency conversion by the company’s expense system is meaningless to an employee; since the rate any bank gives you (even Monzo, Starling et al) will never be as favourable as the one used by the expense system.

[blue_wolf]

Yes. You can use the BA Avios Flight Calculator to calculate how many Avios you’ll learn from the CX leg.

[blue_wolf]

It can be done but not on the BA website. You can try doing it on the Finnair website (manage my booking – using your BA PNR) or possibly others like rj.com. Alternatively, call BA and they can do it for you over the phone.

[blue_wolf]

I get the most (and best) offers on my Gold card, but agree with DJ’s comment above – this is also the one I typically put the most spend through (substantial and frequent work expenses at times).

[blue_wolf]

Got mine via email while we were staying at Sheraton Zagreb, redeemed it at checkout no problem. We redeemed it against a bar bill and an airport transfer (which was arranged through the hotel and charged to our room). The agent checking us out commented several guests had been using these $50 USD gift cards recently. Ended up with a strange-looking bill where they split $50 worth of ancillary charges off to a separate bill but everything added up fine.

[blue_wolf]

Agreed, always baffles me when it’s so hot. Surely it’s better to go a little too cool so people can layer up if necessary; it’s nigh impossible to cool down in a place that’s too warm!

[blue_wolf]

Thanks for the tip – changed my address to one in NYC, bought the points and it saved me $45, i.e. about 4%!

Very easy as currently updated immediately on refresh and then I changed my address back to my UK one after the points immediately posted to my account.

[blue_wolf]

Just had a charge for $1 at Bethany CHR SVC on my partner’s card, declined thankfully since we froze the card on Saturday after the OpenAI/ChatGPT transactions!

[blue_wolf]

Same here. 7x 20 USD OpenAI/ChatGPT transactions on my partner’s Curve card. Filed a claim via the form, hoping it gets resolved soon.

Why was 3D Secure (OTP) not used for these transactions?

Someone tried it with my Curve card too but apparently they were using my old Curve card details so it was blocked.

[blue_wolf]

The new boarding passes use a slightly different date format which can’t be parsed by Apple Wallet, hence Wallet doesn’t know what time to show the pass and thus it doesn’t appear on the lock screen. Essentially a regression introduced by BA’s world-class IT…

[blue_wolf]

We often take the Elizabeth Line to Hayes & Harlington, then a few stops on the bus and a 5-min walk to the huge Avis T2-4 on Bath Road. Works for us as we get an upgrade and free additional driver per perks of Amex Platinum.

[blue_wolf]

Agreed, we flew from NCL over Easter and the new Aspire lounge is excellent. We entered as BA Silver and were directed to the now-much-classier lounge on the left with the removal of the tacky cash bar.

[blue_wolf]

Thanks. Can VS call agents see accurate availability or is it a case of “try booking it and see”?

[blue_wolf]

The best thing about Wheely is the reliability. Unlike Uber, Bolt et al, if I order a Wheely ride the driver will not cancel and the times are pretty accurate (obviously traffic can impact this).

Driver will never complain about change of route etc if you need to do that and will just do whatever you need.

They’ll also include 5 mins of free wait time and wait up to 20 mins before contacting you to check if they should keep waiting.

I once had a Wheely driver wait 2h 10m for me at LHR T5 while my bags were delayed.

They’ll charge you for the privilege, of course, but the point is that they are reliable and will deliver what they promise.

Wheely is the only ride-hailing service I’ve tried in London that consistently never lets me down.

I’d share my referral code with you but I only get 3 and I’ve already shared all 3.

[blue_wolf]

Have flown from JNB twice, once in Club Suite and once on Virgin travelling with a Delta Diamond passenger. No fast-track security unfortunately.

The fast-track immigration is definitely a nice touch though which I somehow missed the first time!

[blue_wolf]

Hilton East Midlands Airport also coming up as ADDA HOTELS, statement credit appeared a couple of days later on a prepaid booking.

[blue_wolf]

You can call the hotel and ask if they will be able to refund the payment and take payment at the hotel. They may also be able to issue the refund at check-in/check-out and take payment again on a “different” card. They might not be flexible though as it’s a prepaid rate.

You might have some luck asking Amex if they can apply the credit, although they’ll probably tell you the usual “wait 90 days then call us again”.

[blue_wolf]

Offers work fine if you use Apple Pay, just as if you spent on the actual card itself.

[blue_wolf]

Doesn’t seem to let me top up more than £2.5k at a time. Not sure if I could do that multiple times.