[bruinbrown]

I think it’s been delayed, the website was showing a list of locations this morning. Also on the page for restaurants to sign up it shows as running for the rest of the year. https://amexdining.com/learn-more

[bruinbrown]

Thank you both for the advice. I thought I’d follow up here with my experience.

We made quite a few calls to our travel agent and Lufthansa directly to resolve this issue on Friday and Saturday. We were offered a few options including a rerouting from London which we accepted until the confirmation email came through that showed we’d been downgraded. A quick call back and that option was cancelled. We decided to hold out on accepting the revised routing for a few days and were glad we did as availability opened up on the Swiss first class option on Tuesday evening meaning we were only delayed by 24 hours. A quick call to Lufthansa and we got a confirmed reservation on the Tuesday evening flight.

Unfortunately we couldn’t find a valid ticket number attached to the booking and at this point I started to worry with check in time approaching. I messaged LH on social media and phoned and I was told that I had a confirmed reservation and ticket for travel on the 11th March. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed them though.

Check in time came and we were of course unable to check in as I expected. Yet another call to the Lufthansa general reservations line and I encountered the most helpful person thus far who happened to recognise the problem immediately, asked if I’d had any charges on my card for the rebooking fee. When I mentioned the cancellation of our original flight he went straight back to the ticketing team and worked to get our ticket reissued. Around 90 minutes later, after plenty of refreshing of the booking details on the Lufthansa website we saw a valid ticket number appear and were able to check in without any issue.

A few things to note. For those who are affected by LH group cancellations, they publish this helpful guide on what they’re able to reticket for SKCHG (T-2 or earlier cancellations) or INVOL (T-1 or later cancellations) here for travel agents which is a useful read. https://www.lufthansaexperts.com/shared/files/lufthansa/public/mcms/folder_102/folder_3625/file_152012.pdf

Only a handful of people I spoke to on the phone were helpful. As always if you find you’re getting nowhere HUACA. I only found out that Lufthansa offers a dedicated phone line for first class bookings at the point that I couldn’t check in. At this stage I think I’d spent hours on hold on the general reservations line waiting to speak to someone.

If you find an agent who is willing to reserve something, it doesn’t actually mean it’ll be ticketed. The Lufthansa rebooking rules state that you’re only allowed a route change up to 250 miles from your original origin, meaning that the LHR option we were offered would have never been ticketed.

[bruinbrown]

Aston100 wrote:

Only issue thus far seems to be the availability of Vegan or vegetarian food since Mrs Aston is on that vibe again. Cross contamination might be an issue from what I can tell.

You might find it difficult to find good vegetarian and vegan food in Korea. A very small percentage of the population is vegan and it doesn’t have as broad acceptance as in the uk or us. You’ll also find that in Korea the vast majority of the best restaurants focus exclusively on one dish, eg just pork bbq, just beef bbq, just chicken stew etc and there’s no other menu options. And finally it’s worth being aware that lots of Korean cooking which might appear vegan contains meat or seafood, eg kimchi contains shrimp and fish sauce etc.

[bruinbrown]

PeteM wrote:

So we’ve ended up at the St Regis – one of my friends decided she wanted to spend Christmas in true luxury, so is kindly treating us to one of their 3 bedroom apartments!

Does anyone have any experience with the CAI lounges? We’ll be spending a fair few hours at Terminal 3 during our trip whilst flying domestically with Egyptair and I note the Priority Pass website says the lounge is available for “international flights only” – is that really the case? The airport website doesn’t go into this much detail…

I can’t comment on the lounges at CAI but we stayed at the St Regis in the centre of Cairo earlier this year and we absolutely loved it. It was an excellent hotel and somehow felt more like a st regis than the st regis New York. Breakfast was great, restaurant was good as well for lunch, pools were great. My one tip though – it’s a half smoking, half non-smoking hotel so if you’re sensitive to cigarette smoke then you might find yourself struggling in places. We stayed in a nile view room supposedly non-smoking and could definitely feel cigarette smoke in our throats in certain parts of the room.

I’d echo the comments about not driving though. Ubers were cheap and I think it only cost us about £5 for most long journeys in Cairo.

[bruinbrown]

There’s now 3 big options for tax free shipping in the EU. Global blue, Planet and the latest (but only in France right now) WeVat. You’ll aLao find some smaller vat refund companies but only at specific retailers. All of them will charge you fees, global blues fees are definitely higher than others in my experience. WeVat are aiming to disrupt and charge a fixed 22% fee for processing vat refunds. One limiting factor here is that it’s driven by the retailer as well, ie if that retailer uses global blue then you’re using global blue unless you shop elsewhere. The best bet is to just minimise the fees you get charged. That means things like taking a tax refund to a card rather than as cash, using a card with more favourable foreign exchange terms like Chase or just buying from countries where you get higher vat refunds.

[bruinbrown]

Amex does airport transfers as a benefit on the centurion card assuming you book flights through amex travel but I’m not aware of that benefit on any other card.

Alternatively some hotels on FHR offer airport transfers as their benefit instead of a food and drink credit but in that case you need to book through FHR.

[bruinbrown]

iEimis wrote:

Not strictly a comment related to the new offers, however, I wonder if there is an issue with my Amex Platinum card, I’ve held it for over 2 weeks but notice that I barely get any cashback offers on it (in fact I haven’t had any), this was also the case before this card was a regular Amex Membership Rewards Card, in contrast I seem to get at least 4-5 new offers on my BA card every week.

My day to day card up until the start of 2023 was my platinum card and it was always the case that I’d get 50-100 offers on it with around 5-10 on the free ba amex I held. At the start of the year I got a new amex for day to day usage whilst continuing to hold my platinum and all year I got most of my offers on my platinum card. It was only around October that I started to actually get offers on my new card which is now hitting the 50-100 mark and the number of offers on my platinum card started to drop.

I think the targeting has changed and it takes longer to get offers on a new card. Although it also seems like I only really get lots of offers on one card now and not all 3.

[bruinbrown]

Simey wrote:

bruinbrown wrote:

Simey wrote:

bruinbrown wrote:

If you pay in advance then you’re charged the room rate at the time of booking so your spend would contribute to the sign up bonus and there’s no FX fee since you’re charged in gbp. Most pay now rates I’ve encountered also give you free cancellation until the standard cancellation period with a refund equal to the gbp amount you spent.

That’s great. In general / your experience.. is HFP bookings the same price and the bonuses added on top are value, or they are that much more expensive where you could just pay for it yourself almost?

For example.. is the price of 5 nights at any Monday – Saturday in the Bellagio the same as it would be on say.. direct or on Booking.com and I get the value on top? Or it depends.

Could I be cheeky and ask if you could pick a Mon – Sat for 2024 that FHR allows you in Bellagio and share the price FHR quotes in GBP for a King Room? If you can do that or have access – if you can’t or don’t want to that’s fine too! 😀

I’m not entirely sure why but the Bellagio isn’t bookable for 2024 on FHR. To give you an idea for comparisons though the 18th-23rd December this year prices up at £815.61, there’s no pay at hotel rate option available, however, you’ll also have to pay £210 (actually $250 so may be subject to fluctuations) for the resort fee. Looking on the Bellagio site gives a total price including resort fee of $1100.

Personally, i think the longest FHR stay I’ve ever done was 3 nights and that was only because the hotel had a 3 nights for the price of 2 promotion on when booking through FHR. When we tend to travel somewhere we end up jumping around a bit, it’s not uncommon for us to stay in 7-10 hotels for a 2 week trip, which makes FHR valuable for us since we’re only staying 1 or maybe 2 nights in each hotel. Anything over that though, the value proposition of FHR starts to fall quite a bit. Ultimately you’re booking the standard flexible rate and for stays longer than 3 or 4 nights most hotels will happily knock 20% off that rate straight away for a stay longer rate. Whilst FHR might give you a $100 room credit, that’s not too useful if it’s costing you an extra $400 above a hotels special rate.

Thanks – so in this example the 2 prices are basically the same? But with FHR I’d still get full cancellation for free, is that correct too? Even if you prepay, you’d get your full fare refunded if you cancel in the timelines. Additionally, all the benefits of FHR would add on top but the 2 rates (direct vs FHR) seem to be the same. This is a great deal, no? Or am I misunderstanding.

Yeah, you’d get free cancellation etc as per the hotels terms. In this case the rates are the same, however, they don’t take into consideration the 15% discount you’d get if you signed up to MGM rewards before signing up.

Then the FHR rate is only worth it if you know you’ll use the F&B credit and eat breakfast in the hotel every day.

[bruinbrown]

Simey wrote:

bruinbrown wrote:

If you pay in advance then you’re charged the room rate at the time of booking so your spend would contribute to the sign up bonus and there’s no FX fee since you’re charged in gbp. Most pay now rates I’ve encountered also give you free cancellation until the standard cancellation period with a refund equal to the gbp amount you spent.

That’s great. In general / your experience.. is HFP bookings the same price and the bonuses added on top are value, or they are that much more expensive where you could just pay for it yourself almost?

For example.. is the price of 5 nights at any Monday – Saturday in the Bellagio the same as it would be on say.. direct or on Booking.com and I get the value on top? Or it depends.

Could I be cheeky and ask if you could pick a Mon – Sat for 2024 that FHR allows you in Bellagio and share the price FHR quotes in GBP for a King Room? If you can do that or have access – if you can’t or don’t want to that’s fine too! 😀

I’m not entirely sure why but the Bellagio isn’t bookable for 2024 on FHR. To give you an idea for comparisons though the 18th-23rd December this year prices up at £815.61, there’s no pay at hotel rate option available, however, you’ll also have to pay £210 (actually $250 so may be subject to fluctuations) for the resort fee. Looking on the Bellagio site gives a total price including resort fee of $1100.

Personally, i think the longest FHR stay I’ve ever done was 3 nights and that was only because the hotel had a 3 nights for the price of 2 promotion on when booking through FHR. When we tend to travel somewhere we end up jumping around a bit, it’s not uncommon for us to stay in 7-10 hotels for a 2 week trip, which makes FHR valuable for us since we’re only staying 1 or maybe 2 nights in each hotel. Anything over that though, the value proposition of FHR starts to fall quite a bit. Ultimately you’re booking the standard flexible rate and for stays longer than 3 or 4 nights most hotels will happily knock 20% off that rate straight away for a stay longer rate. Whilst FHR might give you a $100 room credit, that’s not too useful if it’s costing you an extra $400 above a hotels special rate.

[bruinbrown]

If you pay in advance then you’re charged the room rate at the time of booking so your spend would contribute to the sign up bonus and there’s no FX fee since you’re charged in gbp. Most pay now rates I’ve encountered also give you free cancellation until the standard cancellation period with a refund equal to the gbp amount you spent.

[bruinbrown]

If you book a pay at hotel rate then you won’t be charged anything until you check out of the hotel, at which point the hotel will bill you in their currency of choice meaning you may be charged a foreign transaction fee.

If you book a pay in advance rate then American Express will convert the hotels nightly rate into gbp at the time of booking and then charge that to your card. Amex travel will then effectively issue you with a voucher for the equivalent rate that you would have been charged at the hotel.

Even if you book a prepaid rate you may be charged additional local city taxes etc, if that’s an FHR booking then you’ll need to pay with your Amex card. If you charge anything to your room you’ll need to pay at checkout, which will charge you in local currency and so you’ll need to pay the foreign exchange fee.

[bruinbrown]

I stayed at Gewandhaus back in March 2022 and I thought it was a great hotel. As a gold at the time I got upgraded to the category below a suite but the hotel was very quiet at the time. The rooms were overall good although the bathrooms were feeling a little tired, but I think that might have been due to the slightly weird, excessively large jacuzzi style bathtubs. The breakfast was excellent, plenty of choice, fresh and a variety of hot dishes to order. Overall a great hotel.

I’d recommend the green vault if you’ve got a few hours to spare in Dresden to see the huge treasure collection there.

[bruinbrown]

I can definitely give a +1 to quality meats, the food was great and the portions were huge. We also really enjoyed fish cheeks, I regularly think about the crab curry I had there 12 months later

[bruinbrown]

You can get into the plaza premium lounge with your Amex platinum. As a forewarning it’s the lounge that Air France use for those with lounge access.

It’s always worth checking lounge access on the Amex app instead of the priority pass app to see things like centurion lounges, priority pass, plaza premium etc.

[bruinbrown]

anuj wrote:

I can’t answer your question but I am intrigued as to which credit card gave you free gold ? I presume it’s some US card.

It’s a uk Amex centurion benefit.

[bruinbrown]

I did the same status challenge last year during the same double nights promo. The promotional nights didn’t count so I’d only get 1 night towards it instead of 2.

[bruinbrown]

If you book through FHR you can make a single booking for multiple rooms and get the same benefits across all rooms. Eg if you book 2 rooms then everyone will get breakfast, every room will get an upgrade and every room will get the property credit. Some hotels may be awkward about the credit and insist that 2 $100 credits aren’t the same as a $200 credit. If you’re booking through FHR you may also be able to use some of the FHR offers eg 3rd/4th night free – there’s a full list of all properties with offers on this page on the Amex website
https://www.americanexpressfhr.com/fhr/offers

If you’re booking through Marriott or Hilton then you may be able to get an extended stay rate that might knock 15-20% off the flexible rate but you’d end up needing to pay for breakfast. Hilton gold will get you breakfast for yourself plus one person sharing your room. Marriott gold won’t get you free breakfast at all. The FHR rate will pretty much always be the same as the flexible rate on the hotels website.

[bruinbrown]

You’re definitely not unlucky, Korea is a reasonably expensive country and has gone up a lot in recent years. There was a brief blip during the pandemic when hotel prices dipped a bit but they’re back up to their normal rates.

Hotel prices in Korea are high right now for a couple of reasons. There’s been a big push towards status chasing in recent years and so you’ll typically find a lot of cheaper hotels booked for long term mattress runs. Also with travel in Korea being restricted during covid, there was a big push towards hotel breaks where people would visit a hotel to stay in the hotel. Add in the limited vacation days that people in Korea get and this tends to mean holidays within the country. For example, the Hilton you mentioned in Busan isn’t actually in Busan but it’s a resort about 10 miles away with a decent Korean style spa which makes it popular for people wanting a break in Korea.

There’s also been closures of a few big hotels, eg the millennium Hilton seoul has closed which has increased demand on other Hilton’s in Seoul but with the small footprint that Hilton has in Seoul its meant a lot of the smaller hotels are busier.

If you’re not willing to pay the sorts of prices that chain brands are charging now then Korea has a lot of high quality independent hotels that are also in places off the beaten track. Or if you’re set on staying in chain hotels then Marriott has by far the largest presence and is continuing to expand across the country but the chances of getting your status benefits is reasonably low owing to how busy they are.

[bruinbrown]

I think over the past year I’ve managed to make 8 claims and 6 of them have been approved. In all cases I’ve had a response within 24 hours which means if I didn’t get the rate matched I was able to cancel my booking with Marriott direct. I’ll give some examples of my claims below:

Hotel: Courtyard New York Times Square West
Marriott rate: $716.16
Third party and rate: Booking.com $519.36
Comments: Approved – final rate was $446.50

Hotel: Gewandhaus Dresden
Marriott rate: 210 EUR
Third party and rate: Expedia.de 180 EUR
Comments: Approved – final rate was 135.15 EUR

Hotel: AC Brescia
Marriott rate: 725 EUR
Third party and rate: Booking.com 689 EUR
Comments: Declined – booking didn’t include city tax whereas Marriott did

Hotel: Sheraton Frankfurt Airport
Marriott rate: 122.5 EUR
Third party and rate: traveluro.com 114 EUR
Comments: Declined – slightly questionable reservations site

Hotel: Moxy Bordeaux
Marriott rate: 115.3 EUR
Third party and rate: Expedia.com £93.19
Comments: Approved – final rate was 80.29 EUR

Hotel: Renaissance Bordeaux
Marriott rate: 175.28 EUR
Third party and rate: Expedia.com £146.42
Comments: Approved – final rate was EUR 120.87

Hotel: Fairfield New York Downtown
Marriott rate: $246
Third party and rate: Expedia.com $220
Comments: Approved – final rate was $165

Hotel: Basel Marriott
Marriott rate: 365 CHF
Third party and rate: Priceline.com £157.40
Comments: Approved – final rate was 138.71 CHF

If you make a claim against a site like Expedia as long as the conditions are similar then it’s likely to be approved, a lot of those hotel booking sites you see on Google aren’t valid for comparison. Also it’s in the hotel owner’s interests to make sure the rates are the same since they’re going to get find on the order of $50-$500 per breach of the terms as well as needing to accept the lower rate. That means you can sometimes find good BRG claims on new quiet hotels where the owners don’t necessarily know what they’re doing yet.

[bruinbrown]

jonny_ wrote:

Thanks for the info hadn’t noticed this one.

Which other lounge in South terminal is recommended with amex platinum?

The Club Aspire lounge and Clubrooms are both closed until further notice. Your options are either the No 1 lounge or the MyLounge, but the MyLounge option is only open between 7AM and 2PM.

[bruinbrown]

I’ve also got a platinum card and a blue ba card. Currently on my platinum I’ve got 103 offers and on my ba card I’ve got 26 offers. I’ve held both cards for roughly the same amount of time but my spend is biased towards my platinum. I’ve got quite a bit of overlap across the offers, things like Pure, Kitbag, Aveda etc etc are available on both but currently my platinum has a lot of offers for restaurants like Hakkasa, yauatcha etc

[bruinbrown]

polly wrote:

Similar situation here. Spent the £200/£75 back with Marriott offer in Paris, 30th July. Bill came to £204. They claim it came to 199.17. Their conversion! Excluded the 2.99% which was almost £6. They told me several times l met the criteria on phone and chat, until this week they said l didn’t. Expressed concern so asked for supervisor, who offered me £50 goodwill. Pressed on, said they would see if their manager would approve the £75. Told her l was humiliating to beg for the £75! And that Amex were nit picking excluding the exchange fee…. Phoned me back as promised with the full offer. Almost 4 months. She mention she could allocate up to 7k Bonvoy points, should have taken them. But probably would have only given us £75 x 2! Useless.

Other one we are waiting for is the One Fine Stay night, added an extra night. OFS billed us directly, supposed to have 200 credit back, it was a 276 bill. Again, big discussion, hadn’t a Clue where to find it, had to guide them…. Asked us to phone them back Today, can’t. So will do next week. So yes, having to drag certain credits out of them.

Saying that, the restaurant credits both U.K. and Singapore posted quite quickly. HN now to buy a gift card/candle.

I’ve had a situation relating to this recently. I had a setup where I’d get to £395 spend in GBP plus the 2.99% to take me over the £400 offer on Marriotts. I asked on chat about what settled amount meant and the chat agent was absolutely adamant that the offer would apply if the transaction fee caused it to go over the threshold. In the end though we didn’t need to worry as we went well over, but I’m thankful I have it written down for the future now.

[bruinbrown]

When I book through FHR I do regularly see a bit of difference between the pay at hotel rate and the rate as quoted online. For example if I book a hotel and choose to pay at the hotel then it might price at £220 but the equivalent pay now rate might be in the region of £223. Your comments suggest that one might be a pay in advance rate and the other is a pay at hotel rate, however, I wouldn’t expect that to lead to a £400 difference.

The only other thing I can think is whether one rate had a different cancellation policy to the other. I’ve noticed an increased number of FHR hotels offering non-refundable rates now rather than the usual 24 hour cancellation policy.

[bruinbrown]

I can’t answer the questions about the Jumeirah hotels but on the second question I’ve seen that Marriott also offer a dine around package which allows you to go half board at other hotels’ restaurants if you’re staying in one of the participating hotels.

https://www.morecravings.com/en/offers/dine-around

[bruinbrown]

Just been to Fish Cheeks in New York. We didn’t use the credit here but we found the place because of the dining offer. Lunch was excellent, the crab curry was incredibly spicy but tasted amazing. I’d 100% recommend it if you’re in NY even if you don’t use the dining credit here.