[Olly]

I arrived on Thursday evening and the e-gates were working but only seemed to be accepting around a quarter of UK passports (mine is relatively new and was rejected). The subsequent queue for the booths was around 15 mins but would have been a good bit longer for those off the plane later

[Olly]

Reviving this thread in the hope of some recommendations please. We’re planning to spend 5 nights on Lombok/Gilis. As there’s four of us (kids 7&9), two bedroom villas or connecting rooms are the sweetspot for us so would welcome suggestions from anyone who’s stayed in a place like that here

[Olly]

Enjoyed the cliffhanger ending. Nice work as ever Froggee

[Olly]

The ones I was looking at were in Akita, Aomori, Sendai and Yamagata. They all seem to run over broadly the same dates so I figured doing one (or max two) would be sensible. Based on your response sounds like Sendai would be a good option. One further consideration is that whilst we’ll be travelling to the festival from Tokyo (by train), we’ll likely fly down to Kyoto afterwards. Though on initial view, transport options seem very similar regardless of which festival/city

[Olly]

We stayed at the Zabeel Saray 5 years ago (just pre-Covid) and had a great time. It’s a pain if you want to go to anywhere else in the city (c.30 min drive to get back off) but as we’d been at another hotel downtown beforehand this wasn’t an issue for us. The mall on the palm has some kid friendly places if you do want a nearer change of scene but the food at the hotel was decent IIRC. The rooms are of a good size and the water on the beach is really calm as you’re facing the inside of the palm

[Olly]

Was this announced in an email? When do the changes take effect? Benefits look the same in the app at present

[Olly]

sloth wrote:

Olly wrote:

I had the same issue booking from CGK – NRT. In the end I just booked via BA as it was simplest

Thanks Olly, yeah sometimes you can’t always save money unfortunately:)

Were you able to select seats via the BA app/online?

No, I couldn’t do it via either BA or JAL, but in the end has success via RAM

[Olly]

I had the same issue booking from CGK – NRT. In the end I just booked via BA as it was simplest

[Olly]

@meta we arrive to Japan in early August and I’m keen to take along to one or several of the traditional summer festivals in Tohoku. Would you recommend any one over the others and is it worthwhile trying to do different ones (conscious that they are very close together date-wise)?

[Olly]

Does Taiwan count as a third country for the purposes of TWOV?

[Olly]

@captaindave if you download the ‘Citymapper’ app, it’ll give you the most efficient route and timings for each of your journeys, and it also shows Uber/taxi as an alternative. That’s your best bet here

[Olly]

You can see my comments about our stay here https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/sofitel-al-hamra/

It’s not a new hotel BTW, it’s a conversion of an old Hilton

[Olly]

Is the BA flight year round now? It used to be winter only which may rule out Easter

[Olly]

If you stay in the WB hotel in Abu Dhabi you can get free passes to the theme parks in YAS island – it’s one park pp for each night of the stay. Works out to be a decent saving. They also have a large pool and kids club. We did Sea World and the WB park. The former was great, the latter a bit average, but you also have the water park and F1 world as other options which you can use the passes for

[Olly]

Prestat in Piccadilly would be a worthwhile alternative to C et W too

[Olly]

By way of a final update, less than a week after BA’s final response letter denying my claim and then lodging the claim with CEDR, BA accepted to repay the cost of the replacement flight in full. Shows that CEDR is a solid option when BA initially refuses to act responsibly in line with the law. Shame it has to take going that far to force them into it but ho-hum

[Olly]

It used to be TLV, until the recent war necessitated a change of planes to make the route more economical – it was largely an anomaly given that Cairo and Amman were on narrow bodies, and primarily to compete with El Al and VA who were using wide bodies. It’s possible this route could be restored to a wide body now the ceasefire is in place but not likely to be an imminent change.

[Olly]

If my recent experience is anything to go by then getting BA to reimburse the cost of the replacement flight in this scenario could be a challenge.

As JDB suggests, if the replacement booking is still within the 24 hrs cancellation window, cancelling that and accepting the rebooking option in MMB might be their best option (assuming they haven’t declined this and accepted the refund for cancellation).

If they have already accepted the refund then they will struggle to get anything else beyond the incidentals that JDB mentions above in 1. If they haven’t accepted the refund but cancelling their own rebooking isn’t possible, then submitting a claim for reimbursement and the pursuing CEDR is likely the next option.

They won’t get any compensation if weather is the reason cited

[Olly]

BA finally responded to say that they weren’t willing to refund me the cost of the replacement flight, instead only offering a replacement voucher of £200, so now I’ve had their final response, I’ve lodged the case with CEDR. I’ll report back on the outcome.

As part of the back and forth though, the BA agent mistakenly included their default response email template beneath their actual response so I thought I’d share it here for resonance:

(Email heading) An update from British Airways

Thank you for coming back to us about (your flight from / to / your recent problem with / specify).

***PLEASE ENSURE EVERY CUSTOMER ISSUE HAS BEEN ADDRESSED***

(IF NOT OFFERING A GESTURE)
I’ve reviewed what you’ve told us and our position on this matter again, (reiterate briefly what’s been discussed with customer already and explain why you can’t offer more compensation/a full refund).

We do understand how strongly you feel about this. When a customer has any kind of concern, we share the feedback with the relevant manager, and focus on what we can do to avoid the issue happening in the future. (IF WE CAN SAY SOMETHING SPECIFIC ON ACTIONS) In this case, we’ve (changed x / provided extra training / changed the information we provide on x to be clearer).

(IF OFFERING A GESTURE)

I’ve reviewed what you’ve told us and our position on this matter again. We’re now able to pay your expenses/offer you (an eVoucher for XXX.XX/ XXXXXX Avios/ High Life Shop vouchers for XXX.XX), which I hope will go some way towards making up for what happened.

I can assure you that we’re also focusing on what we can do to avoid this issue happening in the future. In this case, we’ve (changed x / provided extra training / changed the information we provide on x to be clearer).

(ADD RELEVANT GESTURE PARAGRAPH IF NEEDED)

(UNHAPPY WITH REASONABLE COSTS – STANDALONE)

I see from your comments that you feel we should pay more towards your expenses, given what you went through, and you also noted that we don’t detail exactly which costs we will cover in these situations.

Under EU regulations, we have a legal responsibility to pay you ‘reasonable costs’ in this situation. I’ve double-checked the amount we’ve offered, and we do feel that the amount we’re paying you is reasonable.

We do understand how strongly you feel about this. When a customer has any kind of concern, we share the feedback with the relevant manager, and focus on what we can do to avoid the issue happening in the future. (IF WE CAN SAY SOMETHING SPECIFIC ON ACTIONS) In this case, we’ve (changed x / provided extra training / changed the information we provide on x to be clearer).

(UNHAPPY WITH REASONABLE COSTS – FOLLOW-ON FROM PREVIOUS PARAS)

I see from your comments that you feel we aren’t paying enough towards your expenses, given what you went through, and you also noted that we don’t detail exactly which costs we will cover.

Under EU regulations, we have a legal responsibility to pay you ‘reasonable costs’ in this situation. I’ve double-checked the amount we’ve offered, and we do feel that the amount we’re paying you is reasonable.

(NO PAYMENT FOR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS)

We cannot cover the items you asked us about. This is because we’re only legally responsible for the cost of your flight itself, and any expenses you had to pay out due to the (delay/cancellation) These expenses might include accommodation or food and drink.

You can find more about what we do and don’t cover here.

(CUSTOMER MAY BE ABLE TO CLAIM THROUGH TRAVEL INSURANCE)

I know this is less than you were hoping for. If you haven’t already, you may be able to claim the rest through your travel insurance provider. If I can help by providing any information for your claim, please let me know.

Thank you for getting in touch with us about this. We do appreciate that you have a choice of airline, and hope you’ll choose us again in the future. If there are any other issues I can help with, please contact me directly.

[Olly]

Bloomy wrote:

just dropped from diamond to platinum today! Consolation i’ve got lounge access until end 2025….

Same here

[Olly]

Still Diamond here – which got me a free breakfast at the Voco in Marylebone last night

[Olly]

Yep buying from the UK they seem to only want to sell you 14 day packages (with 7 nights ‘free’). When we went a couple of years ago I bought our 2 day tickets from Kissimmee Guest Services https://kgstickets.com/wdw-buy-now/

Also worth checking out Mousehacking for other tips suggestions (for the parks generally as well as tickets) https://www.mousehacking.com/blog/walt-disney-world-planning-guide#tickets

[Olly]

To answer my own question…appears it was an extra £39

[Olly]

@cat yes Kalimantan, Tanjung Puting and Sebangau national parks

Good tip about the snorkeling gear, thanks. We’ll be sure to bring some

[Olly]

Seems like most people head for Sarawak and Sabah but reading up a bit more it seems like there are so
also some good sanctuaries in the south of Borneo – has anyone visited this part?