Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Forum Replies Created

  • in reply to: Budget-ish accomodation near Highgate, London
    Rich_A 153 posts

    There’s not a lot near there.

    Apart from the Premier Inn, you have some Holiday Inns a tube/ Uber away in Camden, Finchley Road, or Henley’s Corner. None are great.

    There’s not much else afaik.

    in reply to: Section 75 – consequences of winning?
    Rich_A 153 posts

    As expected, Sixt’s back office have now realised they lost the chargeback and contacted me once again to tell me I owe them the money.

    Rich_A 153 posts

    Thanks all. The H4P knowledgebase comes up trumps again!

    Rich_A 153 posts

    Ah thanks. I didn’t think to look on Amazon – I was focusing on in-store racks!

    Rich_A 153 posts

    Do the £99 Spotify gift cards, giving a year’s subscription, still exist?

    I used to buy these a few years ago, but now all I can see for Spotify is ordinary gift cards, and I don’t think they give any annual discount.

    in reply to: Deliberate late payment to HMRC
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Good point. I hadn’t thought that it might have a negative effect on my relationship with HMRC.

    in reply to: Club Avolta status match to Radisson now live
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Thanks. I never would’ve found this!

    In summary you just need to

    – screenshot your Club Avolta membership card, showing your name and status
    – email it to loyaltypartnerupgrade@radissonhotels.com with your Radisson Rewards number

    That’s it! Make sure your email addresses are the same in both programs.

    I also noticed that Avolta didn’t have my name, so I edited my profile first.

    in reply to: How I “saved” £196.40 on an LNER train ticket
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Our delay was just over the 30 min mark, but I noticed on the lner app they have recorded it as 28 mins so I don’t expect to get anything back.

    Check it on Realtimetrains or Opentraintimes if they still have the history. In any case, it’s worth appealing the Delay Repay decision if you’re certain the delay was >30 minutes.

    I’ve had a train which showed as ‘arrived’ 29 minutes late while we were still approaching the station! Surprisingly, they paid out without needing an appeal.

    in reply to: How I “saved” £196.40 on an LNER train ticket
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Split ticketing does make searching for the best fares time-consuming, because every site that does it has a different algorithm, so will find different splits.

    in reply to: How I “saved” £196.40 on an LNER train ticket
    Rich_A 153 posts

    That’s a good stack. The double points promo is only valid until Sunday, I think.

    I don’t know if the Monzo cashback is once only or every time? I currently have a new 9% cashback on my Virgin Credit Card, which replaces the 9% offer that expired yesterday.

    I believe you can credit any ticket that’s valid on LNER to Perks. You don’t have to have actually travelled on LNER. The terms are a bit weird, and say that you have to have made a seat reservation when booking, but doesn’t specify that that reservation has to have been on an LNER service.

    Rich_A 153 posts

    Each time it goes through the motions, my app approves the transaction (in the case of Curve), and then their website says the transaction has failed.

    Exactly the same problem

    Virgin
    Curve + MBNA
    PayPal + Amex

    all got declined at the last moment, after the SCA check. My MBNA card (direct, not with Curve) was accepted eventually.

    Rich_A 153 posts

    In my (limited) experience, those oneforall giftcards can be a pain in the neck to use – or at least it was difficult at my local Boots to use one to get a different gift card.

    I think the trick is not to think of One4All as a gift card.

    You can add it to your Apple Wallet etc. And when you come to pay, just say you’re paying ‘by card’ and they process it as if it was a credit/ debit card.

    in reply to: AwardWallet price rise
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Normally AW will open a separate tab for BA which will require some form of manual intervention to click on the captcha in order to progress the screen scraping process. Iberia does work intermittently with AW but be wary of using it with Qatar as it is likely to end up with your account being locked. In essence, AW is of very little value these days in its current form.

    Thanks. I’ve tried allowing popups etc, but I never get offered a captcha by AW. I’m beginning to think my trusty spreadsheet may be the more reliable answer!

    Thanks for the heads-up about Qatar too.

    in reply to: AwardWallet price rise
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Anyone successfully retrieved their BA account recently?

    I’ve managed to get AW working on all accounts except Avios family: BA, Iberia and Qatar are the only ones that fail.

    The error for BA is “We could not recognize captcha”.

    in reply to: 2024 advent calendars
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Email today from Aegean – 25 prizes of unlimited flights up for grabs!

    Good spot! I didn’t receive an email about this either.

    – Daily quiz question, starts today, new question at 9am.
    – You have to answer 12 out of the 15 days correctly to gain entry into the main prize draw
    – Smaller prize draw if you don’t get 12. (Based on today’s question, it’s not Mastermind)

    https://en.aegeanair.com/flight-deals/offers-competitions/a-year-on-board/

    in reply to: VA Rewards FX Fees
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Interesting. That link suggests no frees for CHF.

    I was certainly charged a currency fee last time I used the card in Switzerland (outside the EEA), but that was a few years ago.

    in reply to: 2024 advent calendars
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Link to the Shangri La one?

    I saw it in the app. Although looking again now, maybe it was ‘Tuesday Treasures’, rather than a calendar.

    in reply to: RevPoints from Revolut
    Rich_A 153 posts

    If you are about to drop some serious money onto one of their 10x or 20x retailers then the Ultra plan can be worth it just for the points. But if you mainly spend on 1x retailers then I think you need to get value from the rest of the proposition to justify the fees IMHO.

    I couldn’t make the Ultra plan stack up – I’ve just renewed Amex Plat for a year – but having done the sums, I’ve upgraded to Metal.

    They don’t do a very good job of explaining the benefits! They advertise the price at £14.99 a month, but since you have to commit to a year, you may as well pay it upfront for £140 (£11.67/ month).

    That also unlocked a ‘spend £2k, get 5000 points’ challenge – which weirdly wasn’t advertised either.

    Valuing those points at 1p each, I can certainly get value out of the net Metal cost of £90.

    in reply to: RevPoints from Revolut
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Yes, I’m on the free tier.

    I could see some utility in going up to one of the paid tiers, but I’m not going to be putting loads of spending through it.

    The 20x points is a multiplier of your base rate, right? So I’d get 0.1 x 20 = 2 Revpoints/ £ on the free tier, and if I was on Ultra it’s 1 x 20 = 20 Revpoints/ £?

    in reply to: RevPoints from Revolut
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Thread bump – just catching up with this.

    I was tempted by the signup bonus of 3,000 Revpoints (= 3000 Avios/ FB/ Virgin) requiring 150 transactions in 90 days. Mainly as an opportunity to top up my FB account, and perhaps have another convertible currency.

    As far as I can work out, Revpoints is a complete scam. You have to turn on ‘spare change’ to earn Revpoints, and that forces all transactions to round-up to the next pound. It then uses that to buy Revpoints at a dire rate (2p per point).

    You would think that whole number transactions are a good way around this, but the buggers have thought of that! A £2 purchase will round up to £3, forcing you to pay £1 for 50 points.

    Added to the pitiful earning rate, 0.1 points per £, and most transactions are going to lose you money.

    Equally, making 150 transactions for the signup bonus will cost you unless you can engineer a large number of £X.99 transactions, to minimise the round-ups.

    Long term, it’s completely pointless, except for large value transactions at merchants which are valid for points earning at Revolut, and aren’t on your other cards, and where the transaction is large enough (over £500) that the 0.1 points outweigh the cost of the round-up.

    Am I missing something here?

    in reply to: Dynamic pricing for Avios redemptions
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Frustrating if true. I’ve an upgrade voucher valid for another 15 months, and a couple of hundred thousand Avios. No immediate plans to use them, but I’ll probably make a speculative booking for JFK next year, if nothing else. It’s worth the cancellation cost.

    I’m also helping my 18 yo nephew plan his first big trip away. And although it’s not the best value in Y, he was excited to use the household account to save £ on a trip to Chile.

    Good reminder, as always, not to hang on too long before spending. Great redemption offers do come along, but more often changes are for the worse.

    in reply to: Amex Platinum – downgraded to Club
    Rich_A 153 posts

    No downgrade here, but I have had a couple of stays. So that fits with the theory that they were downgrading inactive members.

    Glad to see they’re reversing it.

    Rich_A 153 posts

    Middle route is to take out the ARCC.

    Keeps the MRs alive without having to decide where to transfer them yet. It doesn’t start the 24 month timer, but at least it’s not costing you anything.

    in reply to: Post new Amex statement credit offers here!
    Rich_A 153 posts

    Tesco £5 off £50 on my Bonvoy AMEX

    Their mailshot just arrived on my doorstop too. I have a wildly exciting £3 off was £20.

    I won’t go out of my way for £8, but YMMV.

    Rich_A 153 posts

    I had the same thing last year. I don’t know what the thrives are spending the points on – and I’m sure Sainsbury’s wouldn’t say – but unless it’s gift cards or something that can be voided, this must be costing them a fortune.

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