[RK228]

When using BA eStore, are there any issues using Apple Pay vs normal credit card in terms of tracking or awarding of Avios?

I can’t see anything in terms and conditions that would prohibit or invalidate purchases via Apple Pay, but just wanted to double check as about to make a few purchases and some of the retailers accept Apple Pay (e.g., Wayfair).

[RK228]

BJ wrote:

The SUPP adds card to their own account and can see their spend, offers etc but not yours. SUPP transactions are clearly identified on your account for you to see and reflected in your balance. Last 5 digits of card number are different for the SUPP.

I don’t think this advice applies to the Barclaycard Avios card to which this thread relates.

I think only main account holder has online account for Barclaycard, although card number is different, I believe.

[RK228]

landersd wrote:

I believe that I am entitled to what I was “guaranteed’ to get …..an upgraded companion voucher

To my mind, the only people that really should be “entitled” to the premium voucher are those that actually spend £10,000 on the British Airways Premium Plus card during their membership year.

[RK228]

NorthernLass wrote:

You’d need to check the Ts and Cs of your booking, they may be different from what they were pre-BWC.

The Ts and Cs say that we can cancel anytime up to August (7 weeks before trip, I think) when the outstanding balance is due and this only results in “loss of deposit”. I take this to mean the £200, but I don’t like that it does not explicitly mention what happens to any money that might be paid toward the balance (e.g., no mention of refund).

Greenpen wrote:

I am someone who in the past would go to the ends of the earth for a Tesco point, but remember 1000 Avios is just £10! If getting the bonus causes problems somewhere along the line then consider it’s worth.

For this reason, I’ve been inclined to just leave it. There are other ways I can quickly obtain Avios if I need to.

[RK228]

NorthernLass wrote:

@Amy C, do you need a hotel or car? I’ve taken advantage of the offer to book 2 hotels as a BA holiday which comes to a smidge over £1500, so paying in 3 goes should net me 7,500 avios in total.

One of the reasons we have booked a BA Holiday for October is because it leaves us the flexibility to cancel up to a certain date and we would only lose our deposit (£200). If we pay toward the holiday now to avail of this 1000 Avios for £500 offer and find that we later need to cancel, do we get the additional money paid toward the holiday back and still only lose out on the £200 or do we lose everything paid toward the holiday at cancellation?

[RK228]

Joe G wrote:

I’ve heard it’s not advised to travel with 2 passports as it could potentially ring alarm bells with immigration and cause you unnecessary delay though I’m not sure what the truth of this is.

I have two passports and often, but not always, carry both when travelling and have never had a problem. I don’t always go advertising this though.

For my countries of citizenship, I always use the relevant passport for entry. For everywhere else, I usually use my British passport for entry, as nowadays I mostly travel with my family and that is the one passport we all have in common (all of us are at least dual nationals), so makes things slightly easier/more streamlined (e.g., forms like API, visas, etc.).

[RK228]

Just going through this now with our son who has citizenship for three countries, but currently two passports. UK renewal application technically requires you to send in all your passports, even foreign ones apparently.

There is a question in the renewal application that asks you if you have passports from another country and then the application form instructs you to send all the passports in.

If you don’t send the second passport, I’ve read that it can delay processing of your new UK passport (as your application is incomplete and they will need to contact you to send in the other passport), but no direct experiences. We didn’t feel like taking our chances and we’re not travelling again until June, so we sent them all in.

If you’re not planning to go anywhere, I’m not sure how’d they’d know you have a second passport (if you answer “no” to the second passport question), but I would not knowingly misstate anything for an official application like this and, if you’re planning to travel from/to UK on the second passport, it seems like a way for the Home Office to find out about your second passport, which should be with your renewal application (although not sure Border Force systems would be sophisticated enough to catch this).

[RK228]

Mdjay wrote:

Hi does anyone know why I can’t find any reward availability for direct return flights from LHR – Kuala Lumpur, with Malaysia Airlines?

I have seen reward seats for LHR-KUL with Malaysia Airlines, so there just are no reward seats available for the dates you’ve selected.

[RK228]

I’m a dual UK/US citizen (so have social security number and have one old US bank account) and guess I could use my parents’ US address.

Tax issues are complex for US though (pay an accountant every year to do my US taxes although I don’t earn any money there and last lived there in 2006), so haven’t really explored US credit card options for fear of making this situation even more complicated.

[RK228]

When I’ve called the US number for BA, I’ve used Skype.

[RK228]

Molly wrote:

I have the same issue on my account but still have the referral link saved. Not sure the points will still post if I still share the same referral link. Any thoughts, don’t want to waste a referral.

After the refer a friend option disappeared for me just as I was to refer P2 for Platinum in late Oct, I tried using an old referral link from six months prior. I still got my referral points and P2 got enhanced Platinum welcome offer without issue.

[RK228]

My wife, son, and I stayed at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur in July and we got the full breakfast.

[RK228]

The website says 12 days for a transfer and my transfer in July took 11 or 12 days.

[RK228]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

Why read random ‘reports’ when you can find out the latest official status on Changi website.

https://www.changiairport.com/en/airport-guide/departing/early-checkin-online.html

This sounds like a reasonable idea and we too tried to rely on the website information, but based on our experience in July, the website may not have complete information, unfortunately. In this regard, although the early check-in was open, British passport holders were not eligible to use it. I could not find anywhere on the website where eligibility based on passport was indicated.

We were very disappointed in not being able to use the early check-in lounge, but fortunately for us, we were flying on Malaysia Airlines (Qatar-marketed itinerary though) and they let us check in our bags five hours ahead of our flight at their normal check-in desks.

Perhaps the rules regarding eligibility for early check-in lounge have changed since the summer.

blueskiesahead wrote:

I want to explore the airport- is it as fantastic as they say ? How much time should I allow for various gardens and walkways?

Definitely the best airport we’ve ever visited by quite some way.

[RK228]

Rob Burgess wrote:

If your account is somehow in default or in dispute, you can’t make referrals. This is in the rules.

I have no issues with my account (have never been late with payment, never in default, etc.), but still haven’t been able to refer/invite a friend for the past few weeks.

I’ve never self-referred and only occasionally refer P2 (e.g., I referred P2 for a Nectar Amex about 10 months ago and the previous referral was probably two years before that).

I was able to get around this issue to refer P2 for Platinum as I still had an old referral link in our iOS iMessage history (I think from the Nectar referral) and this still worked. Upon P2’s acceptance, I got my referral bonus and P2 has the sweetened 65,000 welcome bonus from being referred.

[RK228]

George K wrote:

The official answer is no, but if you do have some flights booked already, go to MMB and check the projected avios reward for each one. I’ve got a trip booked way before this double avios offer came through (for which I still have had no email…), for which the total has been doubled.

No guarantees this will end up like that, but something to check, for sure

Hmmm, I registered for the double Avios using the link and then looked at our existing holiday booking for mid-November and the Avios for the booking in MMB have actually doubled…

[RK228]

I appreciate this is a small sample size, but my wife and I have phoned two or three times in the past two weeks and, despite hearing the message about longer wait times, we have been able to connect to a customer-service agent nearly right away in all instances.

Maybe try calling at a different time of day?

[RK228]

We enjoy going to Asian destinations, so the few routes and limited seat availability mean that BA have become much less attractive for us. We do have a trip booked to Japan next year in CW with Amex 241, but we will let our other vouchers expire and primarily cash out our Avios via Nectar going forward, save for potentially some short-haul flights with One World partners (e.g., JAL, MH, etc.).

[RK228]

Luca M wrote:

When I last upgraded before the fee increase just over a year ago, I was initially told that no upgrade option was available on my account, and after requesting an escalation, a supervisor took the phone and manually processed the upgrade, but was clear to me when she read the T&C over the phone that I may not be able to downgrade back to my previous fee free product in the future.

Reflecting what you were told, when I accepted a downgrade offer yesterday to the free BA card (I initially called wanting to cancel), the CS agent made clear to me that it may not be possible to upgrade back to the BAPP.

[RK228]

AndyGWP wrote:

I’ve gone to generate an Amex referral for someone, but getting the following error message:

“Your Account is temporarily unable to access the Referral Programme, please read our full T&Cs here for more information.”

Anyone have any thoughts? Nothing obvious springs to mind (I rarely make referrals so not sure how long this message has been kicking about). There’s nothing in the T&C’s that has been breached either 🤔

On both website and app my option to refer a friend has disappeared (e.g., clicking on invite link on website says I’m “temporarily unable” and the invite button on app is just not there anymore where it was last week).

[RK228]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

While there are plenty of low cost flights to Bali, don’t forget to check if KLM 5th freedom flight suits your timings.

We flew the KLM 5th-freedom flight from DPS to SIN in July. I wish we could get business class seats like that for intra-European flights more readily.

rashomon wrote:

As we don’t have a time machine we will settle with our trip to Bali and will find a nice base in Ubud away from some of the mad traffic.
Appreciate any recommendations on where to stay with two older teens – looking for a pool, some tranquility and within 20 minutes walking distance of main town though would consider a bit further out as well. Happy to spend more here than other places in Bali – ideally around £300 per night but prepared to push to £400 for four of us.

There are SO many great looking places on the usual sites but it’s hard to know where to begin!

We stayed at Bisma Eight which we liked (nice pool, good food, nice rooms, and near other restaurants, etc.) and it felt a bit quieter, but you could still walk into the main part of town without too much hassle in relative terms. I say in “relative terms” because I found that walking even short distances in Ubud to be far more problematic than most other places we have visited recently because there is often nowhere to walk except the road, which is heaving with traffic all the time (and people were telling us that traffic in July this year was only 50% of the usual levels…). To be honest, I found it stressful as we have a four-year-old son and I didn’t like that we had to be constantly dodging out of the way of, between, or around cars.

We did eventually learn though that hotel will drop us off and pick us up in the Ubud area for a small fee that we could charge to the room. We just needed to send a WhatsApp message to the front desk when we were ready to be picked up.

[RK228]

Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought the offer was 50,000 Avios for £3,000 spend in the three months from opening the account (rather than a bonus for just signing up).

I think P2 got the 50,000 Avios only after hitting the £3,000 spend.

[RK228]

E wrote:

I have the standard Avios card (downgraded about 3 weeks ago) and up till yesterday I could see my spending and avios on the app. I was also OK to pay my statement as I did that yesterday too.

Today I’ve gone into the app and it isn’t showing anything to do with my Barclaycard spend. When I log in it shows various screens on ‘life’s important moments’. There are options to see spending and rewards across the top of the screen. But, when I select ‘spending’ it displays an error message that says I need to hold at least one current account to access this feature.

Hopefully it’s just a blip but was wondering if it’s a common problem today?

Experiencing same issue.

[RK228]

I had the same initial issue with someone using my card for a Prime membership, but with my Platinum Cashback AMEX.

I think Amazon asked me to report the charge to AMEX as fraudulent and AMEX sent me out a new card. I didn’t have any issues after that and the fraudulent charges were removed.

[RK228]

With our toddler in the circumstances described, I’d be opting for economy. No question.