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I’ve just paid off my Amex with a newly opened NatWest balance transfer card, no fee

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ed_fly wrote:

andiron wrote:

If you spend £1000 a month for a year with reward card giving back 1% that’s £120 back in a year.
If you stoozed that amount monthly with an account 5% (like Barclays Blue) that would be £300. So saving account above 2% is better here.
Obvs other things to consider are sign up bonuses, credit rating and possibility of fine for paying it too late, savings tax.

agreed it surely it boils down to SUBs and other spend bonuses i.e. 2-4-1 voucher, upgrade voucher etc. otherwise 1% reward cards don’t stack up against stoozing on a financial basis. 20k annual spend on a BAPP would return 30k Avios, if your 20k stoozed returned £500 (2.5% averaged interest return), you could buy over 30k Avios in a sale.

But why wouldn’t you spend the £20k on the bapp, get the SUB and then balance transfer that £20k to another 0% card whilst keeping the spend in savings, thereby getting the best of both worlds..

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CLEARPAY10 gets you another 10% off on the site

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Restaurant in Momtparnasse Tower, Ciel De Paris for breakfast, cracking views from the only skyscraper in central Paris, as you eat your croissants!

Viewing terrace from the top of La Galerie Lafayette. Go up there in the day and the evening

Personally I like the Marais, 16th Arr, Montmartre and Latin Quarters

Central Paris is very walkable so try and limit your journeys on the metro as you see much more walking around

Plenty more but hopefully that will start you off

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Rob Burgess wrote:

It’s not so much ‘low priority’ but that the forum software is what it is and unless there is a plug-in which improves search we can’t do much about it. We’re not spending a fortune to rebuild software which we don’t even control.

Happy to hear suggestions for new sub-forums. Lounges, car hire, insurance are potential options.

How about a Northern life sub forum… 😉

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Haha yeah I saw some of the shocked faces in the crowd which was rather amusing. I thought was a good show (only watched it on tv) but brought back good memories of the originals. I enjoyed it

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memesweeper wrote:

DTR wrote:

Enjoy!

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen, I did. And got a very prominent placement around one of the star turns, so have returned home to a phone buzzing with lots of “Did I just see you…?” messages 🤣

you got a bit of an eyeful….?

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I’ve been Hilton gold for a number of years and have always been offered the ability to pay to upgrade my room in the app, either adding on breakfast or for a better room etc. I never have paid and have always been upgraded for free and got the breakfast for being gold, so I don’t see this as anything new personally

Most recently at Curio Milan and Garden inn Florence. Incidentally, despite the perceived wisdom that there are no upgrades available at a HGI, I did get one in Florence, and they specifically stated it’s because I was gold

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keep checking, has it been 3 months since holding the standard avios cc?[/quote]

She has had the free card for approaching 6 months…. Yeah will get her to check. Hopefully she can upgrade before the 100k offer expires

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Stooping was much easier in the past when you could BT numerous times from mule credit cards such as Egg or MBNA straight to your current account and then transfer those balances to 0% cards, and repeat. This allowed you to build up larger balances pretty quickly. And obviously interest rates were higher then to make it more worthwhile. I was running a total balance 3x my salary at the time, but credit was much easier to come buy then. Not sure how easy it will be to build up balances this time and not sure how wise it is as things are generally stricter now

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My partner appears to able to upgrade her standard Barclays account to premier even though she doesn’t meet the income or savings criteria, however she has the standard Avios cc and doesn’t seem to have the ability to upgrade that to enable her to get the 100k avios

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Been upgraded as PC at Inverness airport 6 days, Ibiza 6 days and Nice 8 days, all this year. Either one or two categories higher than booked. I also seem to get decent prices with PC however they haven’t given me my of the supposed vouchers I am entitled to, free weekend rental etc, and don’t seem to respond to email chasers so swings and roundabouts…

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Not answering your question as such but you also get the £10/m on the NatWest premier reward (non black) account for the same criteria and only £2/m fee. In addition you can have both the rbs/NatWest premier alongside the Barclays premier. I had both (shut Barclays of my own accord) but also have hsbc premier and no issues with that

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Allan wrote:

Not the same list as previous times. None in Scotland this time. If not there it will not credit.

Thanks for response. Unlucky me!

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Hilton better than the DT. Not brilliant but better definitely, with a better breakfast also

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Harrods have been doing half price meals for months if you know where to look… The fork

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byronlewis wrote:

Hello all

Looking at the HSBC Premier Account – wondering what their criteria is for proof of income. I see it needs to be at least £75k. Can anyone tell me how they are deciding this? Is it having £75k in your account constantly, or do tax returns count as proof? I am self-employed and my annual income is above this and has been over the last 3 years, but there isn’t £75k in my HSBC Advance account! I also have life insurance with them which counts as part of the criteria so that bit should be easy to fulfil.

Also just to add I have my Business accounts (Sole Trader) with HSBC

Can anyone help before I contact the bank?

Cheers

Byron

Apologies, I clicked on report instead of reply… 🙁

They don’t check your income. You also don’t HAVE to pay in the equivalent into the account. However it’s obviously not ideal to lie to your bank about income when they may have other information you have given previously which doesn’t tally up. I’m not suggesting this is you

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plastic charge cards are fine, is what I have and have no issues at st pancras, Paris or Brussels

all lounges are pretty thorough in checking though, point above being an exception I think, so you will struggle without the correct card, particularly at st Pancras

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I went on the Bernina express this summer which I really enjoyed, unbelievable views and scenery. The Glacier Express looks great also but will aim to do that one winter I think

Also for anyone going south from Gare de Lyon, make sure to go in the Train Bleu restaurant. Not cheap but a great ‘waiting room’ before your train

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Via Doha… yes it’s irritating that the direct flights have stopped and don’t show any sign of returning yet

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Froggee wrote:

…and I have never said anything interesting …

Maybe that was why.. 🙂

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MattB wrote:

Just trying to use my birthday voucher for an upcoming melia stay. I started check in online and was offered a decent upgrade a few categories up I was happy to accept, but in the app my booking has been stuck on ‘awaiting new contract’ so I can’t complete check in. Is this normal?

You need to check in, and upgrade, online. It never works for me on the app with similar error to what you are seeing

Fwiw I have been upgraded fine using the birthday upgrade vouchers at both melia gran via Madrid and sol melia ibiza… however it was impossible to check in online at melia champs Elysées last week but when i mentioned it and said how much easier it had been at other hotels the receptionist got my meaning and upgraded me to a great room. I have also been able to book all those hotels with the 20% off and then in addition use the upgrade voucher.

I find the staff at the melia hotels are generally pretty good but the IT is pretty shocking and no back office help if required

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marks7389 wrote:

Went for this offer via a banner which appeared on the Amazon website itself, paying with my Avios Barclaycard.

No confirmation email or promotional credit appeared so I raised the issue by chat this evening. After ages going round the houses, which included their insisting that I dig through my browser history to find the banner link on their site that I followed, they eventually “consulted with management” and have sent the issue to Barclays to deal with. Bizarrely, the confirmation email that they sent me saying that they’ve done that has a more information link to the Barclays Instalments page. They clearly understood what it was about so this is almost certainly a case of their deliberately misdirecting it.

Part of me is intrigued to see what happens next, but I suspect not much and I’m now sufficiently pissed off with them to raise a formal complaint on principle. Given it’s a promotion advertised by Amazon, under their control and they would be applying the credit it’s very unclear what they would expect Barclays to do about it.

I’ve seen various comments about CS applying a goodwill credit, though not recently. Has anyone else had an experience similar to mine?

I would just go back on the chat and try again from the beginning. Don’t mention the original chat and hope you get someone more helpful. Some of them are great, others are thick as sh.. just cross your fingers you get the former next time

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points_worrier wrote:

sloth wrote:

Hi, I hadn’t provided lots of info as more just asking who do we complain to based on how we booked the flight however to answer your points…

Thanks, so it sounds like she should have paid to select an exit row, as you didn’t mention status. Exit rows are normally charged. It is still poor show to do this however, as they let her select the seats.

I would complain to both Qatar and BA. Use the same text. Explain it is poor to demand cash at the airport, and you can allude to the implications of demanding a cash in hand payment.
In reality I think you will get an apology, but may be lucky and get a few thousand avios compensation.

Yes correct, no status. Whilst I/we have flown numerous times it is our first time on Qatar hence when she was allowed to select the exit seats on all legs with no demand for payment online, unlike BA, we reasonable assumed that is the case with Qatar, ie no charge. And then when she got the exit seats she originally picked on both legs of the outbound with no issue/demand for payment that further reinforces the view that it’s correct. If they wanted her to pay then it should have been charged at point of seat selection like other airlines do

Will put in complaint to both BA and Qatar and see what happens. As chrisC says, it reflects badly on the airline as ultimately they employ the check in staff either directly or via the airport as contractors

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Hi, I hadn’t provided lots of info as more just asking who do we complain to based on how we booked the flight however to answer your points…

The said the additional 6000php was to ensure she kept her exit row seat that was pre selected by her 4 weeks prior to the flight. She can pay it and keep the seat or not pay and they reassign her elsewhere.

She didn’t pay as was cash only and she didn’t have that amount of cash on her as returning back to UK. There would have been no receipt given

Didn’t pay and lost her exit seat

Seats for all 4 legs Selected online after buying the ticket. As mentioned she did exactLy the same for the outbound flights and there was no issue. She has the booking/seat confirmation emails

Yes was escalated after check in agent refused to give her name when asked. We have the name of the supervisor who backed up the staff member and repeated verbatim, pay the extra to keep the seat or don’t and lose it. She did argue the point but was also conscious that check in had been slow and there was a large queue for security so didn’t want to end up missing the flight…