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AFKAE wrote:

Yes, it was BKK.

Is that right about the clocks………….could explain the non incrementation. I’ll have a quick google of that.

You’re right, just checked. But, that shouldn’t affect the UK release of tickets at midnight, but it might explain the exec club being closed as the hours are to 8pm which would be midnight here. So they just stopped taking calls a few mins early.

So I think the Website issue is down to the below issue, as the flight is from Asia

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/ba-website-issues/

Wrt the time of releases I think it’s something to do with it’s actually timed on an American time zone rather than 12 midnight UK time, hence why it moves to 1am in this interim period with the clocks changing. Happy to be corrected on this?

If the US offices are closed then who can we call instead as I thought the JP phone lines closed down?

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AFKAE wrote:

Thought I would report a double failure last night.

In the past I’ve booked som of the difficult destinations MLE, TYO and last year SYD, so I’m pretty well acquainted with how it works.

I’d got my outbound using fastest finger first online. Last night I wanted to book the return.

My preference is to do it on the phone to avoid the recovering 50% of the Avios faff. But I had the computer ready as back up. Dialled US Blue line and went through the selections and the phone started ringing, after a few minutes it chirped up with a message that The Executive Club is now cloded, opening hours are blah, blah, blah….goodbye and cut off the call. Somewhat taken aback I redialled and had the same experience, tried the Bronze number which I also had stored in Skype..same experience.

This left me just enough time to try on line, I filled all my selections except the date and waited for the clock to tick past 23:59 as soon as it happened I went for date selection only to find it hadn’t incremented by one day…kept trying no luck. Logged out and back in again still the same. By now I was sure I would be too late. Skyped the US non-exec club line and got through after a long wait, unsurprisingly I was too late. Never had this kind of trouble before.

Could I ask what flight you were trying to book? Ie back to UK from where? Thanks

I was also under the impression we have to call/searxh at 1am UK time atm as US clocks have gone forward whereas UK clocks haven’t yet

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Kuestrian wrote:

Is anyone else thinking they would have checked the other 3 cards and expected all of them to say ‘Aygo’..?!

Definitely this, I would have asked to see the other cards at least

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Have rung back this morning and got someone who acknowledged the issue and said he is aware it’s been a problem since 12 march… IT are supposedly working on a fix…

I suggest everyone affected rings them up, asking the same question and encourages them to get it fixed quicker… this will then illustrate the cause and effect of their poor IT, ie increased unnecessary calls

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Silvythecat wrote:

sloth wrote:

Silvythecat wrote:

Did anyone figure out how to book flights othet than through calling?

Almost all dates i try is showing up with the error. Even if i can see flights available under the “reward flight finder” section, when i try to select the flight i get the same error…

Have been like this for me for a week or so

I actually called them this evening whilst I’m working… the guy I spoke to was helpful and confirmed he could see the same issue when he tried on his own iPad .. however he then dumped me in a queue to speak to the accounts team and then I was promptly cutoff… haven’t had an opportunity to call back

He said was def an issue (obviously…) but he had no idea how to get it fixed. He confirmed my account looked ok tho, so supposedly not account related…

Only thing I find strange is that there are only a few of us complaining about this on here, so others must still be able to book flights ok…?

I think will require more people than just me calling up to alert them to this as they clearly have no idea

Thats very annoying – I will need to call them at some point to book so will alert them when I speak to them…

Might be that only some routes / dates are affected and other people here are luckier than us – not sure though

Yes I don’t know, it was working fine when I booked my outbound to Tokyo 10 days ago… now I’m worrying I won’t be able to book my return home in a few days… 🙂

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Silvythecat wrote:

Did anyone figure out how to book flights othet than through calling?

Almost all dates i try is showing up with the error. Even if i can see flights available under the “reward flight finder” section, when i try to select the flight i get the same error…

Have been like this for me for a week or so

I actually called them this evening whilst I’m working… the guy I spoke to was helpful and confirmed he could see the same issue when he tried on his own iPad .. however he then dumped me in a queue to speak to the accounts team and then I was promptly cutoff… haven’t had an opportunity to call back

He said was def an issue (obviously…) but he had no idea how to get it fixed. He confirmed my account looked ok tho, so supposedly not account related…

Only thing I find strange is that there are only a few of us complaining about this on here, so others must still be able to book flights ok…?

I think will require more people than just me calling up to alert them to this as they clearly have no idea

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SpectroMartin wrote:

I’ve used Very.co.uk with BA eStore to buy iPhones before when there have been Apple offers – I got the Avios and the discount and paid on Barclaycard Avios+. I applied for a Very account and they only offered me the option to pay in instalments and not BNPL (which they class as different things). They offered my wife BNPL straight away and that was the only way to get the offer that was running at the time.

Also be aware that the postage and packaging charge is not interest free so you’ll be charged interest on that if you don’t pay it off straight away!

you can have the parcel delivered to a parcel shop to avoid the delivery fee

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I can get it to work ok when there is availability, but not when there is none, as per SamG…

problem is I need to book return flights from HKG at midnight and this issue is impeding that…in that as the availability won’t even show when supposedly it becomes available

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SamG wrote:

I believe I’m getting the error when there is no availability to be shown

I assumed the same but was up at midnight last night anyway and so searched for some flights bang on midnight and still nothing…

Seems it’s not affecting everyone tho…

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I’m getting this same issue but for any search , not just HKG…

Are other people able to search ok?

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newburyrich wrote:

CP at Liverpool airport annoying me with this at the moment. Booked in aug last year for May bank holiday but have since cancelled it using Railcard rate. They took full payment not long after booking and two weeks after I cancelled they haven’t refunded.

Diamond desk involved although not sure how much difference it will make.

if you have the booking email showing the refundable rate etc then just dispute it with your credit card company. quicker, easier and more irritating for the hotel so they may think twice in future about withholding the funds on a cancellable booking

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We had very similar service to you on HKG-LHR in business 2 weeks ago…no pre flight drink offered, we were last to have our order taken which was around an hour after the other side of the plane had theirs taken, had to ask for a glass of wine to go with my dinner 3 times, despite having ordered it earlier. The woman on our side was just slow and lethargic and everything seemed to be a problem. We also had no choice of breakfast as the choices had all gone when they got to us so we ended up withe the French toast which looked like vomit and tasted like you would expect so we both left it and ended up leaving the plane hungry as nothing else to eat…the fruit plate on both dinner and breakfast were very good though I will say that

There was also no wifi on the 15 hr flight

Have complained and been offered a paltry 12k Avios (ie 6k each) so have gone back saying its not sufficient when travelling in a supposed premium cabin this is not premium service…ie what am I actually paying for, just a bed to sleep in essentially (I did get a very good sleep at least)

We were also on an Avios 2for1. I don’t believe its down to that, its just down to the pure hit and miss nature of which cabin crew you get. Most are great, including others on this flight, we were just unlucky with the one we got serving us, others are in the wrong job I feel and see the passengers as an inconvenience. The issue is it shouldn’t be down to pot luck the service you get, it should be decent and consistent and its not

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BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

To be clear just because CX will interline your bags to your BA flight it still means you have two separate bookings and zero protections if your CX flight is late and you miss the BA one.

yes that’s understood, and is what the travel insurance is for, so I still need to contact the insurance co tomorrow to find out if 8.5 hrs connection time is deemed sufficient as far as they are concerned on non linked tickets

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Sprout wrote:

We did exactly this trip yesterday. I can confirm that we were able to check our bags through from manilla to hkg by the cathay check in staff.
We took the lunchtime flight arriving at around 3pm ish. we stayed air side on arriving in hkg and had about 6 hours in the lounge so plenty of time!

I assume you mean check your bags through from MNL-HKG-LHR? ok that’s great to know. Flew from MNL to HKG couple of weeks ago for 2 nights in HKG before coming home so know the cathay staff were pretty helpful but good to have first hand experience of this. thanks

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Matt wrote:

All travel insurance policies will have different terms – phoning to ask is the way to go if you can’t find it explicitly covered or not in the policy document.

8 hours should be plenty if everything goes OK, but it’s clearly got a level of risk there. Worth checking if CX will through check your bags across to the BA flight – can’t remember if they do or not. It would remove the need to collect and re-check them in HKG.

Thanks Matt, very helpful re the checking bags through. Didn’t realise I would be able to do this, found the below so looks like it’s all ok. In this case will probably now go for the early morning flight from MNL landing at 10.20 instead to give more room any potential issues and also pop into the city for a few hours minus the luggage

thanks

https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_GB/faqs/check-in/through-check-to-final-destination-on-separate-tickets/what-is-cathay-pacific-separate-ticket-through-check-in-policy.html

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phantomchickenz wrote:

Yes, I’ve booked my wife and child on Qatar using my Avios before no problem.

thanks

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Yes I should have been clearer…I meant booking a flight on Qatar website, on a Qatar flight using my Avios… as it’s cheaper booking this way then directly on BA website. So as per John it seems I can, just transfer the Avios from my BA ac to my Qatar account and then book for her using her name, under other passenger

Thanks

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curiously wrote:

How strict is the criteria i.e the £100k earnings? I do not earn close to that but have been a HSBC customer for over 20+ years. I was on an Advance account and out of nowhere last year, they upgraded me to the Premier one, despite not having big savings, investments etc with them.

Worth a cheeky try?

the criteria for the world elite card is that you have a premier account, which HSBC have given you. therefore you can apply for the world elite. just ensure you put your correct earnings on the application and there won’t be any issue

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Never understand this obsession with fast track security, every time we have it (maybe 25% of flights) we always seem to be going slower than the regular security lines… went through T5 2 weeks ago and actually got out of the fast track and joined the regular… ridiculous

If it works and is quicker then great, but definitely doesn’t seem to be a lot of the time

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Hase2000 wrote:

Just a warning to all – I’ve had my credit limit cut on this card cut from £20,000 to £250 completely out of the blue. That is a reduction of almost 99%!

I have always paid my card off in full every month by direct debit, and even hold my mortgage and bank accounts with Barclays (although, not for much longer).

Obviously, this makes it impossible to meet their £10k spending threshold for the upgrade voucher, and it seems silly spending £20 a month on a card with such a silly limit.

It is obvious that, for whatever reason, Barclays no longer wants me as a customer. Very odd behaviour towards someone who has always been a loyal customer.

So what did they say when you queried this with them…?

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.

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As an update to the original post, I asked nicely over email, explained the event around the booking and they kindly upgraded to the best suite they have, so more than happy with the eventual result.

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Thanks all for the replies. My ambassador has lapsed couple of days ago and was tempted into renewing it purely for the further upgrade on this stay (in 10 days) but seems it’s hit and miss so on that basis won’t renew and save the $225 for now

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I think you need to spend longer than half a day in cordoba to enjoy it tbh… we stayed for two nights and thought was great. Visited the mezquita at (I think) 7 am to get in for free and avoid the worst of the crowds, had two great meals, couple
Of drinks one evening in a wine cave/cellar, you have the bridge which is nice to walk across and the tower at the end. It’s not a big place but it’s nice for a relaxing two days wandering around and also enjoying the food

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Alexander wrote:

I registered for iproov this week and was looking forward to using it today. Unfortunately last minute change of train which meant a new seat allocation so it didnt let me through as needed to collect new seat number.

same happened to me first time I tried to use it although have been able to use it subsequently. if you go to the iproov queue anyway they should redirect you to the business class line so still get through quickly