Save £750 on Business and First Class Etihad flights to Australia

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• Tony says:

  2 Oct2 October 08:36

  I had a Nov flight cancelled in Sept and have to say, the money was back in my credit card within four days of asking.
  With fuel prices rising and even Ryanair saying a lot of what they need is not hedged we could see a few airlines go broke this winter.

• Benylin says:

  2 Oct2 October 08:54

  OT: re Amex Plat hotel status upgrade update
  Hilton took less than 2 days notified by email
  Shangri La no email notification but have been upgraded, so recommend just logging in and checking
  Marriot – been 15 days+ and not heard anything, logged in, not upgraded yet..how long has it taken others for this?

  • RakishDriver says:

    2 Oct2 October 12:09

    I recall it about a week for me to get the marriott status (no email)…but defo longer than Hilton & Raddisson…

  • Relaxo says:

    2 Oct2 October 12:14

    SPG gold status from platinum has always been dodgy on timelines. The first time I applied it never went through. 2nd time came through in 2 weeks. Took 3 months or so for my partner to get upgraded. I suspect post merger it could be a while before any upgrades are processed.

• pauldb says:

  2 Oct2 October 08:57

  A few suggestions for anyone stranded TATL might be a nice idea.

  In the first instance, I think you might have some joy pushing your credit card company not only for a refund, but also for them to cover the cost of the flight home.

  Otherwise you are in difficulties looking for a reasonble last minute one-way flights. Possibly a carrier or two may offer a reasonable deal for those stranded, or try another LCC. 4550 Avios + £208 home from the East Coast (£20 of Tesco vouchers) could be a decent deal.

  • AndyGWP says:

    2 Oct2 October 20:10

    I think first and foremost, I’d be speaking to my travel insurance 🙂

• Rjn21 says:

  2 Oct2 October 08:58

  OT -did anyone receive the Avis preferred email with a choice of 3 gifts – coffee, in car charger or 3 month magazine. Nice idea, however no redemption code is in my email to then redeem the offer at the Redemption page…..

  • Travelling Inspector says:

    2 Oct2 October 09:17

    +1

    • Robman says:

      2 Oct2 October 09:23

      +1

  • @mkcol says:

    2 Oct2 October 09:33

    Snap!

    • @mkcol says:

      2 Oct2 October 09:46

      I’ve tweeted them to see what they’re playing at.

      • Robman says:

        2 Oct2 October 15:54

        Now had another email apologising and including the promotion code. Bit of a nightmare with server issues, but finally managed to select the Halford car charger. Not bad for a freebie!

• @mkcol says:

  2 Oct2 October 09:34

  Primera collapse a year to the day after Monarch did.
  I wonder how many staff find themselves in the same position they did a year ago?

  • Craig says:

    2 Oct2 October 09:47

    Quite a few I believe, fortunately, the aviation job market is quite buoyant at the moment.

    • Nicky says:

      2 Oct2 October 10:38

      Maybe Mr Cruz should take a good look at the effects of downgrading to compete with budget airlines and stop using BA as his guinea pig. People will pay a premium to have a better flight experience, so take note Cruz, stop messing with our airline or else eventually BA could face the same future. P.S bring call centres back to the UK and ditch the new uniforms – plough the money back into getting back to being “the worlds favourite airline”

      • Evan says:

        2 Oct2 October 11:25

        “Our airline”? Odd comment.

      • Peter K says:

        2 Oct2 October 11:26

        Trouble is, ones like Etihad and Cathay who charge a bit more than the competition and give a good service are also struggling. It’s a bit of a lose/lose situation.
        Cost cutting seems to be necessary these days, it’s just Cruz went too far.

        • Rob says:

          2 Oct2 October 11:48

          The truth is that there is scant evidence that offering a superior product wins in the airline sector.

      • RussellH says:

        2 Oct2 October 12:30

        Maybe a superior product works for J and F, but in cattle class price seems to be just about everything.

      • Jamie says:

        2 Oct2 October 14:04

        “our airline” – must be a shareholder…

      • PointsChaser says:

        2 Oct2 October 16:34

        BA currently do charge premium fares and they are pretty good at making money and retaining a customer base. When I have spoken to people who work for other airlines they all hold BA in high regard.

      • Nicky says:

        2 Oct2 October 16:52

        Ok so I used the wrong word…should have said “the” airline instead, you all know what I meant ????

      • will says:

        2 Oct2 October 17:42

        From what I’ve read Ryanair is running at about 20% margin whereas BA is around 14%. If anything a successful low cost airline is more profitable than a premium one.

        My perception of the market is that short haul and long haul are very different markets, short haul seems to be motivated by price, convenience of a local airport with little requirement for meals and an increasing desire to travel hand baggage only. I think even “rich” people would choose to fly Easyjet or Ryanair from their local airport rather than travel to use, for example, a BA lounge and fly CE. Of course LHR is relatively local for a lot of people.

        For long haul it’s a bit more complicated, a bag in the hold is far more important, people are more likely to be willing to travel further to an airport as it’s a small difference in total journey time, you’re going to get hungry so you probably want a meal a refreshments etc. I recently priced up a Norwegian flight the USA and by the time I added a bag and meals it wasn’t any cheaper than a BA flight. I just don’t think the demand that exists for a cheap no frills ticket on short haul is there long haul.

        If you subscribe to the above then BA are moving in the right direction when it comes to short haul, increasing density and removing refreshments. Perhaps we’ll see them improve the long haul offering in the coming years with better catering seemingly on the horizon and a new CW seat around the corner.

        It surely must be tempting for BA looking at Ryanair and Easyget to give regional low cost another ‘go’, you’d have thought IAG as a parent group could bring economies of scale on procurement and maintenance at very least.

      • Shoestring says:

        2 Oct2 October 17:52

        @will – I’d agree that BA cherry-picking (say) the 10 or 20 most lucrative routes from UK regional airports SH to the bigger European cities/ very popular European desinations might make a lot of sense. I’d love to see it. I guess they are dipping in a toe with the non-LCY CityFlyer routes at weekends. Isn’t Nice one of the destinations?

• David says:

  2 Oct2 October 10:01

  OT: Miles & More credit cards

  Just got an email from M&M with details of a new MC/Diners Club(?!) product. £79 annual fee, no mileage expiry (provided 1 transaction per month), 1.25 miles/£ and 10k sign-up bonus. Interesting proposition…

  • Benylin says:

    2 Oct2 October 10:18

    Annual fee seems pro rata refundable
    Having a quick look, the 10k miles doesn’t really get you too much? Looking for a cheeky return flight somewhere in Europe.

    • Kai says:

      2 Oct2 October 10:25

      Miles and more is useless for short-haul.

      • Benylin says:

        2 Oct2 October 10:26

        Yeah just looking on the website nothing impressive. Let me see what hotel redemptions are like.

      • RussellH says:

        2 Oct2 October 11:58

        Not entirely true. You can pay taxes + charges with anoth 15 000 miles (or you could up to last year anyway. Not as good as avios though. But them LH and others fly from places that are not London.

      • meta says:

        2 Oct2 October 12:07

        Also some *A partners (LOT, Croatia Airlines, Adria) have low taxes on short-haul.

    • David says:

      2 Oct2 October 10:27

      Yeah, the taxes on EU short-haul make M&M redemptions a non-starter. You need long-haul J to make anything worth it from Europe… Some short-hauls in Asia on *A partners look decent value though.

    • Russ says:

      2 Oct2 October 10:30

      Stackable with current Hilton offer could be very lucrative! Robert we need an article I think.

  • meta says:

    2 Oct2 October 12:05

    It does look genuine as it comes from an email associated with the usual Miles&More marketing emails. I think they first offered the product to previous cardholders of MBNA cards, so it’s not out there yet. I am however not confident of the processes behind this card. Apparently Mastercard comes as a prepaid card which loads from Diners Club card which I find a bit strange and can see potential problems with it. I am also not sure if anyone accepts Diners Club these days… I guess the card is good for the 10k bonus and for keeping miles alive, but is that worth the annual fee?

    • RussellH says:

      2 Oct2 October 12:24

      I have not (yet) got the e-mail, but following Justin’s link I have downloaded the Ts+Cs. As KevMc says, nothing on my M+M a/c or on Diner’s Club’s main site.
      I had no idea that Diners still existed, but they have a flag on their site that says that Ryanair(!) now accept Diners. FWIW, Wikipedia says that Diners is owner by Discover.
      The M/card is branded Cornercarduk – CornèrBank issue M+M cards in Switzerland, so there is some logic behind this. The bank HQ is in Lugano.

      But £79 / year is a lot to protect 12+K M+M points, or even 22K+ after getting the signup bonus.

    • RussellH says:

      2 Oct2 October 12:54

      Just had a look at http://www.cornercard.ch – they have just started to offer a combined Diners/M/Card package to the Swiss market, same 10 000 miles welcome bonus, but interestingly no annual fee in the first year.. ‘Only’ CHF140,- in the second year, reduced from CHF360 standard annual fee. 1 mile per Frank on Diners, 1 mile per 2 Franks on M/Card.

      I think the offer is genuine.

  • KevMc says:

    2 Oct2 October 12:54

    Thanks Neil. Definitely one to consider then.

• Neil says:

  2 Oct2 October 10:19

  Just got the same so have applied. Had been getting concerned I’d have to burn my large pile of miles before they expired but this solves that problem.

• Omar says:

  2 Oct2 October 10:53

  It’d quite disgusting how these airlines were allowing people to book if they knew they couldn’t fulfill the bookings. But typical now with most companies. Take your money, go bankrupt, no repurcusions from anyone. Daylight robbery at its finest and we just accept it.

  • David says:

    2 Oct2 October 11:02

    Well where do you draw the line? As soon as you close forward bookings, you kill the airline, because you run out of cash, and nobody has any confidence so no-one gives you any credit. So whenever you decide to make the announcement, people are always going to lose out.

    What would you have done better?

  • Rob says:

    2 Oct2 October 11:49

    Once you close bookings, you’re dead a few hours later as word gets out. There is no alternative.

  • RussellH says:

    2 Oct2 October 12:14

    One problem in the Uk is that there is no scheme for protection of client monies when buying tickets directly from an airline. Section 75 is the only protection available.
    Whenever someone in government suggests extending ATOL protection to tickets bought directly from an airline, the likes of BA and LH are up in arms, because the way that ATOL works means that they would effectively be subsidising high-risk startups. One answer would be to require airlines to hold financial protection insurance against them failing. BA etc would still complain, arguing that there is no possibility of them failing, but one would assume that the likes of BA could get cover for a fairly trivial amount per pax: the likes of Primera, however, would be asked to stump up a significantly more expensive premium to cover the increased risk.
    Some would see such a requirement as a hindrance to new entrants to the market,.
    It would also require significant change to the ATOL regulations, as under current rules, ATOL is the only scheme permitted in the UK for financial protection of holidays that include air travel.

    • David says:

      2 Oct2 October 13:28

      Why does the government need to intervene? What’s wrong with consumers relying on their own insurance (or self-insurance), or credit card protection?

      • RussellH says:

        2 Oct2 October 14:40

        The job of the government is to look after its citizens. Tour operators have, since 1992, been required to protect their customers monies paid up front. People are often their own worst enemies.

        Not everyone is able to obtain a credit card. Debit cards do not offer full protection.

    • Catalan says:

      2 Oct2 October 13:31

      What’s wrong with taking out full travel insurance. Have people forgotten this time tested facility?

      • Gomigo says:

        2 Oct2 October 14:23

        Travel Insurance doesn’t cover the airlines going into administration. Eye opener for all those who believe your full travel insurance will take care of refund and compensation, good luck with it!! I’m running out of luck since morning. On calls with insurance provider, credit card issuer and who not…… sec 75 is the only relief but no guarantee though….

      • RussellH says:

        2 Oct2 October 14:53

        > What’s wrong with taking out full travel insurance?

        It can be prohibitively expensive / people do not think about it / all sorts of reasons.
        We are not talking about HFP readers here.
        (A friend of mine frequently criticises her daughter for not pursuing an EU261 claim while at the same time wingeing about the delays in question.)
        A travel insurance policy covers a huge range of potential incidents. I suspect most of the turnover goes on medical claims.
        AFAIK, no one offers a stand-alone financial failure poicy to the general public. Costing such a policy would be a nightmare – you could have apolicy that just covered the likes of IAG and LH Group airlines, but had a long list of other excluded airlines, but such a policy would have a massive impact on the cashflow of those excluded airlines.

        The wording on my travel policy states “…the airline no longer carrying on its its business as a result of financial failure within the meaning of the insolvency act 1986…” Or equivalent situation in other jurisdictions. So I guess that there is scope for lawyers to have fun.

    • Andrew says:

      2 Oct2 October 13:59

      Surely the only people walking up with cash to pay for tickets these days are dodgy anyway?

      Almost everyone else is covered by the financial protection arrangements with their Credit Cards, Visa Debit Cards and or travel insurance.

      • RussellH says:

        2 Oct2 October 15:00

        I suspect that far more people pay with cash than some people here imagine. It will be one of the reasons people book through travel agents.
        In my tour operator days I was amazed that anyone wanted to pay me with cash, but they did.
        Plenty of people still around who do not really trust anything other than cash.

      • Genghis says:

        2 Oct2 October 15:08

        Tradesmen have to get rid of their guvvy job money somehow.

      • Lady London says:

        5 Oct5 October 03:04

        Yes I think what Genghis says has a lot to do with it!

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