Get 25% off New York redemptions at five IHG hotels

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• Jamie says:

  12 Feb12 February 04:56

  How does the IHG Rewards discounts in New York compare to the prices prior to last month’s pric rises?

  • Genghis says:

    12 Feb12 February 05:47

    Indigo lower east side was 50k. Others unaffected.

• Jonny says:

  12 Feb12 February 05:46

  OT: Planning to buy a work reimbursable flight, but wondering if I should skip tier points, use a little avios to fly First on one leg. Can either:

  Buy cash PE LHR-JFK (earning TPs)
  Or
  Redeem 44,000 Avios for PE out First In (and no TP earning)

  Taxes/cash equivalent is similar for both options and will be fully reimbursed by my company. I guess the question is JFK-LHR red eye in First worth 44,000 avios + 180 TPs?

  • Genghis says:

    12 Feb12 February 05:57

    I’m confused. So option 2 is you paying your avios for a work flight (as non TP earning) but only costs 44k? I wouldn’t use my own avios for work travel (v hard to get a proper receipt to get anything back). I save avios for personal travel. What I would question though is the PE only travel policy!

  • John says:

    12 Feb12 February 06:43

    Firstly isn’t it 47,000 avios?

    Are you saying your options are to pay ~£800 outright for a PE return, or redeem for a PE out/First in with ~£800 of taxes/charges? And your work would reimburse you the £800?

    Avios have a value but TPs are worth £0 unless you are certain you need them, so you’re effectively spending £400-£500 for F. The flight is 6 hours and red-eye, personally I wouldn’t as flat bed or no, I’m still going to be tired and won’t stay up for the service on board. You would get lounge access in JFK and on arrival if you don’t already have it, but that wouldn’t make it worth it for me.

    How much did you pay to obtain the avios? (e.g. you get 40K+ “free” by churning the Gold Amex twice) Do you earn avios faster than you can spend them? If yes then the effective cost to you is actually very little, so you might as well go for it.

    • Bonglim says:

      12 Feb12 February 16:45

      Take the PE flights and upgrade with avios to CW?
      Not as good as first, but reasonable and you will get the full ticket refunded from work.

• Richard says:

  12 Feb12 February 06:29

  OT – with Amex now publicising bonus for supplementary cards do you get the bonus if you add on at the application stage? Or do you still need to wait until after the application is complete and then add one?

  • Shoestring says:

    12 Feb12 February 06:34

    no, yes in that order

    • Richard says:

      12 Feb12 February 08:09

      Thanks Harry

• Netutgamer says:

  12 Feb12 February 06:40

  On the VAA Card and the piece in thisismoney. I signed up for the reward+ card and it was very clear to me it was a min-repayment Direct Debit.

  It’s easy enough to change through the online account or over the phone if you want to.

  How that fella went 6 months and didn’t look at his statements is beyond me! More money than sense.

  • Nick says:

    12 Feb12 February 07:42

    ^^ I agree,

    • Peter K says:

      12 Feb12 February 08:22

      +1
      Pretty much first thing I did was change the DD once I set up my account online.

  • BJ says:

    12 Feb12 February 11:00

    Just decided to change mine this morning after reading the article. Have become fed up with minimum payments as different cards have different policies on additional paynents relative to direct debits. Keeping track is too much hassle so that’s me changed them all to full statement balance. The email from Virgin was slightly ambiguous as to whether the new instruction kicked in from next payment or next statement but it is the former.

    • Genghis says:

      12 Feb12 February 13:10

      It is confusing. The balance on the VM statement is the amount that is collected by DD, regardless of any future manual payments to the account.

      • David says:

        12 Feb12 February 16:59

        I am always careful to set up DD for full payment . I thought I had set it up and logged in 3 times to check. When I complained on the phone I was told there was a problem with the website – still not 100% sure if it was not working or whether my brain just assumed it was on full payment when I logged in. There was definitely a problem – I also got the interest back..

• Shoestring says:

  12 Feb12 February 06:42

  Flybe boss Christine Ourmières-Widener was close to breaking point on the evening of Sunday Jan 13. Robbed of sleep, Ourmières-Widener and her board wearily convened at the City offices of law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. In sight of London Bridge, executives were told Flybe was falling down.
  “We were in a very critical situation,” one of those in the room explains. “As an airline, once you are grounded, there is nothing left.”
  After a frantic week, Britain’s biggest regional airline appeared to be on the cusp of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Behind closed doors, a cut-price rescue was collapsing.
  A consortium called Connect Airways had swooped on Jan 11. Offered just 1p-a-share, investors were gobsmacked. The company says agreeing to the takeover was the only way to save the 40-year-old carrier – a claim that is hotly disputed by others.
  But just two days later the fire sale looked doomed. The Connect takeover tripped at the final hurdle after a deal with Flybe’s credit card providers fell through. At 8am the following morning, the Civil Aviation Authority was warned that the airline was on the brink of collapse.
  Debate continues to rage over how Flybe got itself into this mess. The company’s shares were not worth much – about 16p a pop and a far cry from its 295p IPO price. But a penny? Flybe stepped back from the brink, however. Away from the public glare, a new deal was secretly thrashed out within hours of the fateful Sunday meeting and the emergency cash it needed was found. Flybe, and the 2,500 staff and 1,350 pensioners it supports, may be off life support but it still looks very poorly.
  Hosking Partners, Flybe’s biggest shareholder, is concerned there may have been foul play. The eponymous asset manager run by multimillionaire Tory donor Jeremy Hosking wants to oust chairman Simon Laffin and launch an investigation into the sales process.
  Without the balance sheet clout of a major flag carrier, Flybe has always appeared to be in a precarious position. To many in the City and in the aviation industry, the plucky airline has done well to survive in one form or another since 1979.
  Back in December 2010, when Flybe listed at £215m, Douglas McNeill, an analyst at Charles Stanley, said: “The aviation industry as a whole has an inglorious record on delivering returns for shareholders.” Eight years later he has proved to be correct.
  Ourmières-Widener blames Flybe’s recent plight on a cocktail of problems: Brexit fears, weakening sterling, rising oil prices and declining consumer confidence. But the knockout blow – the one that forced the airline to put itself up for sale last November – was delivered by credit card providers.
  Rules from Brussels in January 2018 mandated airlines could no longer pass on credit card charges to customers. The number making Flybe bookings with credit cards jumped from around 50pc to 75pc. Credit card providers can withhold some or all of customer payments as collateral to protect themselves against the failure of a company to deliver a good or service. With more bookings made over credit cards, Flybe was now even more beholden on the credit card companies. They could effectively turn off the airline’s cash flow.
  It was against this backdrop that Flybe put itself up for sale in November. Spooked by a fresh profit warning in October, credit card firms were withholding millions in cash and demanding additional collateral. This, according to auditor PwC, represented a “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt over the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
  Investment bank Evercore was tasked with hunting out interested parties. Southend Airport owner Stobart, backed by US investment firm Cyrus Partners, was one of the first to sign a non-disclosure agreement to participate in the auction. Many others did likewise, including Virgin Atlantic. The confidentiality agreements, as is the norm, stipulated that interested parties were not allowed to contact one another.
  Indicative offers in early December from the two parties had been “not inconsistent with the share price”, insiders say. This suggested an offer of between £35m and £40m was on the cards. Hardly satisfying for shareholders, but much better than what was to come.
  Alarm bells were set off on Dec 19 when Virgin took the unusual step of formally reiterating its interest in Flybe through a regulatory announcement. A formal expression of interest had been disclosed on Nov 23, so why would the Branson-backed airline do this again in such short order? Was it trying to flex its muscles? To put others off?
  Hosking, the airline’s biggest shareholder by some distance, asked whether something wasn’t quite right. Emails were exchanged with Evercore raising concerns about the way the sale was being conducted. Could it be running off the rails even at this stage?
  On Dec 20, Hosking was told there was a “level playing field” between all parties. The investment firm was starting to get worried that interested parties were talking to one another, preparing to join forces in the hope of getting a better deal. When pressed further Hosking was told advisers “cannot control all bidder action”.
  One banking source insists there was “no evidence of collusion” but admits the Dec 19 announcement had led to concerns “Virgin was hopping around the market”.
  At this point, accounts of the story start to diverge further. Some claim a new confidentiality agreement was signed by Virgin Atlantic, Stobart and Cyrus Capital on Dec 28 making the main suitors bedfellows.
  But sources close to the company say they are “not aware of such a joint NDA”. Flybe claims it only found out the interested parties had come together “shortly before” Jan 11.
  On Jan 7, at the height of Flybe’s January flight sale, one credit card company in particular started demanding more collateral. Multiple industry and banking sources allege Allied Irish Banks Merchant Services started “gating” cash.
  Precisely at a time when money should have been flowing into the airline’s coffers, quite the opposite happened. Flybe was running out of cash quickly. Panic set in.
  On Jan 10, Connect made its soon-to-be-infamous 1p offer to Ourmières-Widener. It valued Flybe’s shares at just £2.2m. Under the terms, bridge loans of £20m from the consortium would keep the airline flying but shareholders would be almost completely wiped out.
  At 2.30pm the same day Flybe executives called Hosking and dropped the bombshell. Flybe’s top brass said it hoped this deal would “flush out” other bidders. Cash could not be raised quickly in any other way, Hosking was told.
  At 7am on Jan 11, Connect’s approach was announced, accompanied by a recommendation from the board. Shares plunged from 16p to next to nothing.
  Later that afternoon, Flybe announced it had sold slots at London Gatwick to Vueling, a sister airline of British Airways, for £4.5m. Hosking fumed – hadn’t the company said just hours earlier that no other levers could be pulled to raise cash? This is another bone of disagreement: those close to the board say the Gatwick slot sale was already in motion.
  On the surface, it seemed as though Flybe had been saved. Privately though, top Virgin Atlantic executives worried the deal could still be scuppered. The need for credit card companies to relax cash remittance to the airline would be a deal breaker.
  And it was a failure to agree this element that led to the gloomy Sunday evening meeting on the banks of the River Thames on Jan 13.
  The next morning Flybe’s board reconvened, informing the CAA of the depths of their plight. The legal advice was clear, all stakeholders needed to be considered – not just the wishes of the shareholders. Executives needed to be ready for an insolvency in order to protect creditors such as banks and pensioners.
  By midday, however, advisers had hatched a new plan. Flybe’s operating company, rather than the plc, could be sold off quickly and, importantly, without shareholder approval. Rescue cash could be drawn down straight away, bypassing the need for the credit card providers to turn the taps back on. A raft of City advisers sharpened their pencils and hammered out the details. It was signed at 1am on Jan 15 with an announcement made to the stock market six hours later.
  The sale of Flybe’s operating assets must be completed by Feb 22. The main thing holding up matters is a regulatory sign-off from the European Commission. This will leave a plc shell, with no airline – just a bit of cash and a number of liabilities. Shareholders will have the option to vote on this element of the sale. Flybe has warned that if shareholders reject it, they won’t even get the £2.2m, 1p-a-share, payoff.
  A further wrinkle remains. Hosking has requisitioned an emergency general meeting to insert aviation specialist Eric Kohn on the board in the place of Laffin. Those close to the firm say fund managers feel a duty to get to the bottom of matters at the very least. Flybe’s board can frustrate the calling of such a meeting until after its operating assets have been sold to Connect, however. Does Hosking think it can block the sale to Connect? No. The hope, however, is that a post-mortem will at least get to the bottom of the “penny sale”.
  Despite protests to the contrary, rumours abound that Connect’s cash rescue was not the only deal in town. At least two aircraft leasing companies were ready to provide tens of millions in loans within hours, insiders say. Why were they snubbed?
  Ourmières-Widener, who will remain at the helm under the Connect deal, admits it was an “unusual” set or circumstances but insists that the “situation was desperate”. She will once again miss out on any bonus. It was a “difficult decision” to accept the penny offer and she can “understand the frustration” among shareholders, said Ourmières-Widener.
  “We are building the next 40 years,” she claimed last week. It’s inspirational stuff, but getting through the next few weeks is the more pressing concern.
  (courtesy Daily Telegraph)

• Roger says:

  12 Feb12 February 07:32

  Wildly OT-

  Does wordpress offer email options?
  i.e. If I have wordpress website (+YouTube channels etc.); is there an option to have a professional email address such as yourname@mywebsite.com?

  • berneslai says:

    12 Feb12 February 07:44

    Yes. Get hold of a minimal web hosting package with the domain name you want, set up a redirection to your Wordpress site from the domain you have bought and utilise the mail package that comes with the web hosting. Your Wordpress isn’t really involved in any of this, you are just utilising a separate hosting/redirection package.

    • Callum says:

      12 Feb12 February 10:01

      I don’t mean to down talk Robs recommendation, but it’s incredibly simple to set up an email address and you don’t need to hire anyone to do it for you.

      It takes a couple of minutes and if you are computer literate enough to make or run a wordpress site, you can do this with ease.

      • Rob says:

        12 Feb12 February 11:00

        You may need some DNS changes if the same domain is also being used for a website.

      • callum says:

        12 Feb12 February 13:24

        It depends how their site is set up of course, but I’d wager for the vast majority of simple websites it’s just a case of going to your domain dashboard and clicking a few buttons.

  • Rob says:

    12 Feb12 February 07:46

    You can set up an email using the same domain you use for WordPress but it is nothing to do with WordPress. Neil who does our IT stuff can help you – link to his website (Embecom) is in the sidebar. He will sort you out without any bother and will never give you any trouble over over-billing etc.

  • James M says:

    12 Feb12 February 08:42

    You’re much better off using Google Apps (gmail) for email. WordPress can be on element of a website, but that’s all it is, one element.

    If you’re looking to send emails from WordPress, most hosting providers offer a very basic option, for branded (and more importantly “verified” – DKIM, SPF etc.) use a 3rd party such as Amazon’s AWS Simple Email Service.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      12 Feb12 February 20:35

      This is sage advice. If your WordPress host is charging you less than c. £300/month for a simple site then they’re not managing it, they’re merely hosting it and if that’s the case the implication is that you are managing it.

      And that, is a great deal more involved than meets the eye. WP is a great tool, but it has a massive surface area for attack and just take a look at the number of compromised wordpress installations out there for an idea of how unprepared most businesses are for protecting them.

      And look at VFEmail this week for a chilling wake-up call on what it can mean to not have proper systems in place.

• filipino_chino says:

  12 Feb12 February 07:53

  myself and my wife both opted to pay the full amount, but virgin switched it to the minimum…

  • Combatjohnny says:

    12 Feb12 February 08:41

    Seems rather underhanded

  • TGLoyalty says:

    12 Feb12 February 09:14

    Happened to me too

  • Anna B says:

    12 Feb12 February 09:17

    I had same issue and changed it back

    • RussellH says:

      12 Feb12 February 10:46

      Several letters in last weekends Sunday Times saying just this. People claim to reset their D/D to full payment, they log out, log back in again and it has reset to minimum payment only.

      These are in response to an article the week before, about Tony Wood, former marketing director of Vigin Money, who got badly stung by this.

  • BJ says:

    12 Feb12 February 11:08

    Seems like they have yet to learn that their fantastic new customer base that they are so delighted with is highly unlikely to fall for such games and might bite back harder than they are used to.

  • Tracy says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:37

    Happened to me too, I was charged interest on my account for one month before I realised, about £12 on a £500 balance 🙁

  • Tilly says:

    12 Feb12 February 13:48

    I’ve just logged in to check/change my DD setting but surprisingly it’s already showing to pay the full balance. Maybe I got lucky.

• Simon D says:

  12 Feb12 February 08:14

  Moderately on topic… Stayed in the Indigo Lower East Side last March on a points redemption. Really surprised by how much we liked it. I’d very much recommend it.,

  • marcw says:

    12 Feb12 February 09:31

    Did you have to pay the resort fees on a redemption stay?

    • Rob says:

      12 Feb12 February 09:35

      Yes with IHG, Marriott. No with Hilton.

      • xcalx says:

        12 Feb12 February 10:27

        Rob I have an IC redemption stay in San Juan PR and the resort fee is showing total as $0 The resort fee on cash bookings is 18%.

        • Rob says:

          12 Feb12 February 10:59

          That because 18% of nothing is nothing ….

      • xcalx says:

        12 Feb12 February 11:34

        “That because 18% of nothing is nothing ….”

        Sorry I thought all IHG resort fees were % of rate paid.

      • Alan says:

        12 Feb12 February 12:15

        No, I have a booking in Orlando and its $18 a day resort fee

      • xcalx says:

        12 Feb12 February 13:13

        Looks like I got lucky with my IC San Juan booking.

    • Simon D says:

      12 Feb12 February 19:08

      They didn’t charge us anything, but this was last March.

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