[ChrisBCN]

I would be asking my friend why they couldn’t fly HBO – would be so much easier in this situation. And probably he could leave it with the reception of the interview place.

[ChrisBCN]

I think you have missed both of them

[ChrisBCN]

Don’t be in a rush (unless this is a peak time); if they have just moved your flight, maybe they will be moving the following weeks flights too. Take a few days/weeks to decide if you want to switch flights or not, then call and present them with the flights you want.

[ChrisBCN]

I suggest you read the terms.

[ChrisBCN]

smitrax wrote:

Brazilian barber yesterday and he mentioned that Tap air were ‘nowhere near as good as BA’ which has got me a little worried.

Is your barber a frequent flyer on Tap/BA? If not, how would she/he know?

Maybe they had one bad experience once which makes them say this (and bad experiences happen every day, on every airline…)

[ChrisBCN]

If you book Vueling flights via BA you will usually vastly overpay – I would check the prices direct from Vueling.

As a silver you will NOT get fast track / lounge access booking via BA – the only advantage of booking via BA is a meagre amount of tier points.

[ChrisBCN]

‘Best’ rather depends on what you want. Your CE flight will get you into a choice of the AA, BA, Cathay, Qantas business lounges (any or all of them, if you so wish).

Read this –
https://hfp2026mar.kinsta.cloud/2022/02/06/what-are-the-best-lounges-in-heathrow-t3/

[ChrisBCN]

1958 wrote:

£600 was for the whole journey (Sydney to London). I was surprised that it was so low.

The other side to that – what if Club was full and First had space? You can either bump somebody up for free or see what extra money you can get for it. I do wonder what they would have said if you offered £500 – and the answer may have depended on how many were left to check in.

[ChrisBCN]

I’m not sure I will – everything has been credited to IB!

[ChrisBCN]

And I can’t believe that I missed that basic doesn’t earn any Avíos!

[ChrisBCN]

Ps, just for fun I put ‘who is BA Flyer IHG Stayer’ into Gemini 🫠 seems pretty accurate…

“BA Flyer IHG Stayer” is a user profile name on the Head for Points forums, a prominent UK-based website dedicated to airline and hotel loyalty points. The user is a participant in discussions surrounding travel rewards, particularly focusing on British Airways (BA) and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) loyalty programs.
Platform: Head for Points, a community forum.
Topic Focus: Likely expert in maximizing Avios (British Airways) and IHG rewards.
Context: The name is a direct reference to frequent flyer and hotel stayer status.
This user is not a public official, but a member of the loyalty reward community.

[ChrisBCN]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

I’m not using it!

Well if you don’t use it…

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

ChatGPT rarely results in anything inciteful.

… That’s probably why you don’t think it results in anything insightful…. I think if you used it for a few days you wouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking only incorrect things can be found.

[ChrisBCN]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

ChatGPT rarely results in anything inciteful.

This tells me you don’t know how to use it correctly.

[ChrisBCN]

Richie wrote:

It seems they want some Vueling frequent flyers to have a reason not to credit their sectors to Iberia Club.

My thoughts too, all my flights have been credited to Iberia Club.

Richie wrote:

I’ve noticed some BA operated flights have VY codes, perhaps this new Vueling club is the reason.

London flights have had this for years.

[ChrisBCN]

InvoluntaryDowngrade wrote:

Current Approximate Distribution (pre-change, 2024 data)

Congrats with your first post being a copy/paste from ChatGPT!

[ChrisBCN]

The fact that your wife deliberately wasn’t using the hand rail could give Ryanair a level of defence here – I would neglect to mention this in your initial claim (though obviously if asked you have to answer truthfully).

Wishing her luck with the recovery.

[ChrisBCN]

If you had done what she said, you would have transferred debt from her card onto your card, and paid the balance transfer fee to boot! Just like if you were to do a balance transfer on your own cards.

Dont beat yourself up about it, you caught it before any harm occured and that’s the main thing.

[ChrisBCN]

Aston100 wrote:

I think the chances of someone taking a flight in order to setup a credentials farming exercise is probably very unlikely.

Why? Collecting the banking/personal details etc of people who can afford to fly business class will be very profitable indeed.

[ChrisBCN]

Thanks again @JDB @Froggee

When I started my investment journey a little time ago, there were several things I read suggesting buy a world ETF and chill. It didn’t feel right to me to do only that, so I took a more diverse approach. It will be interesting to see if/when the tech stocks crash what the fallout and recovery will be.

[ChrisBCN]

Froggee wrote:

The point is that the S&P500 and indeed the MSCI World indices are about as un-diverse as they have ever been.

Is this an argument to suggest that index-led portfolios (at this time) need to be diverse; i.e. hold some EUR/UK/ other market indexes (to increase the non-us tech weighting) alongside World & S&P?

[ChrisBCN]

@JDB, @Froggee – thank you both for the very clear explanations, I now understand.

JDB wrote:

@ChrisBCN – the concentration issue is the enormous current dominance of US equities (and US$) and most particularly the top ten stocks that account for c. 20% of the FTSE All World index of around 4,000 stocks and overall about 30% of the index is in tech stocks. Obviously it’s all great while tech stocks boom but the concept of safety in a cheap very diversified portfolio is now rather questionable. Last year, the weakness of the $ meant £ based investors lost out on much of the gain and unusually UK stocks were the star.

So it’s not so much that the ‘concentration risk in global index funds are pretty scary’, it’s more that the global indexes are heavily weighted to a small number of stocks that makes those funds potentially scary.

[ChrisBCN]

JDB wrote:

The current numbers re concentration risk in global index funds are pretty scary.

As we seem to have gone way off topic, I would love to know why this concentration is seen by some as scary.

Asking out of genuine interest!

[ChrisBCN]

Clubrooms has the best reputation, but I don’t bother with BHX lounges, they are a poor experience and I prefer to sit in one of the quiet corners of the airport instead.

[ChrisBCN]

Dragonlady wrote:

Think I’m heading back to Hertz

You are looking at this wrong – it’s the franchisees at each location you need to look at. For every hire company, there are good ones and bad ones – meaning you can’t automatically rule in or rule out companies, it’s all location specific.

Apart from Hertz US which is always avoid of course.

[ChrisBCN]

What an absolute waste of your time!