[John]

I received two promos by email around May 2025 but had no paid IHG stays planned until December, so didn’t attempt to register until September but they had expired by then.

[John]

Maybe for MS transactions but it’s been working perfectly well for regular stuff.

[John]

No problem here

[John]

gustavo wrote:

It’s odd that certain transactions simply don’t accrue any points and I have an interesting example: two transactions at the same pub with the same cashier, one accrued points and the other didn’t. Then my local ESSO doesn’t seem to have the right merchant code so it didn’t accrue any points plus other discrepancies.

I did try booking trains via uber and PayPal checkout and those didn’t accrue any points at all. I understand now it’s only rides, but I’d have assumed at least the base points would be awarded.

Does anyone have more info they can share about categories that don’t earn points?

The T&Cs have this to say:

Some transactions don’t earn Points, including domestic personal transactions, money transfers to and from third-party provider or third-party account funding activities, payments related lotteries, casinos, sports betting, fantasy sports, social gaming, or other forms of gambling (whether online or in person). We’ll let you know about any other exclusions that apply to PayPal+.

I can’t see how Esso or Uber train ticketing would fall into this list. Paypal has not let us know about any other exclusions.

So far the only transaction where I haven’t earned points is when I paid contactless on buses in Trieste (Italy), even though buses in Venice use the same technology and I earned points there.

Can you add this card to Curve to get the 1% non-Europe cashback? (I believe it’s been established that you can’t fund the paypal card from curve.)

[John]

davefl wrote:

But those are for credit cards. There’s no comparable debit card in any market as far as I can tell. I can’t believe they will give effectively silver status to debit card holders undies l unless there’s a hefty annual fee.

There’s a UA debit card in the US

https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/products/united-debit-card.html

[John]

I thought Amex doesn’t support DCC.

[John]

le521 wrote:

But how can I have at least 1 Avios points if I cannot buy or transfer Avios points?

By flying a oneworld airline and crediting it to Qatar…

[John]

Well BA and the other avios airlines do the same, if you have no activity on BA for 3 years and transfer Avios in from elsewhere they will disappear too. However, I agree that 18 months is a bit short

[John]

RichRobinson wrote:

On trying to manage booking on Qatar, Qatar systems have uploaded lead pax Exec number against both pax. This creates an error such that it is impossible to add passport details and other personal data as system says booking cannot have same FF number for both pax but does not allow you to change.
Called Qatar who said this is normal and we can update passport etc. by phone. But what if we do that and they get details incorrect? We can’t even check what they enter as you can’t get to passport details online because of above system error. So will we be refused boarding if they enter details incorrectly?

There is no obligation for you to enter passport details online, but for a flight to Australia, valid passport details would be required in order to do online check in.

If you are unable to enter passport details online, they will simply be captured at the airport when you physically check in.

[John]

No.

Cathay has unique rules about this. Other oneworld airlines may not be as strict.

If you are booking with CX directly, you have one opportunity to add your BA number during the booking process. Once booked, the number cannot be changed until physically checking in at the airport. If you do not add a frequent flyer number during booking, you cannot add one until physical check in. Although booking through another airline (e.g. redemptions) or a travel agent may sometimes get around this, depending on who issues the ticket.

If you add a BA silver number during booking, you will be able to select seats for free (for tickets where you would otherwise be charged). If you change it to a statusless CX number at physical check-in, you will be removed from the seats unless you pay, and you will lose the extra baggage allowance.

Once boarding passes are issued for a Cathay flight, they do not allow changes to the frequent flyer number. Lounges have been instructed to make sure the status number is on the boarding pass before granting entry, at least at lounges operated by CX.

At lounges not operated by CX, it may be possible flashing a BA silver card and not having the number on the boarding pass will be accepted.

[John]

Worth reading the relevant AFF thread https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/threads/virgin-australia-flights-to-doha.116256/page-35

[John]

When logging into the Amex app this morning, it said my identification documents were “out of date”, despite have just done KYC in 2024. I was worried that they were not happy about something, but it turned out to be a complete farce.

Firstly it wanted an image of my passport. Rather than getting out of bed I uploaded the scan of my passport that I keep on my phone – likely the same image that I sent Amex in 2024. But then it asked for the back of my passport. So I drew a dark blue rectangle in my painting app and uploaded that.

Next it asked me to confirm that my exact full name as per my ID is JOHN M SMITH. I thought it best to correct that to JOHN MIDDLE SMITH, but after doing so, it said that because my name had changed, all my cards would need to be reissued. The following step wanted me to upload proof of change of name. At this point, I noticed that it was possible to go Back, so I did, and agreed that my full name is JOHN M SMITH.

My address, income and employment were pre-filled to the information I had supplied in 2024, which is still correct, so I pressed submit. Shortly after I got an email saying everything was fine. So no idea what Amex’s problem was.

[John]

Seems like you always need to have double the amount you intend to spend in the current account, a few days before you intend to spend it

[John]

Every time I’ve done the kiosks, the officers did the fingerprinting again, apparently to make sure that I hadn’t given my passport to a doppelganger in the past 2 minutes.

In the countries where I’ve entered Schengen, the kiosks asked me questions about that specific trip, so I don’t understand how they would let you bypass them (unless more countries start using the app where you answer the questions in advance, but then there will still be the problem of showing that you’ve completed the questions on the app which requires a separate step on the ground).

[John]

FRA (except for the FCT) has always been a nightmare, I refuse to use it like I refuse to use MAN.

[John]

If you really want to be GGL I guess it works but unless you really don’t care one bit, £65k should get you top tier on almost all airlines

[John]

Whatsthepoint wrote:

Help appreciated. I’m gold and need to book rooms for family members for a preflight hotel before a family holiday, although we won’t be staying that night. Will they get my benefits like free breakfast?

1) If it’s in a country where ID is (usually) not requested, they will (probably) get away with pretending to be you.

2) I haven’t done this for nearly 10 years so don’t know if any agents still can do it – when using points to book for other people, the “proper” way is to do it via the USA call centre who can change the lead guest name on the booking (as opposed to adding them as “extra guests”); your named family member will then appear to the hotel as having your status for that booking.

[John]

I attempted something similar and it worked, but I was prepared to abandon the second flight and take a train+ferry if it didn’t work.

My return trip completely failed and I had to buy new tickets on the day but it somehow ended up with BA putting me in a taxi from Newcastle to Heathrow

[John]

What status would you have attained had you credited this year’s flights to a different OW program?

[John]

I believe the minimum standard is 2 hours but individual hotels can choose their own times.

I stayed at CP Glasgow and Newcastle in January and IIRC service ended at 8pm. In fact the lounges started emptying from around 7.

As JDB says, the same is happening in other chains.

I wouldn’t be spending excess money just to obtain a lounge pass to use in UK CP lounges, the value is outside the UK.

[John]

ffwd wrote:

3.7m avios for £57k. 65p per avios.
A bit too rich for my blood

65 avios per £.

Sounds attractive if you’ve drunkenly confused it with a BA shopping portal offer

[John]

If I were to do this flight I’d want to get off and see every island “properly” – yes expensive but I’m only going to go there once.

[John]

The Doha Metro (in Gold class if you are male and want to avoid rush hour crowds) is also a good way to get around at night, and during the day between November and March.

[John]

I think you can only switch to USD by changing address to a country where USD is used for airline tickets, e.g. besides the US itself some Latin American countries, and it would probably mess up any link to a UK BA Amex/barclays avios and nectar. RFS prices in USD I think are slightly less than GBP equivalents too (even before the past 2 weeks of USD decline).

[John]

I would not have taken the offer.