[tiberius]

Pricing for Air Asia from Gatwick to Bahrain and KUL have been released. Looks like £75 each way in economy to Bahrain – I didnt realise Air Asia also did flatbed seats (although these are priced more like a premium carrier)!

[tiberius]

10% off Turkish Airlines Holidays up to £250 on Gold and Nectar

[tiberius]

aq.1988 wrote:

tiberius wrote:

You dont need to complete the travel history for the Saudi visa waiver, I haven’t completed it on any of the several visas I have purchased and travelled on (including tje Visa which I purchased for my trip to Jeddah Airport / Mecca 2 weeks ago)

So did you answer “no” to the question asking if you have travelled overseas in the last 5 years?

If you tick “yes”, it asks you to provide the country, dates and reason for travel. As I got the visa waiver immediately, it didn’t feel like it was checked by anyone, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable deliberately omitting information next time.

I selected yes and then left the section which requests I list out all the countries blank. As I understand it from asking people I know who travel Saudi on these visas (and searching online) quite a lot of people leave it blank, but yes, I suppose it depends on your risk appetite !

[tiberius]

You dont need to complete the travel history for the Saudi visa waiver, I haven’t completed it on any of the several visas I have purchased and travelled on (including tje Visa which I purchased for my trip to Jeddah Airport / Mecca 2 weeks ago)

[tiberius]

Advance Purchase rate worked for me at the Hilton Garden Inn Bristol City Centre.

Hilton Madinah – offer didnt trigger on the Advance Purchase rate, had to be escalated to AMEX who manually applied the credit. Wouldn’t risk it again.

[tiberius]

I had this happen with Wizz for my flights to Istanbul and looked into this – Wizz offered me a refund, Wizz credit or a choice to change my flights to any flight within 3 or 4 days of my initially booked flights. While you can fight for re-routing I couldnt be bothered with the hassle or stress so accepted that Wizz had chosen to extend my holiday by a day !

[tiberius]

Just received an email from Curve (which I have an account with through Samsung Pay+) titled “Termination of Samsung Pay +”. Apparently the Samsung / Curve partnership ends on 31 December 2025 and they will automatically be swapping me onto a standard Curve account. Perhaps the acquisition wont be complete for a few more months?

No idea why I even set up Curve through Samsung Pay+ – I think maybe there was an incentive some time ago but it was essentially just basic Curve branded as “Samsung Pay+”

[tiberius]

You can just skip past the list yout travel history thing on the Visa Waiver, its not needed – I and many others I know skip this section without issue

[tiberius]

Bags arent allowed in the arena but there is bag storage which is free if you have an Amex card – 1 bag per Amex card.

The queues for the tube at the end are large (and outdoor) but move relatively quickly.

[tiberius]

We stayed in the Retreat rooms last year (then called “Villas” although as they arent villas the rebranding makes sense!). We exclusively ate lunch at the lounge, which as mentioned above, is the usual canape style foods but to a high standard and was more than enough for us especially after the usual big hotel breakfast. Helpfully we took some photos of the food and back then there spring rolls, seafood paella, nachos, crisps, nuts, biscuits and salads. For drinks, all the usual alcohol selection is included – wine, cava, beers etc. from memory only one or two cocktails of the day were included.

We did look into dining at local restaurants outside of the Resort but given the location of the resort in the quiet side of Tenerife there werent many (any) local options and a drive to other side of the island was needed so we opted against it. Given the location of the resort taxis can sometimes take a bit longer, and have a tendancy to be overly expensive so we hired a car to ferry us around.

Lovely resort and we are planning a return trip very soon.

[tiberius]

Sorry to hijack somewhat, but considering something similar to other destinations via Saudi.

Do you know what the visa situation is if you “connect” on two separate bookings? I’ve connected via Jeddah on a single PNR, so no visa was required, but how does it work on separate bookings, either at JED or RUH? I also know that Saudia/Virgin will interline luggage, so in theory, you can go via transfers, but will they let you board without a visa?[/quote]

I havent personally done this (and I have bit the bullet and opted for the annual multi entry £80 Saudi visa) but when I looked into it in April you could only add the free stopover visa as an extra when booking a Saudia flight which contained a stopover, so if you leave the airport/enter Saudi I presume you’d need the Visa Waiver – sorry not to be more help !

[tiberius]

Virgin and BA are usually wide open to Riyadh. You can then book a Saudia connecting flight with Virgin points which is usually quite cheap. This would also be possible with BA flights to Jeddah as Saudia flies Jeddah to Dubai direct.

If you have Amex MR points you can look at BA to Bahrain, Jeddah, Riyadh or Doha and convert MR points to Etihad miles – again GCC connections with Etihad are quite well priced.

[tiberius]

Random upgrade with no BA status which took me by surprise.

The flights aren’t nearly as full as you’d expect which is probably driving the low pricing. On the outbound me and the Mrs had a row of 3 economy seats to sprawl across and sleep!

[tiberius]

We flew this route when it first launched. At Heathrow I was offered £500pp to upgrade to Business. We didnt upgrade but thought it was a fair price.

On the return we got automatically upgraded to premium economy. On reflection, I would pay for the upgrade to premium eco on the way back next time given how tiring Umrah can be and the better quality sleep you can get.

[tiberius]

Personally, I usually:

– Book 1 night through Emyr and the remainder through the cheapest OTA as I exhaust the $100 credit and the hotel generally (but not always) links the bookings and lets me stay in the same room

– If I opt to book via OTA I forward my booking confirmation to the Hotel and ask them to match the rate/convert it to a direct booking. This nearly always works and allows me to take advantage of AMEX offers and any status I have with the chain.

Trip is a good OTA and I have booked hotels, trains (and even a long-haul flight I had to book 6 hours before departure) without issue.

[tiberius]

I had the same issue, accumulated 18,000 Gulf Air miles on a work trip and found it impossible to credit them to Etihad. I contacted both airlines online chat and phoned Gulf Air without any success and eventually gave up (Etihad didnt even know what I was talking about and I would try pointing them to news articles showing the partnership which also didnt work).

I wouldn’t mind sitting on this many miles except even using these points for a Gulf Air short haul redemptions around the Middle East is difficult given the high levels of taxes which make cash prices almost on par.

[tiberius]

I was at the CP for a wedding two weeks ago and while I didnt stay the night the hotel seemed slightly dated, the Intercontinental is much nicer

[tiberius]

Has been at this rate for a while – a big favourite of mine when stacked with Blue light discount and Starbucks Gold membership.

[tiberius]

I received a slew of Hilton points today following a transfer request on Saturday (despite Hilton disappearing as a transfer partner last night)

[tiberius]

kai wrote:

15% off Uber / Deliveroo and more on Klarna

Ive now burned through all my Uber credit so on the hunt for more discounted gift cards, best I can see is Topgiftcards 3% back unless anyone is aware of a better discount?! These are very helpful in me justifying staying car free to the Mrs…

[tiberius]

Hi – yes, that was fine for me. I stayed in Dec 2024 having cancelling the card in early November without issue.

[tiberius]

I have used uber for flights, solely as they had £20 off per passenger on your first flight booking. These were Air Arabia return flights between Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, so it took a fairly significant chunk of a short hop on a (relatively LCC). All went through fine and I got a booking confirmation email from Uber and separately direct from the airline.

[tiberius]

As I recall, the credit is/was non refundable for the personal plat credit.

[tiberius]

Just as an update on this I submitted my forms to change my DD last week. Amex has now said the change has been marked with “DD Declined – due to Saving account provided”

[tiberius]

Thanks v much for this – I found it a complete pain remebering to transfer my amex statement sum into my current account on the correct day (and have on more than one occassion have woken up to angry texts from Barclays asking me to pay back the overdraft by 1pm or avoid charges). I prefer not to keep anything in my current account and so setting up a DD directly from Chase’s savings account simplifies my life massively.