crazy8534

And a fully-flex F ticket costs £15 to be refunded nowadays.

TBH I'd rather avoid getting to the airport, standing in a security queue and having to explain to someone that I want to go back landside and spend £15 on a local all-you-can-eat buffet with a beer.....

HIDDY

Believable I would say....there's plenty of odd people going about.

They probably went on to a forum and complained about the poor service they always received in the CCR.

St Elmos Fire

Are the transits not swept by security staff at that end as well as at the main terminal?

chris1979

I am also not sure how feasible (unless your colleague is a Centurion esque card holder) it is for him to be putting a fully flex F ticket (£10k plus?) on his card that regularly even if it gets fully refunded...........

and "+1" to all the comments of "I'd rather spend £xyz of my own money to eat and drink and entertain myself for a day than to get a day's worth of "free" food in CCR with all the hassle that is going through an airport etc"

South London Bon Viveur

He sounds like a real oddball

onobond

Yes they are, but exit train, one stair up and return to other side of next train. Voilà, soon enough at UK border and out

albireo

Sometimes, some people have an odd behavior.

I remember that, visiting the US as a teenager in the early 80's, I have used TWA planes essentially as a youth hostel. That airline sold a 30-day pass with unlimited standby domestic flying, for $300 (735 of today's dollars) if I recall well. I would catch a red-eye flight just for the sake of having a few seats to sleep into for the night, and shorter flights at meal time for the free food (yes, those were the days when hot meals were still served in coach on domestic flights).

But that was then. Almost inexistent security, airport hassle etc. And I was 17, broke, eager to travel on a dime, and having fun at flying anyway, so the time spent on the planes was not "lost".

NWIFlyer

Which allows another part of the cunning plan to be enacted - make sure the F ticket is on a flight operated by an A380, and pop into Starbucks in T5C to collect your £15 of goodies on the way back to the train ...

Voilà indeed.

Hoch

That seems like a lot of toing and froing just for the CCR. I would have thought either BA or the credit card company might wonder what was going on

H

Calchas

Full flex F oneway to DME is "only" £2795 (fare basis F1). Even NYC is well under £10k (£7886 one way).

Anyway, transactions of £10k are not that unusual even for non-wealthy individuals. For instance, there are many traders and small business owners who use their personal card for all of their business's expenses. (This is where some of the absolutely enormous Avios balances come from.*) Once you have a pattern of high spend with Amex they do not raise an eyebrow.

They might get a bit concerned that you keep refunding it though! I suppose it would depend on the rest of your card spend.



* Recently I had the pleasure of meeting an FTer who funded almost all of his business and leisure travel in F/J from the Avios and points he generated from his business expenses.

HIDDY

Then again, if you have a CCR card there's no need to buy an F ticket.

Calchas

Indeed. But if you had a CCR card, you can probably afford to eat elsewhere.

Yahillwe

This is what I was thinking, how did he leave the airport.

Often1

It's easily sorted in the anti-fraud software (purchasing tickets with no intention of flying) and I can't imagine BA would not use that if this were even a remote problem. If it's true that worldwide there are 2-3 people getting a free piece of meat off BA, I doubt that changing compliance routines is in order.

It would also strike me as incredibly inefficient to go through the machinations of booking and cancelling, even online, schlepping to LHR, processing through immigration and security, getting set up in the lounge and then reversing tracks, including waiting for an escort, all for a bit of food.

Calchas

It's very easy, you can take the train out to T5C and back again.