Is a mansion tax for properties 'worth' £1.5m or more fair?

0:02Lee Boyce: Welcome to This Is Money podcast sponsored by Trading 212. Download the Trading 212 app today and open a cashizer with promo code TIM to get the 12-month bonus promo rate of 4.51%. Terms apply. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me today is Lee Boyce. And coming up, twice as many households could be forced to pay a new mansion tax under Andy Burnham's latest plans. So exactly who will be affected and which regions are most at risk. Also today, the scourge of the cowboy builders is back. Trust in traders falls as nearly 5 million households grappled with shoddy home repairs in the last 18 months. So how can you find a good tradesperson and what are your rights if things go wrong?

0:45Lee Boyce: Plus, we'll give you the lowdown on the NS &I accounts to snap up right now and the duds to avoid and tell you the tricks to get you into VIP airport lounges for less this summer, even if you've booked economy. Don't forget to start with all the latest breaking money news. Just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. But first, the so-called mansion tax hasn't even started yet, but there are reports that it could be expanded to draw hundreds of thousands more households into its net. Last November, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that properties in England worth more than£2 million would be subject to a high-value council tax surcharge from April 2028.

1:25Lee Boyce: But Prime Minister in waiting Andy Burnham is drawing up plans for a harsher crackdown, extending the scope to hit properties worth£1.5 million and above. Which is exactly, if you remember, what we had discussed and warned might happen back when it was announced. So, Lee Boyce, the mansion tax. What is it? How would it work? What's the latest?

1:50Georgie Frost: Oh, Georgie, we did warn about this, didn't we? I seem to remember saying it was a slippery slope set in the figure a certain amount. So let me go back and talk over what it is and how it works. So, as you say, high value council tax surcharge, most clunky name thing I could possibly think of. Dub mansion tax. The mansion tax limit is meant to be for homes valued at£2 million plus. Andy Burnham, this is speculation. So this is pure speculation. this is not something that's definitely coming in in terms of what the next bit is that the mansion taxes from april 2028 this andy burnham kind of rumor is that he's going to lower the limit to 1.5 million pounds now as it stands homes between two and two and a half million pounds will have a two and a half thousand pounds charge on top of their regular council tax bill those between two and a half and three and a half million it would be three thousand five hundred and five thousand pounds for homes worth 3.5 to 5 million properties worth more than 5 million will pay seven and a half thousand pounds if that is lowered to 1.5 million pounds the number crunches at the tax policy associates are saying that the number of properties that would come into the kind of scope of it would rise from 127 000 to 243 000 that's quite a fair number of homes and extra homes that would get hit by this one thing that's worth pointing out on this as well that i think has been missed and kind of not quite understood by people is that council tax is ripe for a reform right we are using basis of 1991 values totally understand the need and necessity to you bring council tax into the kind of modern era right and council tax as most of us know it's used to fund essential services uh adult social care children's services at schools rubbish collection road and street light maintenance, libraries, parks, all of those kind of things.

3:44Georgie Frost: Now, if you live in a£1.5 million house with four people in it, or you live in a£250 ,000 house with four people in it, you could kind of argue that actually, are you putting as much of a strain on the service? There's still four people. And you could argue that they're doing exactly the same kind of things and the same kind of wear and tear of whatever their council tax is going on. But what's been missed a little bit in this is that this high value council tax surcharge isn't really going to be used for local services it's going directly to the treasury and will just get hoovered up in general government spending right so it's not even going to improve the local services in your area i think that that in a way makes it even worse than the fact people are potentially going to have to swallow these extra charges and again it's a nasty tax in my mind i don't live in a two million pound house I don't live in a one and a half million pound house.

4:39Georgie Frost: But what it is, again, it's just another tax and another kind of hit on people that have strived, people that have worked hard and have given their family, you know, a really good quality of life, potentially through, you know, working hard or being a business owner or whatever it is. And I really dislike taxes that hit the strivers the hardest. And this is what it feels like to me, a kind of tax grab that's just going to go into the blob of government spending. And I think it's quite unjust.

5:07Lee Boyce: Yeah, there's also a sort of a regional unfairness as well. I mean, if this was across the board, you know, house prices were equal, north and south, then you could understand it. But actually, as you point out, you know, 1.5 million in London is not going to get you that much. Now, I have the argument, I spent most of my career up in the north. My family are from the north. Trust me, we do not want absolutely everyone moving to the north, because what's going to happen? supply and demand, house prices in the north are going to go up and we're going to be hit with the same thing. The issue I have with this though is for things like inheritance tax and all those things, the higher rates of income tax were there to hit people who genuinely, genuinely were wealthy and who could afford it.

5:56Lee Boyce: And because we've had all of these things frozen, because house prices, because pensions will soon be included in inheritance tax, it is not the extremely wealthy because, let's be honest, I'm currently reading the rebel accountant Taxtopia, which goes to prove very nicely that the really wealthy people will find schemes to get around, shall we say, paying these things. So who pays it? It's the people in the middle. Now, I will never be touched by this. I certainly don't have a two million, one and a half million. I probably never will. But that's not the point to me. It's the principle. And the problem with tax is it relies on a certain amount of honesty.

6:36Lee Boyce: It relies on trust. And if people don't trust the system, they're not going to pay or they're going to get around it or they're not going to work as hard or they're going to close down their businesses, etc.

6:47Georgie Frost: etc well i think in this i think in this circumstance i think that let's say it is lower to one and a half million pounds i think the amount of people that will fight back against you know potential valuations because i don't understand quite how these valuations are going to work on a property who says that a home is worth one and a half million pounds it's only worth one and a half million pounds if you can sell it for one and a half million pounds so let's say you list the home for one and a half million pounds you might end up selling that home for 1.2 million pounds or 1.3 million pounds you are at the mercy of an estate agent that comes around gives you a valuation looking at the local area looking at things like zoopla and right move to get a kind of barometer of what's happening in the local market and what things are worth but that's no by no means accurate that's by no means to say that house is definitely worth that much money and there's talks of drones drone footage being used no very dystopian kind of methods to to value homes i just think it's it just feels incredibly nasty.

7:45Georgie Frost: It feels, if you're going to move goalposts as well and attacks that you've announced, it doesn't kind of give confidence in the measure. And I don't know, I think people, I think you're right, I think people are a bit fed up. And I think the fact that this money's just going to go into the blob of government spending is quite harsh. And you've talked about it now, actually, the areas that are going to be kind of hit. And I mean, it's no surprise that the area that's going to be hit the hardest is london and the southeast you know particularly you know commuter belt areas as well uh so constituencies like esher and walton in surrey twickenham in southwest london harpingden berkhamstead in hertfordshire would see almost 2 000 more homes caught in the net if burnham was to lower the threshold but even uh in mr burnham's beloved greater manchester with that one and a half million pound threshold there would be 2 400 homes in the area that have to pay the tax mostly in altringham and the southwest constituency where you know there's some very nice houses and that's the thing it doesn't it's not really a mansion tax it's more of a kind of tax on people that have bought themselves a nice house and let's not forget on a one and a half million pound house if you want to go and buy a one and a half million pound house you're talking about 93 750 pound stamp duty bill before you even get started so is that not enough is that not enough tax and one-off hit and listen i understand there are people that have been in their homes for 20 30 40 years that potentially haven't moved and their house price growth has probably gone through the roof they're not necessarily rich though they might have just bought a house that they wanted to live in at the time and it just so happens that they bought in an area that's like really boomed um and facing up to these extra charges there's a lot of what ifs there's a lot of kind of things about this i i think once this gets closer to the time i think there's going to be an enhanced fight back from people and i think a lot of the fight back will come over the valuations you know what's to say the house is worth one and a half million pounds and actually no it's not it's worth 1.45 million pounds do you base it just on a crude inflation calculator do you say that a house that was bought for 750 ,000 pounds, you know, 20 years ago is now worth one and a half million pounds, because that's what an inflation calculator spits out.

10:06Georgie Frost: There's going to be a lot of fight back over this. And I don't know what it's going to do to house prices either. Because if you are someone that's ever tried to sell a house over one and a half million pounds or two million pounds, it takes a certain kind of buyer, you know, these property stay on the market typically longer than any other property site. And it takes a chain of buyers on the whole to make this move happen. And people that are selling a kind of third or fourth home in the ladder are looking for homes that are potentially£1.5 million plus because they've outgrown whatever house they're in.

10:37Georgie Frost: It might put them off, and we don't know what damage that might do further down the line. And you might be listening to this saying, actually, I really back this move. You think this is a good move. You think the people that are in£1.5 million houses or tiny violin time, you can afford to fork out £2 ,500 extra every year, or you can afford to fork out£7 ,500 extra every year. For me, I wholeheartedly disagree with it. And whether or not Labour win a next general election, it might not even be around for that long. Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a sort of tax that ends up getting canned.

11:13Georgie Frost: But as I said right at the start, council tax does need some reform.

11:16Lee Boyce: I was going to say, I do hope, Lee, that even if this is scrapped, and we're all entitled to our opinions on this as to whether we think it's a good idea, but even if this is scrapped, I really do hope that they look at council tax because 1991 is a long time ago.

11:29Georgie Frost: Yeah, you're right. And it needs to be done in a fair way. But a lot of the kind of other talk about how council tax is performed is about having a council tax bill on a certain percentage of your house value. But once again, I find it really hard to how you come up with an accurate house price value. I mean, it swings wildly. You only have to get three to five estate agents come around to your house to try and list it. you'll get three to five different price points you know it's incredibly hard to say it's worth this and actually the adage i would say here is you can list any old crap on ebay for any old price only if you sell it for that price is it worth that much you know you can go and list an old t-shirt or an ebay for five thousand pounds it does not mean that old t-shirt is worth five thousand pounds it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it and that's where i think a lot of this falls down.

12:19Lee Boyce: Is there anything Lee that people can do about it? I know look like you said this may not come in and even if it does it's April 2028. You had a story on your website about how people were converting parts of their gardens. I don't know if it was to avoid this but I mean that might be an idea.

12:33Georgie Frost: Well there is a couple of things that you can do so I would work on the basis that this tax is coming in. You know it was announced by Rachel Reeves as coming in in April 2028. The new bit of news is that it might be that the threshold is going to be reduced if Andy burnham does become prime minister what you can do and something that i think is really hard for people and i kind of i don't know how i wouldn't really recommend it but it is trying to devalue your home right to get under the threshold so sell a chunk of your garden is probably going to devalue your home right no i'm not saying neglect your home but what's to say if you've got someone coming over from a valuation department you've let a few weeds grow out the front and you've kind of you make it not in its most attractive light it's that when you try and sell a house you want to make it as attractive as possible.

13:16Georgie Frost: It's like if you get a value over, you want to make it as unattractive as possible. The other thing to consider is downsizing. But unfortunately, I think a lot of people are trying to do that in this current market. And the issue is trying to find a buyer for a house of this value in a market in which people are going to be worrying about having to pay extra tax charges on top of their council tax. And let's face it, council tax in the last decade has arisen astronomically, local services, you could argue, probably haven't improved. I mean, if it hasn't improved in your area, please do let me know.

13:52Georgie Frost: But, you know, on the whole, I would argue that services haven't got much better. Council tax has gone up. Everything feels a bit doom and gloom in that front.

14:01Lee Boyce: Yeah, right. Well, we're just going to continue that theme because if you were thinking of maybe, I don't know, converting part of your house or part of your garden, the problem, Lee Boyce, is the attack of the cowboy builder slash trades people appears to be back. There are some astounding figures from Citizens Advice on your website here that nearly 5 million households have been left suffering the consequences of shoddy home repair work over the last 18 months. Now, Citizens Advice say millions are left to fend for themselves in a home repairs market with little effective oversight. The charity said home repairs generated nearly 37 ,000 complaints to its consumer service last year, with problems including households living with unfinished or unsafe work and disputes with traders.

14:50Lee Boyce: 37 ,000 complaints. I imagine that's sort of the tip of the iceberg because a lot of people probably wouldn't think to contact Citizens Advice over shoddy repairs. But what on earth is going on here?

15:01Georgie Frost: I should start here by saying that there are, you know, absolutely thousands of brilliant tradespeople that are, you know, almost a backbone of this country. And if something goes wrong in your house, you want someone trusted to come and do the repair work, whether that's a plumber or it's a carpenter or whoever it may be. There are plenty of good eggs out there. And actually, a lot of the time, the good eggs are found through word of mouth. And actually, you know, that can be a good route to go through. But sometimes if you're desperate or what happens is the really good tradespeople are booked up for a very long time and people get impatient.

15:35Georgie Frost: So they want something done quick. And sometimes you end up not cutting corners, but you might not do as much due diligence or you might literally just like take it off a Facebook group. Or you might look on one of the kind of like tradespeople websites and look at the ratings, which is not a bad thing to do in the first place. But there are bad eggs. I was really shocked by the figures in the Citizens Advice story. It said that of that 4.8 million, 1.7 million households had to fork out more money to fix earlier work or overcharge and lost an average of 750 quid. For one in 10, extra costs were more than five grand.

16:12Georgie Frost: Third, homeowners said problems with home repairs made them feel stressed. One in 10 said they made them feel unsafe. Now, we should point out in these Citizens Advice data, it has been extrapolated. So it's really hard to put a precise figure on it. But they've really sounded the alarm over this. And some of the areas in which they're really pointing out where people are ending up with shoddy work includes energy efficiency improvements, room renovations, installation and external walls and roofing projects. External walls and roofing projects, if something goes wrong in one of those kind of areas, you are talking about big bills.

16:49Georgie Frost: And what citizens of voice have pointed out here as well, and this is something I've thought about for many, many years, is it's actually there isn't much oversight. There isn't much of a regulatory body that looks at an area that's actually quite a key consumer area. It found more than four and five or 5 ,000 people it surveyed. So they face barriers when trying to resolve a complaint about shoddy home repairs or other related problems. One in five said the process took a long time, 16 % said the trader ignored them, and 15 % said they didn't know how to escalate the issue beyond the trader. At present, the dispute resolution, after complaining to the tradesperson, is totally voluntary, requires the opt-in, limits routes, and makes disputes hard to solve.

17:38Georgie Frost: And he wants the government to review how the home repair sector is regulated, including introducing mandatory licensing and widening access to redress. the charity said a single register for traders would help raise standards across the market and better protect homeowners i think this is quite an important thing it's one of those things that i think we've all probably had it in the past where you do want something done you need something done and trying to find someone you trust it's it can be the wild west it really can be the wild west and while we're in an era of way more information at our fingertips than ever before in terms of reviews and all of that kind of thing reviews can be manipulated you can't just trust absolutely everything verbatim that you are reading but as i said right at the start of this segment there are a lot of good trades people out there that work incredibly hard word of mouth from someone that you really trust can be crucial take your time don't be rushed i mean obviously that's quite simple advice and especially simple advice when you have something that urgently needs repairing and when you are in a panic, you can end up, I think, making problems even worse by picking the wrong person to do the repair work.

18:50Lee Boyce: Yeah, I agree with you about the trades people. I come from a family of carpenters and plasterers. I tell you what, they do come in handy. Right, NS &I, National Savings and Investment Bosses, apparently in panic mode, according to your savings expert, Sylvia Morris. It needs to draw in a near record£15 billion from savers this financial year, plus or minus four billion either side of that. But the Treasury Bank is running far behind that target, which I imagine is fairly good news for rates. So what are the best deals currently on offer from NS &I and which are the duds that you should avoid?

19:27Lee Boyce: Lee, just firstly, if you wouldn't mind, remind us how NS &I works. What's this sort of concept of it needs to draw in money from savers?

19:35Georgie Frost: It's quite simple really. It offers rates that typically aren't best buyers but are close to the top to attract money and when they need to attract the money. The money is effectively lent to the government and in return the government gives you a return on your investment and that's how it works. It's quite simple really and what happens is that every financial year National Savings Investments has a target from the government of how much money wants to rake in and they kind of adjust rates accordingly because what happens is if nsni launches a best buy product or premium bonds go higher than an easy access rate all of a sudden it will get a lot of cash now why nsni bosses are in a little bit of a panic is that they need to draw in a near record 15 billion pounds from savers this financial year plus or minus 4 billion each side so 11 billion is the bare minimum the treasury back bank is running far behind that target just 352 million pound flowed in during the first two months of the financial year compared with 1.4 billion in the previous two months and that's according to bank of england figures so it's got a huge sum to pull in only nine months to do it it's very likely that rates will remain higher at nsni as it looks to fill the coffers and actually quite a really unusual move nsni has raised the rates on all accounts it offers since the 1st of april even though the bank of england beta rate has been frozen at 3.75 and we've had all of the mad stuff that's gone on in financial markets after the conflict and around kicked off but not all nsni products are equal and i should point out this story that um i did actually edit the story and was very much behind and involved in creating this story for the paper this week and actually the number one nsni product you're probably not going to be surprised to hear this is premium bonds they were the prize rate's gone up from 3.3 to 3.8 from this month it's the underlying rate it's average luck so you're not necessarily going to get a return on your money and that's where the problem lie and lots of the big prizes are snaffled up by people with big holdings you can put up to 50 000 pounds in them there's two one million pound prizes every month and quite a few hundred extra 100 000 50 000 prizes from this month people that are involved in and love the thrill of the tax-free prizes and you know the hope of scooping that million pound win but rates not guaranteed for that reason you might prefer an easy access account but the chance to win big does make them a very attractive proposition and as i always say they make up a little bit of my portfolio of savings and investments because i quite like the thrill of each month having a look to see whether or not have made it and it's not like the lottery you can withdraw your money at any time and it'll be back in your account within a couple of days and i think that's why they remain popular and with a rate boost i would have thought more money is going to flow into that other products that nsi offer that are fairly decent it's increased the rate it pays on its fixed rate guaranteed growth and guaranteed income bonds twice since april the income version is popular with pensions as they pay monthly interest out when it's guaranteed growth bonds is the fixed rate nsi pays 4.69 9 % for a year, 4.67 on two years, 4.65 on three years, and 4.55 % for five years, which has flipped everything on the head again, because usually you would be offered more interest over a longer period of time.

22:59Georgie Frost: But it's completely flipped the rulebook on the head the last couple of years. And actually, you will get more interest for fixing for a year. That one year fixing at the top of the Best Buy tables, there's only a handful of providers offer 4.7 % or more. So, you know that does look good the guaranteed income bonds pay a little bit less than that for the privilege of getting paid out of the monthly interest 4.6 4.58 4.56 and 4.46 on those all of those terms um that i just mentioned the other product that's actually pretty good junior isa it's got a 3.7 percent rate i actually think if you're in the market for a cash junior isa i pick ennis and i i mean for anywhere else there's a few smaller building societies that offer 3.8 and 3.75 but i think that having a junior isa and especially if you are tucking away money for your children is quite a good home because you can get relatives to pay into it and whatnot and it's it's a good one to have now as i said not all sni products are equal some of them are definitely not worth having it's adult isa direct isa pays 3.8 but you can get far higher elsewhere including the 4.51 % from Trading212 that you mentioned at the top of the show.

24:09Georgie Frost: Also, NS &I ISAs aren't flexible, so if you take your money out, you can't replace it. And it's the same for its direct savers, so its basic easy access accounts paying 3.45%. There's loads of easy access accounts paying more than 4%, so avoid it. Now, the one that we always highlight as to dump, and actually there's a surprising amount of people in this account, so check with your relatives, especially your parents and grandparents, is NSNI's investment account. For whatever reason, I've never quite understood why it's called an investment account. It's essentially an easy access postal account that pays 2.05%.

24:45Georgie Frost: That has actually had its rate boosted. So you can see how poor it's been over the last couple of years. It's a real dud account that lots of people are just in without kind of realizing it, I think. So I would definitely be auditing your parents and grandparents to make sure they're not in that awful account.

25:02Lee Boyce: Thank you, Lee, for that roundup. And I've no doubt that when it comes to savings and NS &I, your fingers are all over those articles, Lee. Anyway, finally, relaxing in an airport lounge can be a nice way to start your summer holiday in style. Although, I don't know about you, Lee, every time I seem to go to an airport lounge, it's full of screaming kids, it's packed. My God, I was in Toronto Pearson Airport the other day. there were people sat on the floor outside. I was like, what is going on here? And they're like, oh, it's busy. The lounge is full. So people just sat on the floor around. I thought, this doesn't look very glam, does it?

25:39Lee Boyce: But be that as it may, I understand some airport lounges can be very relaxing. And if nothing else, the booze generally is free. And you can have a nice glass of some sort of champagne, potentially, that can dull out the sound of screaming children. Anyway, what if you can't? I digress, Lee. I was just there thinking about the food as well. You posh sod, Georgie. You posh sod. But it is a bit like school dinners, isn't it? Anyway, be that as it may, if you can't afford the business class flight, how can you get access to an airport lounge, Lee? Is it even possible?

26:15Georgie Frost: Oh, Georgie, when you attend that, sorry, I forgot almost a similar town. last October we were flying from Heathrow Terminal 5 and I had a couple of priority passes through a credit card that I opened which I'll talk about in a minute the queue to get into the lounge was absolutely astronomical I had to put my name down on the list and then get a text message I mean that's hardly salubrious kind of like stress-free travel before you're back to jet off and finally got access to the lounge and it was the the sun was just piercing through these windows and it was crazy busy really narrow lounge food was not very good the service wasn't particularly great and I thought you know what I'd rather just go Wetherspoons and go and have a pint in there or just sit on a bench with a book and just like wait for the flight I'm not convinced but let's talk about this in a proper fashion though because I think what you have to think about is you've got airport lounges and you've got airline lounges the two things are quite different and what's happened in recent years is that more people have cottoned on to getting into an airport lounge or want to go into an airport lounge because they want to enhance their experience yeah they're going on holiday and you can pay a one-off to get into some of these airport lounges right so the airport lounges you can pay usually around about 50 quid to get in sometimes you pay about 40 quid if you book online before you go and like i did i got four passes because i signed up for the american express preferred rewards gold card which is free for the first year then you pay 195 pounds the reason why i opened that card is because i use it for collecting avios there was an avios member bonus which you can then use to put towards flights you have to be really careful with the card though because it comes with an 85.8 apr on it you have to pay that card off in full every month if you're someone that's not going to pay that card off in full every month never open that account because absolutely any aviops that you're going to collect or any lounge passes you're ever going to get are going to be wiped off by one month of interest if you forget to pay the bill so you have to ensure that but what that gets you is access to some airport lounges at various airports it gets you into this priority pass but you've got a priority pass and you've got dragon pass what they offer is hundreds of lounges run by creators worldwide priority pass is what i've got through my american express the standard plan costs 69 pounds a year but you'll need to pay 24 pounds for each lounge visit standard plus is 229 pounds a year including 10 lounge visits with subsequent 24 quid each so if you're a frequent flyer that might work out for you and then it has the prestige plan which costs 419 pounds a year for unlimited lounge visits you need to go and see where you're flying from the terminal you're flying from the airport you're flying from and whether it's actually worth it and some of these lounges they have pretty poor reviews they are full of screaming children for want of word and actually i've taken my children into lounges a fair few times they are screaming but you know they're not all built equal now airline lounges are where you really want to go because they are more flagship they are reserved for the passengers traveling in first or business class or elite frequent fly status they're usually a bit more luxury a bit more premium i've been in a few in recent years i was at the virgin lounge at the start of the year uh heathrow very very nice ba1 for a honeymoon uh back before pandemic again very nice and i've been into the emirates uh one at dubai a couple of times which is like a whole floor it's almost like his own terminal far more impressive than the ones you can pay for um or you get the priority pass for through a credit card they've got spa treatments sleeping pods workspaces they're very hard to blag into though if you book an economy flight and you try and turn up an airline lounge they're dang gonna let you in um you're not going to be able to talk your way into it you need to be a frequent flyer or you need to be in a very good seat you need to be paying extra basis get into it but reese jones a travel website head for points i love head for points by the way it's a very very good website we've got a long standing kind of relationship with head for points uh rob burgess who's the founder of it i've met numerous times that he knows absolutely everything there is to know about avios uh reward cards and um lounges and all of that kind of thing now reese jones from head for points said you can't buy a pass to get into ba lounges for example but the simplest way to gain access is to upgrade from economy or premium economy to business class before departure using cash or avios points so for example using avios for an economy flight to paris cost 10 000 points plus one pound but club europe class cost 16 500 avios plus 15 pounds so what he says the difference is just 6 500 avios plus 14 pounds one way by the wait, six and a half thousand Avios is not too complicated.

31:18Georgie Frost: It's not like going to cost you lots and lots and lots. I get one Avios for every pound spent on my American Express card. I do all my regular spending on my American Express card, then pay off the bill, crucially pay off the bill. For that you get lounge access, but also additional checked luggage, dedicated check-in desk, fast track security, priority boarding, a seat at the front of the plane with an empty seat next to you, and a meal with complimentary alcohol including champagne so it can be well worth doing it that is probably the best and cheapest and easiest way to get yourself into one of the more salubrious airline lounges which are built completely different to airport lounges he actually recommends the amex gold card the one that i was talking about currently if you qualify for it you'll get 20 000 bonus obvious points by spending three grand in the first three months and you have to be aware of the 195 pound annual fee that comes in from year two you get four free airport lounge passes but not access to the airline specific ones but look if you're someone that's been in a airline or an airport lounge you've enjoyed the experience do let us know i'm over it i i'm quite over it i'm not that i'm not that fast my wife and i are quite different my wife likes to get to the airport i don't know why hours and hours before the flight she just likes to peruse the shops and sort of sip a champagne at a bar and whereas I'm like I'm a very last minute kind of guy I'd rather just get through spend as little time in the airport as possible spend as little money as possible at the airport and get there I am not fussed about anything else and having done airport lounges and having done airline lounges I'm not too fussed about either of them I just don't really think they're all that exciting but you know listen it's it depends I remember very fondly, we took, at the time, our six-month-old on our honeymoon.

33:10Georgie Frost: So we got married in May 2019. And a couple of days later, it was my birthday. And we flew out for our honeymoon, very kindly upgraded to first from the in-laws as our wedding present. And we flew to Mauritius with a six-month, first-class, 12-hour flight. I remember being in that BA lounge. And the staff were fantastic. The drink, the food, everything was absolutely fantastic. and the flight i remember getting on the flight with our now seven year old and people looking at us like oh my god they've turned into first class and they've got a baby i can remember people looking at us like oh they're gonna ruin our total experience totally understand that my wife is the sort of person that gets on the flight and i'll look around at her after about two minutes and she's asleep she did that on the flight first class to mauritius baby also fell asleep i didn't hear a peep out of them for 12 hours and they both just woke up got off the flight and lots of people said i can't believe i can't believe it and and as i say you want to have a look at them depending where you're flying globally wherever you are none of these places are built the same um and as you also will know georgie you know they quite differ from from what they offer some of them are real buffet style food that just not not for me i'd rather as i said i'd rather go and get spoons

34:25Lee Boyce: right they are so different i've been to all sorts of uh of lounges and they are useful if you want to do some work although saying that there's plenty of little pockets and restaurants and little champagne bars and all sorts where you could set your laptop up and do a bit of work so yeah i don't know i'm a woman of the people lee yeah woman of the people anyway lee's tip of the week don't say hello on the phone all right nice okay fine that's my tip of the week that was a

34:56Georgie Frost: really dramatic pause at the end you're just looking at me like what so i would say in the last two years i don't say hello on the phone when i pick up the phone obviously i say hello if it's my wife calling or a friend or family member calling but if it's a unknown number or some spurious looking number i obviously get quite a lot of phone calls being a journalist from different contacts from different prs and whoever and so i quite often will get numbers that i don't recognize and you could say well just don't answer the phone if you don't recognize it but i don't want to miss anything what i do now and have done for quite a long time is just pick up the phone and i say nothing and i would say that probably one in three of those calls are automated bots and what worries me is if you say hello they know that you're a number that's actually active and you might end up on a Sunday and then forever getting phone calls from scammers and or in a time of not so worried about this because I'm on a podcast for heaven's sake but you say hello, someone might record that, take your voice and use it in future, you know, build up a profile of you, for example.

36:03Georgie Frost: And a lot of us now do have big profiles and things like social media and whatnot. More information about us than ever before is around and out there. So I just don't say hello on the phone, which is quite hilarious sometimes because I'll just swipe green on the call, put the phone to my ear, say nothing, and there'll be a couple of seconds of silence and someone will go, hello? Okay, I know it's someone actually there.

36:25Lee Boyce: Yeah.

36:25Georgie Frost: And it'll be like, there's a couple of second gap. I haven't said hello, and then it'll be like, you are receiving this call because you have caught up in investments. You know, like that. And you're like, you just hang up straight away. And that's my tip of the week.

36:41Lee Boyce: I'm going through my call log. Lee, I don't get called very often by anyone. If I do, it's on WhatsApp. And yeah, that's not really an issue. And if it's a number I don't recognise, I just don't answer it. If they want to get in contact with me, leave a message. I don't answer it. Anyway, that's because I'm an antisocial cow. Right, Lee, that is it. Thank you very much. You can keep up to date with all the latest Breaking Money news. just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. And if you have any comments or questions, team, anything you'd like to look into, Lee?

37:14Georgie Frost: Yeah, email us at podcast at thisismoney.co.uk. You can leave comments in where this podcast article lives. And you can also leave comments in lots of different platforms where this podcast is published. Do let us know your airport lounge experiences. Let us know your tricks and tips for beating the scammers. Let us know if you've had a dodgy tradesperson or you want to sing the praises of someone who's come and done an absolutely stand-up job. Bob, we'd love to hear from you. We do indeed. Thank you very much for listening.

37:41Lee Boyce: If you like our podcast, why not rate us wherever you found us? It helps other people find us too.