Flash sale: £25 / £50 off flights on Trip.com
Trip.com has a very good flight discount again, for all ex-UK flights. You can check the offer details here.
- Book by February 28th
- Travel by August 31st
- Valid for all flight tickets departing from the UK
- Two promo codes available: £25 off £175 & £50 off £350
- Codes are released in three batches on the 15th, 16th and 23rd
- You need to pay with Mastercard
Trip.com had a few promotions with Virgin Atlantic recently offering a £100 discount, and they went off quickly. This offer is not as strong, but applicable to all flights, so I don’t think they’ll last either. It is not publicised yet (I got an early bird email from Monese), so book before others get in.
London to New York:
London to Luxembourg (business), for those who are doing a BA tier points run:
As you can see, they stack with the in-app £10 discount as well, so you can save up to £60 on one ticket!
Free eSIM with 1GB data roaming
Just saw this deal on hotukdeals, which might be useful to our readers.
It is a promotion run by Better Roaming, a company that provides eSIM service. If you scan the QR code below with your phone, you will be redirected to installing an eSIM:
Once activated, the eSIM comes with a 30-day plan including 1GB data. The package is valid at 148 countries, full list here.
It is a pretty good offer (and most importantly free). If you need more packages, you could consider Airalo as well which I’ve been using extensively in the last two years.
My review of Gritti Palace and St Regis Venice
My friend had an expiring 85K Marriott FNC from the Amex card and we were trying to redeem it together. We sifted through the high-end hotels in Europe and agreed on Venice, as it was easy to get to by flight and we could try out both the St Regis and the Luxury Collection hotels.
Both hotels are near the San Marco Square in the main island. From the Venice airport you could do either 20 minutes by bus (€20) + 30 minutes’ walk, or 80 minutes by boat transfer (€15) + 10 minutes’ walk. There’s no car inside the island, so the last option is “water taxi”, which will set you back €150!
Venice is very pact so hotels tend not to occupy a lot of space. The Gritti Palace hotel, part of the Luxury Collection, has quite a small entrance and you wouldn’t spot it easily.
Gritti Palace has a very long history that dates back the 14th century. It turned into a hotel in the 19th century.
I’ve stayed at my due share of “palaces” in Europe, and I’m still astonished at how beautiful this hotel is, which I guess is from the Venetian school.
The suite night award cleared into a one-bedroom suite.
Their bathroom amenity is from Acqua di Parma, and my friend loves them a lot. He took all of them before the turndown service however the housekeeping didn’t bring in any more supplies, and I couldn’t stop laughing…
It’s my birthday in couple of days and we left note. The hotel has kindly prepared a cake and champagne.
Have a look at the gorgeous restaurant:
Breakfast buffet:
A-la-carte menu:
I was wondering whether the complimentary breakfast covers all items, until I saw the caviar… Food is generally good especially the pastries.
My friend had a spa treatment and here’s a photo:
There’s another restaurant with an outdoor terrace, but probably seasonal and closed during the winter.
The hotel’s concierge is very friendly and professional. When we came back from sightseeing the second day he chased and told us that there’s a free tour to a glass factory, and he could coordinate with the St Regis if necessary. We declined the offer but really appreciated the gesture.
Our next night is at the St Regis, which is closer to San Marco and the port. Its entrance is in a hidden courtyard and very quiet.
In contrast with Gritti Palace it is a very modern hotel. The property was recently renovated and upgraded from the Westin brand – quite a climb up the ladder!
Interestingly I found this sculpture, which is the work of Jaume Plense like the one I saw at At Six.
The hotel has four buildings, however according to the staff they don’t really differ in terms of room types or themes. Our suite night award materialised as a Venetian Suite, which is a suite in one of the lower categories.
It is new and reminiscent of an upscale, expensive apartments. Made aware of my birthday they added some decoration in the bedroom.
Acqua di Parma again – this time my friend left a €5 tip and housekeeping brought two sets of amenities :p
Champagne and cake, but the cake from Gritti Palace is much more delicious.
Restaurant:
Breakfast buffet and menu:
The plates are so delicate and I love them, food quality not so much.
Couple of photos of the gym. Neither hotel has a swimming pool.
If I need to choose between the two I’ll go for Gritti Palace at the drop of a hat, as it’s got much more of a character and the service is also better. We had a coffee at the Aman as well, and I must say I was truly impressed.
Should you get Wechat for exclusive hotel offers?
China is a big and important consumer market for many businesses, and the hospitality sector is no differrent. In fact, all major hotel groups including Hilton, IHG, Marriott and Accor treat Greater China as an individual segment, separate from Asia Pacific.
As a result, they occasionally publish exclusive offers for just members in Greater China. You don’t actually need to be residing in China to participate, but the main hurdle is you can only take part via Wechat.
Wechat was at the beginning an instant messenger similar to Whatsapp. However it’s now grown into a massive one-stop shop where you can make payment, buy takeaways / cinema tickets, and book hotels. Many of these are implemented in the form of “mini programs”, which are apps inside the Wechat app.
The aforementioned exclusive offers are delivered in such mini programs. I just got 200 Hyatt points by clicking a button from Hyatt’s Chinese New Year promotion.
And 200 IHG points last week from a similar offer.
Wechat isn’t very user friendly to non-Chinese speakers though. If I remember correctly you need two existing users to verify your identity when you create a new account. Although the app has multi-language support, those mini programs are available in Chinese only.
There’s one mini program called Badazhou that I love and use a lot. It is a travel agency that’s automated their integration with Virtuoso, IHG Luxury and Lifestyle, Marriott Stars, Hilton Impresario plus many other exclusive hotel programs. Booking such rates has been made so much easier, as you don’t need to email or call anyone for anything.
IHG 8 Night to Diamond offer is back!
A reader has just messaged me about an offer email that he received from IHG.
IHG brought back is fast track to Diamond offer and you can check if you are eligible here.
- Stay by March 24
- Stay 8 paid nights to get Diamond status
- Status is valid through the end of 2024
Another reader managed to sign up successfully although he didn’t receive the email.
It is almost exactly the same offer as last year. Note that however, according to the email your status will only last till the end of this year, which is unusual. Normally the status you earn (no matter how) is valid for the next calendar year too.
IHG Diamond has some solid benefits including free breakfast and room upgrade, and you should consider this offer even if you are an occasional stayer.
My review of Goldair and Skyserv Lounges Athens, and a BA upgrade
After a nice week in Athens I’m setting off to the cold London. I used my Avios for an economy flight, and thanks to my BA status I could still use the fast track facility.
All non-Schengen flights depart from Hall A, and you pass border control first followed by the security check. Massive queue for non-EU passport, but I went through fast track in a breeze!
There are a few lounge options, all next to each other.
Aegean operates their own (Star-Alliance) lounge, and other airlines work with one of the three third-party lounges. British Airways partners with Skyserv, but after having read some reviews I decided to try out the Goldair Handling Lounge instead.
The lounge is a massive hall itself.
It is quite bright. There appears to be an outdoor area but that’s for emergency exit only. Here is the working zone:
And let’s have a look at the food and drinks:
Hot food of the day include:
- Orzo with mushrooms
- Turkish meatballs
- Vegetable soup
- Rice
Desserts look quite tasty.
I’m quite impressed by the fact that they have a dedicated shower & bathroom facility right across the alley. To be honest it looks even fancier than the lounge itself.
As I had enough time, I went for a sneak peek into the Skyserv Lounge as well. They do accept both Priority Pass and Dragonpass too.
A few random pictures:
It’s actually more beautiful than the Goldair – the different tones of blue and wavy decorations make you feel like in the Aegean sea. It is however a lot busier, probably because of its broader range of airline partners.
The buffet area is a quite small selection, with the following hot items:
- Turkish burger
- Veal with peas
- Rice
Having visited both lounges I made my way to the gate. The flight was slightly delayed so I checked BA’s app again to make sure. At this point I noticed a change to my assigned seat – I got upgraded to Club Europe!
It was a pretty full flight, so the upgrade made sense. But in case you didn’t know, the business class setup on intra-Europe flights is laughable – it’s basically exactly the same seat, but with the middle seat blocked.
There are *12* rows of business class on this flight, and I’m seated at row 7. My original seat at the exit row would have been better.
Good news is I’ve got free food and drinks for this four-hour journey. BA’s upgrade strategy is intriguing: I have been upgraded three times (the previous two on long-hauls) as Silver and Bronze, but never once whilst being Gold!
Accor: bonus points with Qatar and great hotel redemption deals
[Qatar Airways]
Accor has had a partnership with Qatar Airways since 2022, which allows Accor elite members to acquire Qatar’s status, as high as Oneworld Emerald, after only one flight. You should consider this fast track offer if you are qualified.
They have also just launched a new offer for account linking:
- Link your Accor and QR accounts by Feb 29th
- Fly once with Qatar Airways by March 31st for 1,000 bonus Avios
- Stay once with Accor by March 31st for 1,000 bonus points
Accor has a similar reciprocal scheme with Flying Blue and Qantas. I think you can switch every 12 months.
[Limitless Experiences]
Similar to Marriott and Hilton, Accor has an auction / redemption platform named Limitless Experiences, where you can exchange or bid for experiences including hotel stays and events.
I’ve being paying attention since I’ve accrued 10k+ points from the All Signature promotion last year, and it seems that they are finally offering something interesting. There are discounted redemptions for hotel stays in Asia, Africa and Middle East.
Here are some examples:
- Japan, Grand Mercure Ise-shima Resort & Spa (half-board) 7,000 points
- Japan, Mercure Kyoto Miyazu Resort & Spa (half-board) 5,000 points
- Abu Dhabi, Fairmont Bab Al Bahr (breakfast) 4,000 points
- Bahrain, Mövenpick Hotel Bahrain (breakfast) 4,400 points
- Qatar, Pullman Doha West Bay (breakfast) 4,000 points
- Kenya, Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club (two nights all-inclusive) 20,000 points
- South Africa, Mercure Hotel Midrand (two-nights breakfast) 2,000 points
They will contact you with further details within 14 days of redemption, and be careful as there are various stay dates requirement. There are many cheap options in South Africa and India – paying only 2,000 points (€40) for two nights is insane.
The Fairmont hotel in Abu Dhabi is also a great bargain, as it can cost as much as €300 on some days in February. You must stay by the end of March though, and it doesn’t work me unfortunately.
In addition there are some other on-property experiences available, such as:
- Dubai, Pullman Dubai Jumeirah Lakes Towers, 30 minutes’ PT – 200 points
- Jordan, Mövenpick Resort & Residences Aqaba, buffer dinner for 2 – 1,500 points
- Jordan, Mövenpick Resort & Spa Tala Bay, underwater discovery – 700 points
- Bahrain, Mövenpick Hotel Bahrain, dinner for 2 – 1,500 points
- Saudia, Mövenpick Hotel Al Khobar, seafood buffer for 2 – 3,000 points
- Maldives, Raffles Maldives, sunken dinner for 2 – 10,000 points
My extraordinary 4.5-hour flight delay with Storm Isha!
After I booked my return flight to LGW from Seville I realised there’s no train from Gatwick on that day (Jan 21st) due to engineering work. I was a bit annoyed, but the whole trip turned out to be much more complicated and dramatic than that!
I have vaguely heard about Storm Isha, and received an email from BA that my flight might be delayed because of it the day before. And it turns out to be the case, as I woke up on the day to a notification that my flight has an estimated delay of 1.5 hours due to late arrival of the aircraft.
It means that we would land at Gatwick at around 8pm, which isn’t too big a deal. The delay goes back and forth during the day though and I keep receiving emails / push notifications from Tripcase / Google. It is quite upsetting, and right before I was going to leave the lounge I saw the estimated arrival changed to 10.30pm. At this point I’ve finally made up my mind to book an overnight stay instead, and Courtyard Gatwick Airport is my choice.
It’s a very full flight, and we waited quite a while before the pushback started. According to the captain there’s some “computer error” following the late arrival which caused further delays.
After we are on the runway, another 30-odd minutes passed but we are not taking off. Passengers are getting noticeably irritated and the captain finally spoke again: Gatwick mistakenly stroke out our flight record, and although they are working hard to resume it, it might take another 1 hour and 40 minutes!
You can only imagine how everyone is feeling on this plane. Fortunately it didn’t take that long before they sorted it out – we took off after about another half an hour, some people applauded, and it’s an uneventful flight for the most part.
Until we got to the UK and started descending, and the very apparent turbulence came into play. It was windy and rainy, but we were approaching the land slowly, but the very second before we touched down they pulled up again. The runway’s condition is to risky for landing.
The aircraft circled for another half an hour and it’s the worst time I’ve ever had on any plane. The plane is visibly swinging all the time and I for the very first time have got motion sick in the sky. I’m sweating a lot and having a stomach ache, but luckily I haven’t eaten anything for almost half a day.
The woman sitting next to me was on Whatsapp and I had to tell her off. I can see some others who are undergoing a worse pain than I am. Fortunately, the second landing attempt is successful, and the nightmare is over.
It was an eventful evening and many flights were affected by the extreme weather conditions just like us. I should count myself very lucky as most of these flights were cancelled or, maybe worse, diverted. One reader @SBS2813J’s London-bound flight was diverted to Paris, followed by a whole night of buses and ferry to Gatwick. He went straight to work from Gatwick!
@X’s Wizz Air flight was diverted to Brussels and then heading back to Milan. Passengers who wished to offload at Brussels must sign a waiver as Wizz Air refused to cover their transport cost from Brussels to London.
It’s almost midnight at Gatwick and many passengers are stranded because of the storm. There’s a big queue in front of the taxi desk, and I got a quote of £50+ on Uber for a half-mile ride to the Courtyard! I’ll walk instead.
Booking the Courtyard is the best decision I’ve made this year so far. I even got an upgrade to the Junior Suite.
It’s a very basic and dated room, but I won’t complain. The hotel is overbooked, and there are a few guests at the front desk who paid but couldn’t get a room. I feel very sorry for them and can only imagine how desperate they must be.
[Compensation]
Well here it is – AirHelp comes to my rescue again! Since my flight is delayed by more than three hours (4 hour and 39 minutes), I’m entitled to a €100 payout from AirHelp Plus no matter what the cause is.
Their help page suggests 26 hours before I receive a confirmation, which is more or less the case.
After uploading the boarding pass and my passport, I received the payment in a couple of days.
I purchased AirHelp Plus Complete in November and now I’ve got the lounge pass, delayed bag compensation and the flight delay compensation – is it lucky or unlucky? The €250 compensation I’ve got more than quintuples what I paid already.
Sadly they devalued AirHelp Plus Complete on January 12th, and you can only register 7 trips per plan year now. It might still make sense, as you’ll get more than the cost back as long as one flight delay or one bag delay happens.
If you are interested, enter our unique promo code AHVERYL8 for 8% discount. Prices of the Essential / Complete plans are reduced to €22.99 / €45.99 respectively.
I submitted my claim to BA as well, in less hope as I know the delay is probably mostly attributed to the weather. To my surprise, BA responded in less than two weeks (much sooner than my previous experiences) with a positive outcome:
The total amount of compensation you’re due is £350.00 as there’s only one passenger included in your claim. We are happy to settle your claim for the expenses. We have managed to investigate your claim for your expenses for which the approved amount is £120.20 for your expenses incurred due to the disruption.
So it’s £350 compensation plus £120.20 for my hotel+train expense. I’m a happy man again!