Buy a Marriott bed or mattress and earn two free nights!
Marriott, or more precisely Shop Marriott has launched an interesting promotion.
The headline says “2 Free Night with Bed Purchase”, whereas here are the terms:
Marriott Bonvoy Members receive two 35,000 point Free Night Awards* with the eligible purchase of a mattress set. Exclusive to Marriott Bonvoy Members purchasing mattress and base sets between August 10th and August 20th for beds that are delivered in Europe. Marriott Bonvoy Number must be entered at checkout. Free Night Awards will be issued up to 4 weeks after mattress delivery.
If I understand correctly, you can buy either a bed or mattress to qualify.
The two free night awards are worth at least $400 so it’s a good rebate. Remember that you can top up as much as 15,000 points, so each free night award can be redeemed at a 50K property.
However they are not an average mattress you see on Ikea or Amazon! The cheapest mattress (British Model – Double) costs €1595 or $1435.
When you’ve accrued 50 or 75 night credits in a year, one annual choice benefit you can pick is $100 off a mattress purchase, which makes the deal much more reasonable. However, I’m not confident that the two offers can stack, although there’s no evidence that suggest otherwise.
BA business London to Greece / Spain / Croatia / Turkey for £106 o/w!
Not sure if it’s a sale or error fare, but British Airways has released some great Club Europe fares from London Gatwick to the Spanish / Greek islands and other destinations. The snag is it’s for one-way only.
To start with, check out BA’s low price finder here, which gives you an idea which destinations are included.
- Dubrovnik £109
- Dalaman £123
- Menorca £100
- Ibiza £118
- Corfu £106
- Kos £118
- Rhodes £113
- Santorini £118
- Sardina £114
- Thessaloniki £111
Destinations include Greece, Spain, Turkey and Croatia, and the available dates are in the last week of October and sometimes the first week of November. The common ground is, these routes are all gonna pause in November which kind of explains the exceptional fare.
Here are a couple of examples via Skyscanner:
Dalaman and the Greek destinations will earn you 80 Tier points, and it’s 40 otherwise.
If you price up a return ticket it’s gonna be much more expensive, so make sure you have an alternative way coming back!
My review of Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower
After one-night in central Barcelona at the Le Meridien hotel, I booked the Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower hotel with my own Hyatt Leverage plan. I received a nice free-night promotion from Hyatt, plus was (for a very short period) upgraded to Globalist due to a loophole…
The hotel is fairly far out by the Hospital de Bellvitge station, last stop of the red metro line. It’s about 30 minutes by metro to the city centre, or 20 minutes to the airport by bus.
The hotel building is quite prominent once you have exited the station, on top of which there’s a huge Hesperia sign that is the owner of the hotel.
The lobby is large and impressive.
Once having confirmed my name and ID, the receptionist lady greeted me with a very warm welcome, and invited the duty manager to have a chat with me. She then gave me a thorough introduction of the hotel facilities, breakfast and the club lounge, while accompanying me to the lift.
My (suite) upgrade experience with Marriott, IHG and Hilton has been pretty poor in Europe. This is the first and maybe only time I’m staying as a Globalist, and they upgraded me to a Regency Suite on the 24th floor. The highest guest floor is the 25th, and there’s a famous(?) rooftop restaurant on the 29th.
As there’s no separate living room, it’s probably more of a junior suite. However the TV-mounting wall segregates the space well, and you definitely won’t find it confined here.
The room has a traditional layout, is well furnished, and there’s no apparent sign of wear and tear. It is surely a very high standard as of hotels in Europe.
The bathroom comes with a small wardrobe as well as a jet tub.
It is the tallest building in the neighbourhood by a good margin so you have a nice view.
You can cast content to the TV via Chromecast or the Hyatt mobile app.
As recommended by the hotel staff, I had my breakfast in the main restaurant.
Here’s the buffet:
Classic Spanish breakfast with a large selection of cured meat. The quality is decent, although I’m a bit disappointed that they don’t offer churros here.
The Hyatt Regency Club is located on the fifth floor, and it is Huge!
As a business hotel they’ve done a good job catering to business clients’ needs. There are four conference rooms in the club lounge.
Fruits, snacks and drinks (including beer and wine) are displayed throughout the day.
Happy Hour is 5pm to 7pm every evening. In addition to salad and cheese etc, there are two hot items offered each day. I had a lot of fried meat balls and beef stew…
Liquor and spirited are also on offer.
Breakfast in the club lounge is a lot simpler, although they make some special dishes here such as the Bao.
Gym is very small and I’m not impressed. The swimming pool is contracted so all guests including Globalists must pay a €10 fee per day, which I didn’t use.
When I was checking out, the receptionist again called for the (general?) manage who was on his way out to have a personal chat with me. He was very attentive and asked if I wanted to bring a couple of bottles of water with me.
I’m truly impressed how well Globalists are treated at Hyatt Hotels. Although they don’t have 4pm guaranteed late check-out which I find very useful, it is better than my Marriott Titanium experience is almost every way. Sadly I was (duly) downgraded back to Explorist shortly after my stay.
Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower is a very solid hotel with great guest rooms and club lounge. The location is inconvenient though, so I only recommend you to stay here on your first or last day utilising its proximity to the airport.
Business class deal: Air Serbia Berlin – Tianjin o/w for €650
Air Serbia launched a new route to Tianjin, China earlier this year, and there’s now a pretty good price for travelling there from Berlin in business class.
You can check the flight price on Air Serbia’s website or via Skyscanner. The flight operates only weekly and you’ll be looking at Thursdays. The sale seems to be wide open in August, September and October.
€653 is a very solid deal for a one-way intercontinental flight in premium cabins. I glanced over the fare rules and it appears to be fully refundable and changeable. Unfortunately you can only credit to Etihad Guest, and the fare bucket C earns you 175% miles.
The fare rules also mention one free stop-over permitted. However when I tried to search multi-city it always came up considerably more expensive. I’m not sure if you can book a one-way flight first and then call up to request a stop-over for free.
Tianjin is one of China’s ports that participate in the 144-hour transit-without-visa program. You don’t need a visa for flying into the city as long as you are continuing to a third country within 144 hours.
Great deal: Lindner hotels now redeemable using Hyatt points
Hyatt acquired Lindner Hotels, a hotel group in Germany a while ago. It looks like they’ve more or less completed the system integration work and Lindner hotels can now be redeemed using Hyatt points.
Here is a list of all the Lindner hotels, as well as me and all which was a sub-brand:
Austria
- Cat 1 / Lindner Hotel Vienna Am Belvedere
Belgium
- Cat 1 / Lindner Hotel Antwerp
Czech Republic
- Cat 1 / Lindner Hotel Prague Castle
Slovakia
- Cat 1 / Lindner Hotel Bratislava
Spain
- Cat 4 / Lindner Hotel Mallorca Portals Nous
Germany
Cat 1
- Lindner Hotel Berlin Ku’damm
- Lindner Hotel Cologne Am Dom
- Lindner Hotel Cologne City Plaza
- Lindner Hotel Dusseldorf Seestern
- Lindner Hotel Frankfurt Hochst
- Lindner Hotel Frankfurt Sportpark
- Lindner Hotel Leverkusen BayArena
- me and all hotel ulm
Cat 2
- Lindner Hotel Frankfurt Main Plaza
- Lindner Hotel Hamburg Am Michel
- Lindner Hotel Hamburg Hagenbeck
- Lindner Hotel Nurburgring Congress
- me and all hotel dusseldorf
- me and all hotel dusseldorf oberkassel
- me and all hotel hanover
- me and all hotel kiel
- me and all hotel mainz
Cat 3
- Lindner Hotel Nurburgring Ferienpark
- Lindner Hotel Nurburgring Motorsport
- Lindner Hotel Oberstaufen Parkhotel
And many of them are already bookable.
As you can see, most of the hotels fall under Category 1 or 2 which makes the deal very attractive, as you can redeem for a reward night for as little as 3,500 points. As a benchmark 1 Hyatt point is worth roughly 1.5p / 2c.
Not all Lindner hotels are showing award availability yet so it’s probably still work in progress. If your travel destination is on the list and you have some Hyatt points to spend you are in luck!
My review of Le Meridien Barcelona
I was close to accepting a job offer finally, and I decided to treat myself to a holiday in Spain! I’m staying three nights in Barcelona before heading to Valencia, and besides the two nights with Hyatt for the Q1 promotion, I’m staying at Le Meridien for one night as well for its more central location.
The hotel acts as a great base to explore Barcelona. It’s near the Universitat metro station, with many shops and restaurants nearby, and you can even walk to the beach.
The receptionist lady is very friendly and professional. She welcomed me warmly, explained all the benefits and hotel facilities, as well as offered me a choice of different rooms.
If I remember correctly they are usually quite generous with room upgrade. Unfortunately there happens to be an international mobile conference going on in the city so they are a bit tight on availability. I chose a Premier Deluxe room on the first floor.
Size-wise Premier Deluxe rooms are identical with the standard Deluxe rooms, but they are more recently refurbished.
The sixth floor and higher appear to be a totally different building. Rooms look much nicer at least from the outside.
The hotel has rooftop terrace, with a (small) pool, jacuzzi and sauna / steam rooms. They are good enough for me.
Breakfast is served in the lobby restaurant.
Spread is decent with quiche and churros!
Lacking a club lounge and a proper swimming pool, Le Meridien Barcelona may not be my first choice of the city. The location is great though, and if I can fare a good upgrade I wouldn’t hesitate to come back.
15% off your Airalo eSIM purchase
I’ve been using Airalo for the past year when travelling abroad, and I’m very content with the product. It’s true that they aren’t as cheap as if your purchase a physical SIM card locally, but being able to sort it out before the trip without moving SIM cards in and out is a deal-breaker for me.
If you are interested in placing an order, Airalo just launched a new promotion with Mastercard. Up until April 30 2023, you can use the promo code MASTERCARD15 for 15% off all your purchases.
In theory it’s a deal for Mastercard users in Asia Pacific, however I don’t think any check is performed.
Nordic Choice summer pass: €595 for 7 hotel nights
If you plan to visit Northern Europe this summer, Nordic Choice has released a new product called Summer Pass which is potentially a great deal.
- Stay dates: June 22 – August 21
- Applies to 90+ hotels in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland
- The pass costs €595 and can be redeemed for 7 hotel nights
- Breakfast included except at Comfort Hotel Express
- You earn stay credit and points at the Nordic Choice scheme
You can check availability and book at this page. Availability seems quite good although some cities have blackout dates. Most of the participating hotels are under the mid-range (3*) Quality and Comfort brands, but there are a few Clarion hotels (4*) in smaller cities.
The pass is very flexible, as in you can spend the 7 nights consecutively at the same hotel or split them across multiple stays. I did some spot checks and many of the hotels usually cost ~€150 a night, so they can be big savings.