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Impressive deal: 1088 HKD for Accor Plus membership and a free night!
You probably know Accor, but not Accor Plus unless you live in Asia Pacific. Accor Plus is a paid membership that targets specific countries in that region which offers dining discount amongst other benefits.
Accor Plus Hong Kong is running an impressive deal, probably as a double-eleven promotion but it’s unclear when it ends. If you are interested, purchase the Explorer package that costs 1088 HKD (~£117 or $139) as it includes one complimentary night at participating hotels.
(UPDATE: Accor Plus Malaysia sells a membership that includes two complimentary nights for 1090 MYR / £199 / $235)
You may redeem the free night at almost all hotels in Asia Pacific, including the aspirational properties such as Sofitel Legend Hanoi and Fairmont Singapore. Availability may not be great though, and unfortunately it’s impossible to check unless you have an active membership.
The Accor Plus membership is valid for one year at countries such as Australia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. Personally I think its most valuable benefits are:
- Red Hot Rooms: hotels on sale could offer up to 50% off, exclusive to Accor Plus members
- Dining Discount: one-person-free when dining at participating restaurants, or 25%-off if it’s a one person only. It works best for two people as it’s essentially half-price
You also get free Accor Silver status but it’s not really useful. If you plan to visit Asia in the next 12 months I think you should seriously consider signing up.
You need a Hong Kong address to sign up, however as you only need an electronic membership card I don’t think that’s a blocker.
Save 50% off your restaurant bill with TheFork
You probably have heard of or even used OpenTable and SquareMeal, which are famous online restaurant booking platforms. One of their competitors just came into my attention recently, and they are running a very good promotion which covers London and other UK cities.
TheFork, backed by TripAdvisor, is a restaurant reservation platform that was founded in Australia but now supports dozens of countries in Europe and Americas. It works in a very similar way to OpenTable.
They are now running an event called TheFork Festival that ends on November 27th. Participating restaurants may offer up to 50% off your food bill!
Some of the names in London are:
- Hard Rock Cafe Oxford Street
- Clermont Charing Cross
- Harrods Social
- Podium Restaurant at London Hilton Park Lane
- Sushi Salsa (Japanese)
- Happy Lamb Bayswater (Chinese)
- Sticky Mango (Malaysian)
Some popular venues may have very limited 50%-off slots and offer 20%-off or 30%-off instead, but more availability could turn up closing in. I made a 50%-off reservation myself and the saving was impressive!
TheFork also runs a loyalty program where you collect yums by making reservations and they can be redeemed against your future bills at select restaurants. If you use my referral code 83720151 on your first booking you’ll earn 1,000 yums which is worth £20.
My review of Plaza Premium Lounge, London Heathrow T4 (Departure)
When travelling from Heathrow, most of the time my flight would depart from T5 or T3, so I haven’t been to T4 or T2 that often at all. Due to their close ties with Etihad Airways, Air Serbia operates at Terminal 4 which gives me a chance to refresh my memories before my flight to Belgrade.
Air Serbia business class passengers and Etihad Guest elite members are invited to relax in the Plaza Premium Lounge before taking off. T4 also has a very good Plaza Premium Arrival Lounge – I didn’t have the time to revisit it but will try to review next time.
The entrance is right by the Qatar Airways Lounge.
I’ve been to the Skyteam Lounge a long time ago when travelling on Air France. It was in the Priority Pass network, closed during the pandemic and then permanently. Strangely enough but It means that Skyteam no longer has a lounge at London Heathrow.
Plaza Premium also terminated their cooperation with Priority Pass recently, but you get still get in with Amex Platinum or Dragonpass.
I arrived at around 12pm and the lounge is really quiet.
It’s got a lot of space, and different areas are carefully curated. Plaza Premium Group is headquartered in Hong Kong and there are definitely some Asian influences in their interior design, for example the orchids.
These semi-private booths remind me of my overnight stay at the Plaza Premium Lounge at HKG…
The buffet area looks like an open-plan kitchen, but it isn’t.
The following hot food options are available:
- Penne pasta with broccoli pesto sauce
- Chicken tikka masala
- Chickpea sweet potato and pepper tagine
- Carrot coriander soup
- Steamed rice
- Peach crumble
I had some chicken tikka masala and pasta and they were really good.
There is a bar on the other side of the lounge but at that time it doesn’t seem to be manned.
As an Air Serbia guest I can order one premium drink for free.
As always I’m very satisfied by this Plaza Premium lounge, although my complaint would be the bar doesn’t get any natural light and isn’t as live as its T5 sibling. I definitely think it’s a better hard product than the Skyteam Lounge, and would also like to check out the Qatar Airways Lounge some day.
My review of Bankside Hotel, Autograph Collection
My Amex Marriott card has a nice Spend £250 Get £100 back offer for booking Marriott hotels, so I’m ready to try out another new Marriott hotel in London. I need to be near the Shard for dinner (burning my expiring Shangri-La voucher), so the Bankside Hotel stands out.
The hotel is roughly 8 minutes from either the Blackfriars or the Southwark tube station. The south bank is perfect for walking along the Thames and exploring the likes of Tate Modern, Tower Bridge and London Eye, but not as convenient in terms of public transport.
The hotel is new and chic.
Titanium members get 1,000 points as a welcome amenity, and can choose between breakfast and an £8 F&B voucher in addition.
All guest floors feature a vending machine, plus a refill station with both still and sparkling water.
I received a one-level upgrade to an Ample room, which isn’t particularly generous. I submitted my suite night award for the largest suite, but it was unfortunately declined.
The room is pretty smart.
Popcorns, bottled water and a small chocolate bar are complimentary. There’s also a small plate of deserts as my welcome gift.
Breakfast is served in the restaurant on the ground floor.
The buffet is good.
You can pay a £5 supplement for the a-la-carte items, which is a fair price.
I like the hotel and its location. However, being a boutique hotel it has no gym, pool or club lounge. If those are important you should probably consider the Hilton instead.
Earn £5 voucher for using Amazon Pay
Amazon Pay is Amazon’s payment product which is similar to Paypal, Google Pay or Apple Pay. To encourage its acceptance, Amazon has started a new initiative for customers to try it out. I noticed the following banner on Amazon’s homepage:
Which brings me to this offer page. Unlike other Amazon offers, the page doesn’t seem to indicate whether one is eligible for the promotion or not.
If you are eligible, pay at least £10 via Amazon Pay by November 25th and a £5 Amazon voucher will be deposited into your account, which can be redeemed against a purchase of £25 or more. Act fast as it’s open to the first 2,500 customers only.
You can find all merchants supporting Amazon Pay on this page. The list isn’t very long, and some of the better known names are All Saints, Trespass, Dyson, Feel Unique, Hotel Chocolat and National Express.
Other Amazon offers:
- £10 off your first Amazon App purchase
- £20 off your first Amazon Fresh and Morrisons order
- Get £10 Amazon voucher for using its Photos app
- £4 off your next Amazon pickup order
- £5 Amazon bonus when topping up £60
- £5 Free Voucher for Streaming Amazon Music
- £5 Free Voucher for Streaming Amazon Podcast
- Earn £5 voucher for using Amazon Pay
- Free £5 Amazon voucher to claim
- £5 voucher for watching Amazon Prime Video
- £5 reward for creating an Amazon wish list
- £15 free money to spend at Amazon Fresh stores
- Amazon Warehouse £5 free voucher
10% off train and bus tickets with Uber Travel
Uber launched a railway ticket booking service in partnership with Omio a couple of months ago. The platform has now expanded to include National Express too, with a nice cashback promotion.
You can access the service via the Travel section in the Uber app.
It works just like any other online ticket retailers. You can apply a railcard and purchase any ticket type including Advance. You can book National Express and Eurostar too (as it’s backed by Omio).
By the end of this year, you earn 10% cashback in Uber credit for all your bookings. The cashback is deposited into your account within 10 days of the completion of your travel, and is valid for 180 days.
I made a dummy booking, and it turns out you can redeem your credit on Uber Travel like for rides and takeaways. If you’ve bought discounted Uber gift cards (e.g. via Morrisons or Monese offers), buying train tickets on Uber Travel saves you up to an additional 30%!
Hilton: double night credit offer, 30% Amex UK conversion bonus
In addition to its double points global offer, Hilton has launched another double night credit promotion which makes it easier to attain elite status and potentially earn even more bonus points.
- Stay between October 11 and December 31
- Earn double elite night credit for all stays
- It counts towards Milestone Bonuses and Rollover Nights too
As usual, both paid and award nights can trigger the bonus. Existing bookings prior to registration count too, so there’s no need to cancel and rebook.
Your check-in / check-out date doesn’t matter, but only nights falling into the promotion period earn bonuses. For example, if you check in on October 9 and check out on October 12, only the last night is eligible.
It’s a nice gesture to make them count towards Milestone Bonuses, which means if you are approaching or above 40 nights, you earn 10,000 bonus points for every 5 nights stayed, on top of all the other promotions.
Last but not least, although not 100% official, multiple people received confirmation from CS that the bonus counts towards Diamond Challenge too – which means you only need six nights for the Diamond status.
Meanwhile Amex UK started a conversion bonus recently which has totally gone under the radar. You get a 30% bonus when converting Membership Reward points to Hilton by November 3, which means 1 MR point = 2.6 Hilton points.
In my opinion it’s still not a great ratio, but if you need some Hilton points right now or you’ve been saving up for a Maldives trip, it could work out in your favour.
My review of Plaza Premium Edinburgh
My three-day trip to Edinburgh comes to and end. I researched my options going back to London, and flying back (redeeming Avios on BA) was the better of the two.
I’ve been to Edinburgh quite a few times, but somehow never visited the BA or Aspire Lounge yet. This time however, Plaza Premium just opened a new site in August, and I’d love to give it a try first considering how great their lounges usually are.
The lounge is located near gate 13, which is a fair bit of walk after the security checkpoints. When you are upstairs, the Aspire and Plaza Premium lounges are here side by side. The main complimentary ways of getting access to Plaza Premium lounges are via Amex Platinum and Dragonpass.
Upon entering, there is a VIP Room to the left which is reservation only.
The Gin Bar is what makes the lounge stand out. You don’t usually see non-airline lounges that feature a bar, not to mention and proper and very stylish one.
I didn’t order anything, but I assume beers and wines are free whereas spirits and cocktails are chargeable.
The entertainment room is another highlight. With foosball, shuffleboard, animation and kids’ toys, there literally is something for everyone.
The dining area with a few tables.
Four hot food options on the day:
- Chicken tikka masala
- Broccoli pasta
- Fish and chips
- Leek and potato soup
Plaza Premium can always pride themselves on food offering – I always prefer them to BA’s Galleries First when visiting Heathrow T5.
As I said the lounge is very new, and the staff doesn’t know how to credit the visit on my Smart Traveller app yet so a small loss for me. Nonetheless I’m genuinely impressed by the lounge’s standard, and highly recommend you to visit if having the chance.