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Qantas’ impressive A$999 China holiday package
I don’t do flight+hotel package holidays, nor have I ever been to Australia. However, Qantas Holidays has an excellent deal if you want to visit China next year.
You can find details of the China Discovery tour here.
- The all-inclusive price is 999 AUD (£508) per person, based on two sharing a room
- Return flight by Qantas from Australia to China is included
- 8-night 4-star hotel accommodation with breakfast
- English-speaking tour guides
- You visit Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou & Shanghai, whereas Xi’an (terracotta city) can be added for a surcharge
You can travel between March and early June, which in my opinion is the best time to visit China. The majority of the country turns into a hotpot in the summer, so exploring during the spring is much more enjoyable.
The only caveat is, you need to apply for the Chinese visa by yourself, unless your citizenship is one of the handfuls that are exempt. In summary I think it is a very attractive offer, suitable for those who reside in Australia and are interested in visiting China.
Save 20% on your Eurail passes
If you intend to travel (a lot) by train in Europe in the upcoming months, Eurail has launched a 20%-off offer for their rail passes.
It is a promotion targeted at the Asia-Pacific market so you won’t find it on Eurail’s website. However, you can buy them at the discounted price on Klook.
Here are some price examples:
Note that you need to have a non-European passport in order to be able to use Eurail. European citizens and residents should use Interrail instead, which is usually cheaper when there’s no offer like this one around.
My review of The Westin Excelsior Rome
I found myself a ridiculously cheap flight ticket from Rome to Abu Dhabi, and I took this chance to properly visit Rome for the first time. Being a major city in Europe, Rome hasn’t really established a massive portfolio of good hotels. Waldorf Astoria is maybe the only one that comes up in my mind, but it is quite far out of the city.
I booked the Westin in the end, which like many other hotels are situated in the Borghese Park area. It looks very close to the Spanish Steps, but the roads here are very hilly and crooked and it’s not as easy to walk around.
I arrived into the Rome Central station via Leonardo Express from the airport, and then it took me 15 minutes to walk to the hotel. The hotel has definitely seen better days, but it’s not as worn as I had feared.
I received a one-level upgrade to a Grand Deluxe room, which measures 40 square metres.
Premium wi-fi is chargeable, but waived for Platinum members upon check-out.
I chose breakfast as my welcome amenity.
There’s a swimming pool in the basement.
There’s an ice cream shop across the street called Neve di Latte that I highly recommend – I truly enjoyed my massive four scoops for only €5!
I wasn’t aware of the hotel’s atrocious 7.2 rating on booking.com until after I have completed my stay, but honestly speaking it doesn’t feel that awful. InterContinental Rome has opened its door recently, and I might try it out next time.
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.
Additional 50% off on Amazon Warehouse products!
Amazon Warehouse is a platform of great deals if you don’t mind second-hand items. They’ve run occasional 20% – 30% off sales from time to time, and it seems that they’ve launched another even better one secretly.
The offer is well hidden and requires some digging.
- Visit Amazon Warehouse‘s page
- Pick a department of interest from the list on the left, e.g. Home & Kitchen
- Apply the filter Deals & Discounts / All Discounts
It will then only show you products on which the additional discount applies. You’ll see the reduced price when you check out:
Enjoy shopping!
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.