Park Hyatt London to open as Category 5?!
In terms of the most anticipated hotels in 2024, Park Hyatt London River Thames has to have one seat. To be honest I find its choice of location a bit odd, but a Park Hyatt is long overdue in London, and I’m curious to see how it pans out.
On their website it is still “opening in late 2024”. When you search for hotels in London, the Park Hyatt is listed already, but not bookable yet.
Shockingly it is suggested as a Category 5 hotel. To put in into context, there are two Category-5 Hyatt Regencies in London, whereas the Churchill, Great Scotland Yard and Andaz are all in Category 6.
It’s hard to believe if Park Hyatt comes out as anything below Category 7. I will definitely watch closely though, and ifs it becomes bookable as Category 5 I need to bag a few nights as soon as possible…
Get instant Diamond status with Sandman / Sutton Place hotels
RSVP Rewards is a Canadian hotel rewards program. Two brands operate under the scheme: Sandman which is midscale and The Sutton Place which is upscale. Outside Canada they run two hotels in Texas and four hotels in the UK: London Gatwick, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
RSVP Rewards have four membership tiers: Red, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. Both Platinum and Diamond tiers have the following benefits:
- Room upgrade
- Early check-in
- Late check-out
- Breakfast box or credit
- Corporate lounge access
The breakfast benefit seems to apply in Canada only. I didn’t figure out what the “corporate lounge” is – I thought it’s like the club lounge at other hotel chains, but couldn’t find any relevant information although I checked quite a few hotels.
RSVP Rewards has a partnership with Visa Canada:
- Visa Infinite cardholders receive instant Platinum status
- Visa Infinite Privilege cardholders receive instant Diamond status
Only cards issued in Canada are eligible. The gifted status seems to be valid as long as the partnership lasts, not just limited to the first year.
On the sign-up page there’s a Check Eligibility button, and you’ll need to verify with the full 16-digit number. A hint for you: both 451504 and 450003 are valid bins, although I don’t know whether they are Privilege cards or not.
If you are based in Canada, or have a plan to visit their hotels in the UK, the status might be useful.
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 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!
Great offer: £100 off any Virgin Atlantic flight
(UPDATE: Virgin’s voucher codes have run out)
Trip.com brought back its very generous Virgin Atlantic promotion, and your can claim your offer code on the promo page.
- Book by January 31st
- Limited supply
- Save £100 on any VS flights departing from the UK
It applies to all cabins, and £100 saving could be substantial for economy / premium economy flights. It also stacks with the permanent £10 app discount so the total saving is £110.
A return flight in economy class from London to New York costs under £270:
And flights to other destinations aren’t much more expensive:
There’s a similar offer for Malaysia Airlines, where you can get £50 off (£60 with the app discount) for bookings by Jan 22nd.
My review of Hotel Indigo Stratford-upon-Avon
I managed to burn my BA companion voucher and Hyatt’s free night voucher eventually, but still struggling to find anywhere decent to redeem my 40K free night voucher from the Chase credit card. It happens that IHG launched a 15%-off sale on reward nights, and the two IHG hotels at Stratford-upon-Avon became an option.
There’s a Crowne Plaza with larger guestrooms, swimming pool and a club lounge. The Hotel Indigo however, is ranked #1 on TripAdvisor and has a marginally better location, so we chose them instead.
The Hotel Indigo is just opposite to Shakespeare’s New Place, and about 10 minutes’ walk from the train station.
It is a Grade-II listed building that started off as a small house in circa 1500, and after centuries of renovation it became a hotel and joined IHG. The timber-framed Tudor architecture is commonly seen in Stratford-upon-Avon and some other English towns.
Entrance of the hotel is at the back, which in contrast is very modern.
The lobby has a very boutique-y style, as you would expect from an Indigo.
The hotel has a small storefront, but it is actually quite big with three buildings. The older Tudor and Georgia buildings have 32 guestrooms, whereas the new building has 61. Premium Room (above standard rooms) can be redeemed at the same cost, and I got one in the new building.
The room’s tone is dominated by blue and yellow, and measures just about 20sqm. The suites are not much bigger either at around 30sqm, but it is not unusual in Europe.
Ceramic tiles in the bathroom are the most shiny that I’ve ever seen and look quite expensive!
To be honest I’m surprised that they manage to squeeze a bathtub in. The bathroom is so small that there’s nowhere to place my washbag.
An Indigo perk: the minibar is completely free, including two bottles of water, two cans of coke, one sparkling wine and one lemonade. Safe to say that I’m drinking (or taking) them all…
A big trouble emerges when we are going to sleep. Soundproofing is terrible as we can hear our neighbour’s TV clearly. We have to phone the front desk to remind them.
Rooms in the new building are prefixed 1 or 2, and the old buildings with 3-7. Personally I prefer the new building – I can’t imagine how bad soundproofing is like in the old building.
Breakfast is complimentary for Diamond members, served at the Feasting Room. You can find all the buffet on one table:
An a-la-carte menu:
The eggs are tasty.
However compact the room is, the hotel has a lot of public space, with quite a few bars and lounges.
And even a private garden:
Regular checkout time is 11am. My late checkout is only extended till 12.30pm, which is understandable on a Saturday. Although soundproofing is a main issue, the hotel is really nice overall and I think it lives up to the #1 ranking on TripAdvisor.
My review of The Grand Hotel Eastbourne
Thanks to a generous promotion from Hyatt, I received a Category-4 free night voucher but it was only valid for 6 months. Hyatt has few properties in the UK. There are a handful of nice SLH properties but reward availability is difficult to find and many of of them are hard to travel to.
My persistence paid out eventually though, as I managed to book The Grand Eastbourne for the August bank holiday. The Grand Eastbourne is, to quote them, the finest 5 Star hotel by the sea in Sussex. I haven’t been to Eastbourne yet so it works out perfectly.
The hotel is 30-seconds’ walk from the beach, right next to the Ferris wheel and easy to find. The hotel is also known as “The White Palace”, and that name does justice. Compared to Brighton I find the urban plan much newer and prettier in Eastbourne.
We arrived at 1pm and the room was not ready yet. The sightseeing bus stop is just in front of the hotel, which brings you to the beautiful coast.
The hotel was purposely built in 1875. It’s maintained very well considering that history, and you barely see wear and tear anywhere.
Upon entering the lobby, there’s the Palm Court Strings restaurant on the left-hand side that serves afternoon tea.
And a lounge bar at the end of the hall.
The receptionist thanked me for being a World of Hyatt member. As it’s a bank holiday I wasn’t expecting any upgrade at all, and it really surprised me when they mentioned an upgrade to the sea-view room. The sea-view however, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt:
As a lowly Explorist I’m not really disappointed.
The room is up to the standard of an old five-star hotel, except for that tiny TV from the last century.
Nespresso machine and tea kettle:
I don’t like the single bed or the stiff mattress so much. The key holder looks classy:
World of Hyatt bookings all come with complimentary breakfast, served at the Garden Restaurant.
The buffet’s spread is quite limited and I don’t praise its quality either. I find the breakfast at UK five-star hotels below average in general.
We ordered the traditional breakfast, porridge and pancake from the menu, which are so-so.
There’s an outdoor swimming pool and it is heated – have to give the hotel some credits for this.
In addition there’s an indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi and steam room.
Gym:
In a word, The Grand Eastbourne is a decent five-star hotel that gives you a resort experience to some extent. If you have a World-of-Hyatt Cat 4 free night certificate to redeem, it is probably one of your best options in the UK.