LNER Perks, save on your train ticket bookings
If you travel between London / North England / Scotland often, you should probably join LNER’s new rewards scheme – Perks.
Perks membership is available via LNER’s mobile app.
- You are gifted £5 credit upon sign-up
- You can earn 2% back in credit for each LNER (part of full) journey taken
- Credit can be used towards LNER advance ticket purchase
Interestingly, you don’t need to book via LNER to earn the 2% credit. For third-party bookings you can upload your ticket within the last 7 days in the app to claim the credit. You can also earn credit on LNER season tickets but only if you book with them directly.
Even if you only travel on LNER once, it may be worth downloading their app for the £5 saving. I decided to give them a try for an upcoming trip and noticed that they’ve got something called Smart Save:
It’s basically Split Ticketing, but as LNER is doing it directly I assume it’s executed better than other retailer platforms. And in this case, Smart Save stacked with the £5 credit did save me a decent amount!
My review of Kimpton Glasgow Blythswood Square
When the lockdown was over(-ish) in Scotland and Wales, I couldn’t wait to get out of London and have a change of scenary in Glasgow!
There are a few hotels to pick from in Glasgow, and Kimpton Blythswood Square appears to be the outstanding choice, seeing its eye-watering high rate! Thanks to the Ambassador BOGOF voucher that’s still sitting in my IHG account, I paid half price for the two-night stay, which drags the rate down to the level of the Marriott, Hilton and Crowne Plaza.
The hotel is conveniently located in the city centre, only five-minute’s walk away from the busiest areas, although admittedly the streets can be quite hilly sometimes.
The hotel has a very classy interior design. Compare to Kimpton Edinburgh, the hotel reminds me of the Principal York more due to it being larger, although my stay at the latter was a real disaster.
As a Spire elite member, I’m upgraded to a Deluxe Room with Garden view, which is the best non-suite room category of the hotel. Not a bad result for IHG, as they are usually less generous compared to Marriott or Hilton.
Measuring 40 sqm the room is quite spacious, but apparently worn in many parts.
I like the big bath tub.
Two bottles of water and shortbread as a welcome gift:
Nice view of the Blythswood Garden from my room. Unfortunately it’s a private garden and you can’t get in.
Hotel guests can book the hotel’s spa (“thermal experience”) for free either via the website or front desk. So far it is the BEST spa I’ve ever experienced in Europe. My phone’s camera is too bad for this so here are some stock photos from the hotel’s website:
Sauna and steam rooms are still closed due to restrictions. The Jacuzzi is amazing though:
Breakfast is £14 pp and I didn’t go for it.
Although a bit dated, the hotel is still pretty decent and I don’t doubt it being the best accommodation option in the city of Glasgow. Try to come here on a weekday though, as weekend rates are very expensive and it may be hard to get a spa slot when the occupancy is high.
Amex retention bonus is back!
For those who are not familiar with the idea, if you call American Express’s customer service and “threaten” to cancel, sometimes they offer a retention bonus of points to keep you as a customer.
Given its ghastly annual fee, Amex tends to be quite generous to Platinum cardholders and has been offering up to 50,000 bonus points in the last year to persuade you to stay. I asked and got one last May, but being an early bird I didn’t get the biggest worm, as only 15,000 points was offered at that point.
Since a year has passed I tried again today, and after a couple of minutes of chitchat I cheekily asked if there’s any retention bonus in the system. The happy chap had a look at the computer and bang, I got 35,000 points!
That’s not a bad result. If you have an Amex Platinum card, you probably should try your luck as well.
IHG UK midnight checkout promotion
IHG is running an interesting yet unusual promotion in the UK, which could be useful if you need extended late checkout for a stay in the next couple of weeks.
You can see the offer here. Simply make a note when you book on IHG’s website or in the app, and the hotel will accommodate your late checkout request, for as late as 11:59pm!
There are a few catches though:
- Stay between May 17 and June 2, which is a pretty short window
- Only valid on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday checkout
- Standard room stays only
- Subject to availability
Still a good promotion anyway if you happen to need it and are happy with one of the participating hotels (listed on the offer page).
Given most hotels’ occupancy rate must still be fairly low in the next weeks (at least on weekdays), I assume that they would try the best to fulfil your request, even if you are staying in a non-standard room.
Thistle & Guoman Hotels 50%-off sale
Thistle / Guoman is a London-centric hotel group which offers mid- and high-range accommodation. They are running a 50%-off sale should you be interested.
You could view Thistle’s offer page here, and Guoman here.
- Book and stay by 5 September
- Free cancellation
- Breakfast-inclusive rate also available
To be honest it’s not genuinely 50% off as the best flexible rate is inflated. Here are some examples:
- The Royal Horseguards £135
- The Tower £88
- Thistle City Barbican £55
- Thistle Bloomsbury Park £65
- Thistle Trafalgar Square £88
- Thistle Piccadilly £88
Still some good rates to be had, especially for end of May or early June.
I’ve actually stayed at the Barbican hotel once – it’s pretty old and basic but for that price you can’t ask for more in the City. The Royal Horseguards appears to be a good deal as £135 seems very cheap for a 5-star hotel in central London.
Village Hotels 7-day £30 Flash Sale
With England and Wales already opened up, and hotel accommodation in England to re-open soon as well, Village Hotels is running another sale to entice customers.
You can view the offer page here, to book you’ll need to create an account or sign in.
- Book by May 10
- Stay between May 17 and December 31
- Room rate start from £30
- In addition, you could purchase a £40 dining voucher for £20
Village Hotels tend to be located in the countries or at least far from the busy areas, therefore their rates are usually not high – on top of that, there’s some serious discount you can get in this offer.
Village Hotel Edinburgh, which is not far from the city centre, can be had for as low as £40 from September onwards. Although availability is blocked during the Fringe Festival, many dates in July and August can still be had for £60, which is pretty good for a summer holiday in the Scottish city.
Loads of summer availability for £40 – £60 for Village Hotel Swansea:
And Village Hotel Bournemouth：
You could also pay more for a better room (Family / Club) in the booking process. Note that however, the rate is non-refundable and one change is permitted – although rate change may apply.
ebay app £10 coupon, 20% off select products
Just saw a popup when I opened ebay’s homepage：
Looks like they are having a go in promoting their app. I scanned the barcode and installed their app – it didn’t take long for the coupon to show up after I logged in.
You can view the terms & conditions here. The coupon is actually quite generous as there’s no restriction apart from £20 minimum spend requirement. The offer doesn’t appear to be targeted, so try you luck by visiting ebay’s homepage, or maybe just scan the barcode above.
In the meantime, ebay’s regular promotion is back. Purchase any products on the offer page with a minimum order value of £15, and enter coupon code PRICEWINS at checkout to take 20% off the price.
Beware as some merchants increase their prices beforehand to fake a deal. According to what I see on hotukdeals in the past, small appliances / furniture, gym equipment and refurbished mattresses tend to be the best bargain.
Save on train tickets with Trainpal
It’s a bit confusing how you can buy train tickets in the UK: the national rail network is operated by many different companies who have their own online booking sites, and there are a few third-party websites that sell train tickets too.
In fact, the inventory and prices are, most of the time, identical across all these platforms, so you could really just use any of the rail company’s websites as they don’t charge any booking fee or credit card fee. Some of them also offer a small incentive such as Nectar points.
An alternative has emerged in the last couple of years though, namely Trainpal, which is owned by the giant Chinese travel agency Ctrip. It has access to the same inventory with other ticket selling services, and also has a few advantages:
- No additional fee charged
- Split ticketing offered for free – if the journey can be cheaper by booking two separate tickets, it will show up in the search results as an option
- Frequent promotions for vouchers
For example they have been selling gift vouchers recently:
You can pay 49p for two £3 vouchers (minimum spend applies). It’s a pretty good deal, and you even get automatically refunded if you have no use for them and let the vouchers expire.
If you take the train regularly it may be a good idea to download the app as a new option. Feel free to use my referral code a25d5733 which should give you a £3 voucher to start with (£40 minimum spend applies).