IHG Cyber Monday: free 500 points and 48% off Iberostar
IHG’s Cyber Monday deal is out. The 20%-off sale is, to put it mildly, a lacklustre, but there are fortunately a couple of worthwhile offers.
[App Bonus]
There’s an easy 500 bonus points to win. All you need to do is register, (re-)download the app and sign in. The terms have no mention of first-time app users, which would otherwise disqualify most people. I am able to register to the offer successfully. (Edit: terms do suggest first-time app download only…)
[Iberostar Sale]
IHG’s Cyber sale only takes 20% off the best flexible rate, and it’s non-refundable, which is laughable. Iberostar on the other hand is much more interesting:
- Book by November 28th
- Stay by October 31st in the Americas, or December 20th in other regions
- Maximum discount of 40%
- 8% additional discount if logging in with your IHG account
So you can get up to about 48% discount, almost half price at Iberostar hotels, which is a great deal. Even better, after applying the discount the best flexible rate is still flexible as you can see from the image above. There are also half-board and all-inclusive options.
[Points & Cash]
The Points & Cash offer is also back: book the Points & Cash rate at any IHG hotel for stays between Jan 1st and February 29th and save 15% off the cash component.
It could, indirectly, be a great way to buy cheap IHG points, sometimes under 0.5c per point. There are some deals this round but seems to have all sold out already, but I’ll report back if find anything new.
Act fast: Mr & Mrs Smith $65 voucher still works
Last month we wrote about a crazy offer that Mr & Mrs Smith was having. Unfortunately the two-night minimum stay requirement was added swiftly which made the offer much less appealing, but there are still good deals out there:
After applying the $65 voucher you pay only $30 for two nights at this hotel in Kuala Lumpur, which is really cheap even by Malaysia’s standard.
As a couple of our readers have pointed out however, there’s still a hack you could do to apply the voucher on one-night reservations.
- Book any hotel for two nights, go to the checkout page and add the voucher code e.g. BIRTHDAYUS, and then go back
- Book the one-night hotel stay you want, at the basket page remove the two-night reservation. You’ll notice that the coupon is there and discounted price is displayed
It’s not mission complete yet, as if you proceed to payment you’ll most likely see the following error:
What you need to do is: head back to the basket, go to the checkout page, keep your fingers crossed and try again. If you are lucky the payment will go through this time, and a confirmation like this will follow:
I’ve no idea why the second-time lucky is, or if you may need to try more or if it has anything to do with the payment method. But it works for me and some other readers.
Note that they’ve also added a geographical restriction on the coupon code, and BIRTHDAYUS only works on accounts based in the Americas now. Don’t forget about the limits: you can only use the code three times and no consecutive bookings are allowed, and your reservations would face cancellations otherwise – the hack here of course, is also against the two-night requirement in the terms, so I can’t guarantee that they would be honoured.
Temu Shopping is in the UK and I tried it out
Ok, this is an unconventional post for our blog, and feel free not to read it! But since we cover Amazon offers from time to time, I suppose some readers might be interested in other shopping deals too.
We’ll be talking about Temu today, that entered the UK market only in April 2023. Temu is an international spinoff of Pinduoduo / 拼多多，one of the largest e-commerce companies in China. Pinduoduo was born after I left China so I haven’t got a chance to use them, but I used Temu recently and has so far been quite happy. If you are intrigued as well, we have a coupon code available at the end of this article.
[Product Catalogue]
As we’ve said earlier Temu is a B2C e-commerce company, so you can see it as Amazon in a way. They have a pretty big catalogue, and you can find clothing, jewellery, electronics, office supply and household supply etc on Temu.
I guess a closer comparable would be AliExpress, the counterpart by Alibaba which is also a Chinese company. AliExpress sells more stuff including furniture and large appliances, but on the other hand Temu can be ridiculously cheap, as you’ll see later in this article.
What you won’t find on Temu is “big names”, or premium products with top quality. So it really depends on your expectations: if you are looking for cheap merchandises and not so fussed about quality, for example socks and t-shirts, then Temu is worthy of checking out.
[Shipping]
Free shipping is available on purchases of £10 or more. However the products are shipped from China so it takes a while to arrive, typically one to two weeks. If you need something right away, buy from Amazon or in store.
If your order arrives later than the expected date you’ll be compensated with £5 credit. Their tracking system is well designed – you get email reminders for dispatching, the cargo flight and delivery etc. Temu takes care of customs so you won’t pay any additional fees.
Their main logistics partner in the UK is Evri, which has a questionable reputation. My experience is fine though – no problem encountered and it doesn’t feel any different to other delivery services. One of my orders was delivered by Royal Mail, probably due to it being a “valuable” item worth £50+.
[Unboxed]
Here are some of the items that I bought.
Plain white t-shirts, £1.19
Shoes, £5.26
Belt, 90p
Sunglasses, £1.92
Kitchen sink strainer, 16p
Oil sprayer, 87p
Garden watering gadget, 4p
Wiko T10 dual-sim Android smartphone, £54.81
I applied a coupon on every order, and the numbers above are what I actually paid after the discount. I am genuinely impressed by how cheap Temu is. In fact it is almost as much as what you expect to pay in China!
Every order comes with a free return within 90 days. I haven’t used it so far, but it is a typical returning process which involves printing out a return label and bringing back your item to an Evri collection point. A friend did a return and received refund after approximately two weeks.
[Price Adjustment]
One very interesting feature Temu offers is Price Adjustment, which means if the price drops within 30 days after you’ve placed the order, they will refund the difference.
The refund doesn’t happen automatically. You need to check the app regularly, and when the Price Adjustment button pops up you know there are eligible items in that order. The refunded amount can be affected by the coupon you applied, and it is processed right away.
It is very courageous for Temu to offer this gesture. As far as I know, although Amazon has something similar, it is only available during special period such as the Prime Day and Black Friday sales.
[Precautions]
A big warning: Pinduoduo is the notorious pioneer in upping clickbait to a totally different level. They have all sorts of “promotions” in the app which encourages you to invite your friends for free money and huge prizes etc. They are most of the time a waste of time and can be very annoying.
Unfortunately you’ll see such things in Temu as well, and I know people who uninstall the app immediately when they see how toxic the app is. My advice is to ignore all these messages, and only pay attention to the coupons they gift you.
If you are curious to try Temu out, our referral link will give you 50% off the first order (max. discount £20) and a £100 coupon bundle. You could also enter the coupon code apu94348. Temu tends to offer you many other coupons in the first weeks, so take advantage of being a new customer.
Buy IHG points to maintain your Diamond status
IHG tightened its web this year by closing the Ambassador-Diamond loophole. They have however added a few initiatives, such as double elite qualifying nights to help certain members requalify for their Diamond status faster.
They have now launched a new and quite unique promotion, named Lock in Diamond Status.
If you are targeted you should have received an email. You can also log in here to see if you have an offer. My Diamond status is already through 2024 and I couldn’t even log in on that page.
In short you are invited to buy points – these points are elite qualifying so can help you retain your Diamond status, and they are also redeemable as normal on hotel stays etc.
You can buy increments of 10,000 points. The most prevalent offer looks like this:
- 10,000 points – $300
- 20,000 points – $550
- 50,000 points – $850
- 120,000 points – $1,800
One reader however has got a much cheaper deal:
At the top end, you pay $1,200 for 120,000 points (which usually costs $600), and that guarantees Diamond status for the next year. If you have an IHG credit card you are entitled to 20% discount.
The offer may make sense to some, although I don’t think that many people qualify through points, as 120,000 base points can be quite a lot compared to 70 nights, and the latter also gives you milestone rewards including lounge access.
Up to 100% buy points bonus with IHG, Choice and LHW
[IHG]
IHG has brought back its mysterious bonus for buying points, and you can reveal your targeted bonus here.
The best bonus available is 100%, which means buying the points at half price effectively. If you buy at least 26,000 points, you will be paying $50 per 1K points. It is the best price that IHG has ever offers (although regularly), and IHG has been very good at preserving the value of their points, so it may make sense to buy if you stay with them at times.
[Choice]
Choice Privileges is running a Black Friday sale on points purchase which offers you 50% bonus until December 3rd. It is also the best bonus that Choice ever (and rarely) offers and you pay $68.67 per thousand points if you buy at least 10,000 of them.
The annual Daily Getaways can beat this price, but that’s much more difficult to come by, so I recommend you to seriously consider this deal.
The best Choice redemptions are in Japan (budget hotels starting at 8,000 points) and Northern Europe (starting at 10,000 points). I’m writing a detailed guide on how to spend Choice points.
[LHW]
Leading Hotels of the World, one of the niche alliances for high-end hotels, introduced the buying points feature recently, followed by an interesting bonus promotion.
You can view the offer here. Until December 26th you get a tiered bonus when buying LHW points:
- 2,000 – 11,000: 50%
- 12,000 – 29,000: 75%
- 30,000 – 50,000: 100%
At the top of the ladder you’ll still be paying $60 per 1K points, which sounds a lot. Let’s have a look at how LHW’s redemption works first.
LHW has a revenue-based redemption system and there’s no fixed price for hotels, which is why you’ll always see odd number of points as the price. Unlike Accor or Hilton though, that exchange rate from the cash price can fluctuate quite a lot.
I’ve taken a closer look at some hotels:
- Tokyo – The Imperial Hotel $591.79 / 3,886 points ($152.3)
- Bali – The Legian Seminyak $555.74 / 5,887 points ($94.4)
- Kuala Lumpur – The RuMa Hotel and Residences $159.46 / 1,738 points ($91.7)
- Shanghai – J Hotel – $751.55 / 8,144 points ($92.3)
- Berlin – Hotel Palace Berlin $171.03 / 2,040 points ($83.8)
- Paris – Ritz Paris $2,225.02 / 28,494 points ($78.1)
- Porto – Maison Albar Le Monumental Palace $232.26 / 2,817 points ($82.4)
The cash price I’ve taken is the member-exclusive flexible rate, or the closest alternative if unavailable. The number in brackets is how much value you are getting per 1K points for that hotel.
As you can see, the value proposition is in the range of $78 – $95. The Imperial Tokyo is a weird one that sticks out, as you are getting an outstanding $152.3 per thousand points. I double checked the number and my math is correct – not sure if it’s a system error or not.
So it could make sense to buy at the current 100% bonus, but there are things to be mindful of:
- You must pay at least $3,600 to secure the 100% bonus, which is a big spend
- LHW doesn’t have that many hotels in its portfolio
- As far as I can see there’s no part-pay-with-point option, so if there are orphan points left in your account it might be tricky to spend them
LHW points don’t expire as long as you earn or redeem every 24 months. It’s free to sign up as a member, which gives you benefit including continental breakfast, upgrade priority, early check-in and late check-out. After the first stay you’ll also earn a room-upgrade voucher.
My review of Canopy by Hilton Cancun
This is my first time in Cancun (and Mexico) and there are so many hotels to choose from! I did extensive research and finally set my eyes upon the Canopy by Hilton hotel. The deal is hard to resist: Amex The Hotel Collection comes with a 3-for-2 offer plus $100 credit, and I have the $200 Amex Travel credit from the Platinum card.
So I paid just over $300 for three nights. However, I had my doubts as this is not a traditional resort like others in Cancun. The Canopy hotel is not next to any beach and the nearest one is about 15 minutes away. Although they’ve signed a deal with an external beach club, you must pay $30 for entry and it’s a few minutes drive.
In summary, if you are looking for a staycation or beach holiday this hotel is not for you. However I had planned a lot of tourist stuff for the first two days so we didn’t mind.
There’s a pedestrian cross right in front of the hotel and a bus stop nearby. Frequent buses bring you to all the major sites at the cost of $1.
Uber is quite convenient too. Note that however Uber’s airport pickup is banned so I booked the hotel’s transfer at a fair $35. You can ride with Uber to the airport.
The hotel sits beside La Isla which is a massive shopping complex. There are many shops, restaurants and cafes here.
As you can see from the pictures above, the hotel is basically one standalone building and not very big. The lobby is nice though.
I booked a Sunset Double Double room, and got upgraded to Sunset Premium after I made an inquiry in the online chat. Then I arrived just to find that they changed my reservation to a Sunrise Premium instead.
Although they tried to convince me that it’s a better view etc I didn’t buy into that nonsense. They didn’t have any Sunset Premium Double left, and Premium King with a rollaway bed was not ideal, so I had to begrudgingly accept the assigned room.
The room is nice and functional, the bed very comfy. I was aware that there’s no balcony, but to my surprise there’s no bathtub either.
The so-called Sunrise view has an aspect of the opposite hotel, and the sea view is quite poor.
There’s a transfer lounge on the second floor, serving guests before their transfer to the beach club.
Come with me to the rooftop!
This is the very best part of the hotel, and ideal for your Instagram shots.
Sunset rooms have exactly the same view of this ferry wheel, and I hope you understand my perseverance with the room type now. The infinite pool is pretty good for a swim.
The jacuzzi on the other hand is pointless – who would want to soak themselves in hot water when it’s 32 degrees and humid?
Gym is next to the rooftop bar.
Breakfast is complimentary for Diamond members, which is buffet-only except for the egg-cooking station.
The spread isn’t the best that I’ve seen, but the quality is top-notch, and they change the hot dishes every day. They’ve put a lot of thoughts into the breakfast and the menu is very nicely curated, thanks to it not being a massive resort overwhelmed with guests.
In addition to the usual breakfast offering, there are some local delicacies including grilled fish and pork / beef stew. I’m most impressed by the dessert section – all the pastries here are incredibly fresh, special and tasty!
This is the only restaurant the hotel has, so I used my $100 credit on two dinners with my Mum.
Even better than the breakfast offering, the dinner menu here is outstanding. We ordered tacos, grilled octopus and spider (beef) steak, and every dish is simply amazing. The spider steak especially is probably the best steak I’ve ever had – awesome charcoal touch, crunchy surface and soft inside.
My 2pm late check-out is granted with no issues. This Canopy hotel has its very obvious pros and cons. If you intend to travel a lot when you are in Cancun, it’s a great base to explore the area at a very reasonable price.
Black Friday: buy Aeroplan points with up to 125% bonus
Air Canada has launched their campaign for Black Friday, and there’s an interesting buy points offer which is worth checking out especially if you are UK- or Europe-based.
The offer runs between November 13th and 29th, and all Aeroplan members receive a targeted mysterious offer. You can reveal the offer here after logging in.
I received only a 100% bonus, equating to C$17.5 / £10.22 per 1,000 points. If you are lucky enough to have the 125% bonus, you will pay C$15.6 / £9.1 per 1,000 points.
The highest bonus Aeroplan had offered recently was 115%, and that was targeted too, so 125% very generous. Even with 100% bonus it’s still not bad deal.
I wrote about Aeroplan recently specifically about their Europe – Middle East redemptions. Here is a guideline of how much certain itineraries cost (per way):
- Europe – Middle East (business): 45,000 points
- Europe – Middle East (first): 60,000 points
- Asia – Middle East (business): 60,000 points
- Asia – Europe (first): 100,000 points
To put it into perspective, a one-way first class ticket from Abu Dhabi to London on Etihad will cost you just around £600!
Aeroplan points can be accrued through Amex and Chase credit cards in North America, but otherwise difficult to collect. If you have plans to visit the Middle East, you should seriously consider jumping on this deal.
Virgin Atlantic – China Eastern partnership starts (sort of)
Virgin Atlantic joined Skyteam earlier this year with immediate effect. However, there was one team member, China Eastern, that was excluded from the launch and it was deferred to “a later date”. Well, that later date turned out to be November 10th.
As you can see from Virgin’s page. From now on you can earn Virgin points and tier points when flying China Eastern. However the most sought-after feature – redeeming Virgin points on MU – is still not active.
Chinese airlines are sometimes notorious for playing dirty games especially when it comes to their loyalty program. Xiamen Airlines, also a Skyteam member, rarely releases ANY reward ticket to partner airlines, and I’m not sure how they get away from it lightly.
If these problems can finally be resolved, Virgin points will open up new redemption opportunities in China and Asia. Even if you don’t want to visit China, remember that reward availability to China tends to be excellent, and you can use China Eastern etc for onward connection to another country.