Virgin Atlantic Economy Rewards 50% Off...

Another Virgin Atlantic deal again today. This time, 50% off all economy reward tickets to various destinations.

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/frequentflyer/spendmiles/rewardflights/flightsformiles.jsp

To be honest, its not the best deal since VS taxes and fees on Y (economy)  rewards come to almost the cost of a discounted economy ticket, so personally i think you're better off saving up your miles for a premium ticket.

Sometimes VS do 50% off of Premium Economy rewards (never Upper!) which is a much better deal. But hey, they're your miles! Although I find it hard to believe there isn't more value converting say 20k into 40k HHonors points and using at a Cat 6 (some are ~£200 a night) hotel.

HH Diamond Status - change to T&C - no more Diamond reward force!

In one my earlier posts, I discussed the benefits of being a Diamond member of the HHonors reward scheme.

One of the better benefits of this, was the ability to 'force' the hotel to give you a reward room at 48hrs notice, regardless of availability. Well, its turns out that this benefit was a bit too good since in the T&C update of 19th July http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/terms.do they have now removed this benefit.

"Guaranteed reservations availability, subject to the restrictions stated herein, at hotels within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio when paid reservations are made before midnight hotel local time, two or more days (48 hours) prior to intended arrival. RESTRICTIONS: This guarantee does not apply to reservations paid for in part or in full by HHonors points, free night certificates issued by Hilton Worldwide."

This is a very annoying development and removes one of the big advantages that Diamond had over Gold. You're basically now left with a small points bonus and guaranteed Exec lounge status. To me, particularly if you frequent Hiltons with no Exec lounge, it only seems worth getting to Gold, then taking your business elsewhere to try to achieve status with another chain.

All in all, a bit disappointing.

Hilton Amsterdam

A couple of months ago I had a stay at the Hilton in Amsterdam which is famous for a couple of reasons a) it was where John Lennon and Yoko Ono did one of their “bed-ins” for peace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed-In#Amsterdam_Bed-in and b) a Dutch Rockstar named Herman Brood jumped off the roof… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Brood#Suicide_and_legacy

Anyway…it was a reward stay (Category 6) at 40k points per night, however as I was only Gold at the time and wanted into to lock-in usage of the Exec lounge, I redeemed for a premium room award at about 52k per night, which seemed a price worth paying at the time. Ironically, the hotel was very quiet so I would probably have been upgraded anyway, but never mind.

The hotel is in a decent location, near(ish) the city centre proper, however it is a bit of a walk from the nearest tram stop (~10 mins) so you might want to get a taxi to and from the Airport if you have a lot of luggage. If you’re travelling light, I’d certainly get the train into Centraal Station and take a tram.

The hotel can feel a bit off of the beaten track at night, but my understanding is that its in an affluent area and felt quite safe to me. There are a few decent restaurants nearby but you’ll probably want to take a tram into the centre as you’ll have many more options.


The room was an Exec room on a high floor, so the view was pretty impressive (right) and handy for the Exec Lounge on the top floor. The lounge is essentially a glass box on the roof, its not especially big but it has a good selection of food (inc. Chicken Satay one night – FTW!) and drinks including spirits you can help yourself to for a limited time. The only disappointment was that you couldn’t step out onto the roof to take in the view, but give the incident mentioned in the introduction, I can understand why.


There is also a decent Italian on the premises, however it was fairly expensive.

In general it’s a good hotel, very well presented and clean. Going against it are the facts that it’s expensive (but then ALL hotels in Amsterdam are!) and it’s a little bit far out from the centre. All in all though I’d give it an 8/10.

Hilton Diamond Status

So..my Hilton Honors Diamond card arrived in the post. Firstly this was quite a surprise since I have been Gold for the past 2-3 years and despite requesting mulitple times on the website AND over the phone - my Gold card never arrived. Ah well.

The benefits of the Diamond card are as follows:

Point Bonuses - 50% bonus on base points - nice to have.

Complimentary High-Speed Internet Access - this is theorectically an excellent benefit (also applies to Gold members) as hotels, particularly more expensive ones, love to rip you off for Internet Access! I have noticed a trend recently though for more and more hotels to include Wifi in the room rate, which slightly devalues this benefit. Still, I'd be annoyed if they took it away.

Diamond Reservations Guarantee - this is a great benefit if you have a ton of points, not so good for cash (unless you're a millionaire obsessed with staying at a Hilton). In theory (excluding some really busy times) you log on 48hrs before you want a room and Hilton will always give you one. This sounds brilliant, except recently I wanted to use this benefit on a 3* Hilton in the UK (normal weekend price £56) and it was quoting me £210 for the Diamond Override! So, I won't be staying there. Driving the price right up just makes the benefit worthless.

For points on the other hand, if its a low tier hotel, then the points price IS the points price, so you'll always get a standard award room. If you have points to burn, this can really come in handy.

Diamond Elite Member On-Property Benefits - these vary, but generally you can expect free breakfast (which is awesome, as it means you can always book the cheapest rate), Exec Lounge access (again awesome, more on that in a later post!) and some kind of welcome gift (Fruit / Wine / Snacks) in your room when you arrive.

If you're based in the UK and have to make a number of stays for work, I'd certainly going after Hilton Status if you can. I had Platinum Status with Priority Club as well and Intercontinentals basically ignored it, while Marriott status doesn't have as good benefits.

Every now and then Hilton run promotions and challenges for Gold Status for 4 stays in 90 days. Gold comes with much the same benefits (difference being mainly no lounge access / Diamond guarantee) so if you have a couple of stays coming up anyway, its definitely worth doing a couple more cheap stays (~£50) to get Gold Status. If a promo comes up, we'll be posting it here.

An easy one to start - Hilton Q3 2012

Since we're now in Q3 2012, I thought I'd start with the HHonors Q3 promo. It's double points during the week and triple during the weekend.

https://www.hiltonhhonors.com/Quarterlypages/2012/Q3/landing.aspx

IMHO, it's a good, if not great promo. I can see where they are coming from by trying to encourage leisure travellers to stay during the weekend, but tbh I'd much rather have a double/triple miles promo - particularly as I'm still on "Mission OZ 80k" (more on that later...)

Either way, make sure you signup just in case, as in my experience HH will never honour these promos retrospectively. As always though YMMV.