[DoubleA]

Agreed JDB.

Will be interesting to see what benefits LBS think are worth the £180 p/a. I don’t do enough fx spend alone to make it work and I have a Santander 0% fx card if it comes to just that.

I have a soft spot for Curve but for my circumstances the useful benefits are narrowing so it’ll be interesting to see what LBG do with it.

[DoubleA]

AndrewT wrote:

@DoubleA As that is a list of what you can use Fronted for, clearly Yes.

Apologies! My excuse is that we’re on holiday, 5hrs ahead and I’d had a few cocktails!

[DoubleA]

9399

Government Services (not elsewhere classified) e.g., Student Loan repayments, National Savings and Investments.

9311

Tax Payments e.g., HMRC, DVLA Vehicle tax.

6012

Financial Institutions – Merchandise and Services e.g., Paying credit card bills, Loans or mortgages, Purchasing financial services or products from banks / Credit Unions / Deposit Takers, Purchasing foreign or non-fiat currency such as cryptocurrency or traveller’s cheques or money orders, Purchasing store value cards such as prepaid cards.

6051

Quasi Cash e.g., Crypto and Money Transfer services, Loan & Debt repayments, Mortgage companies (not money transfer, non-financial institutions)

Is there anything left to use Fronted for?!

[DoubleA]

10k for £1k spend in 3 months offered.

[DoubleA]

Not very exciting but…

Name: Park Inn, Peterborough
Upgraded? Yes, from standard room to Junior Suite
Lounge Access: No – they don’t have one
Breakfast: Yes
Welcome gift: Yes. Giant cookie, caramel wafer, packet of popcorn and 2 bottles of water

[DoubleA]

We’re going back to Lily Beach for a 3rd time in Nov. Last year we got a good price via D2 with an upgrade to an over water villa and again this time round using Bestattravel. Met some people there who recommended Dhigali too but not been able to get a comparable deal as yet.

[DoubleA]

Thanks for the update and it sounds like a decent use of an upgrade voucher then!

I’m still a handful of nights short before our mid July trip so will shoehorn a few additional work trips in and hope there’s still availability by the time we get to T-14.

It seems there’s some other local bits opened up since the Indigo opened too – was there anything you’d recommend?

Thanks again

[DoubleA]

I was going to set up a thread to ask if anyone (but aimed at you NL) had used a suite upgrade at the Seafire as I was debating whether to push to get one before our stay in July.
From your feedback, I will!

We’re staying more than 5 nights so I may have to be prepared to move though 😂

[DoubleA]

I’ve had mixed experience too, from nothing taken in advance, just the 1st night deposit or the fully amount of the booking. Also had challenges getting refunds when cancelled but as per the previous messages, once the hotel is shown that the rate is refundable, they’ve actioned it promptly.
Good advice to keep copies of the booking info.

[DoubleA]

Thanks both

[DoubleA]

Yes, works out nicely for me as I have a bunch of work nights already lined up so I’ll just need the extra one or two to push me over the line.

Then I may consider the Seafire again if breakfast is covered!

[DoubleA]

BBbetter wrote:

DoubleA wrote:

A lot cheaper than the buying points offer!

The net cost on that offer was about £400 after deducting the redemption value assuming 0.4p.
So, unless you are in a region where you can find rooms for less than £50, not sure its massively cheaper.

I’m not sure my offer was quite that good as I had to buy 100k+ points.

[DoubleA]

I’ve got 100k points offer for $920 on the back of 8 nights this year.

I stayed in a Holiday Inn last week but that was using up some of my soon to expire Hotels.com credit!

[DoubleA]

They’re both in a great location (virtually across the road from each other) and not stayed in the County since it became a Delta, but I’d go Indigo too. I wouldn’t look beyond those two if you’re after a city centre location.

[DoubleA]

davefl wrote:

DoubleA wrote:

Went to watch the Kraken and a can of beer from the self serve area was $16+tax so needless to say we only had one! But everywhere in the States is expensive at the moment!

Actually I would disagree with that. There are plenty of reasonably priced places but you need to move away from the west coast, east coast and FL.

Utah for example was surprisingly inexpensive.

Now that Utah have got themselves an NHL team I may just try that!

[DoubleA]

We were in Seattle at the end of Feb/early March (for our 2nd time) and stayed at the Sound Hotel Seattle Belltown (Tapestry, Hilton) as some of the Kimpton reviews were a bit mixed. We had breakfast once using the Hilton credit and it was a bit disappointing, so after that we just used it for drinks/snacks from the well stocked ‘shop’ in reception.
Last time we stayed at the Alexis when it was a Kimpton which was very nice and we were upgraded to a big suite.

One road over from the hotel was a homeless shelter so it was busy over there but other than that we didn’t see many and certainly were not bothered by anyone.

We got the tram in/out of the airport and other than that used Lyft which was reasonable.

We like our beers so went north into the Ballard/Shilsole areas that are far more residential but have lots of breweries/tap rooms that are family friendly and easy to walk between.

Went to watch the Kraken and a can of beer from the self serve area was $16+tax so needless to say we only had one! But everywhere in the States is expensive at the moment!

[DoubleA]

Mine was a call rather than chat and it was also offered, I didn’t ask about retention offers. May have got 50k if I had but who knows!

[DoubleA]

Offered 35k points today after renewal hit 2 days ago.

[DoubleA]

NorthernLass wrote:

Slightly off-topic – is there any way of knowing which hotels work with the railcard rate? I’ve tried various cities and dates now on weekend nights and just keep getting the message that my rate is not available!

Not that I’m aware of.
& I have noticed that a few hotels now have the cheaper rooms as not available but some of the premium rooms are.
As an example if you look at the Indigo Tower Hill on the weekend 9-11/8 that should show you the railcard rate only available on some rooms.

[DoubleA]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

https://www.ihg.com/content/gb/en/customer-care/member-tc/2nd-page

Confirmable Suite Upgrades will be applicable for one room upgrade to an entry-level suite or premium room where a suite is not available.

My reading of that is it only applies to when you book a lower level room and it’s an upgrade to the lowest level suite and not from a lower level suite to a higher one.

But as Northern Lass says says no harm in calling and asking,

Note the AMB upgrade won’t stack on top of the CSU upgrade,

Yes, I just read that too – down to the discretion of the hotel if they stack AMB upgrade.

[DoubleA]

You add 786996886 into the Corporate ID/Corporate Special Rate on Rate Preference.

Doesn’t work on all but normally ~20% off best flex so slightly cheaper than the non refundable rate but you get to cancel up to 3 days before on most.
21 days I think at the Seafire though!

[DoubleA]

NorthernLass wrote:

They also confirmed it to me and have refunded £45 in fees by way of mitigation!

Did you cancel/downgrade as my annual fee just hit on the 1st!

[DoubleA]

I had an email a while back but I deleted it and can’t find it.

I seem to remember it saying I’d be retaining Platinum when I’m actually Diamond so I just ignored & deleted.

May be worth an email to IHG anyway?!

[DoubleA]

NorthernLass wrote:

So that’s just $67 of the resort fee to earn back 😂. Watch they don’t slap a 15% service charge on that can of wine!

I did have to point out at check out that they’d charged me 12 resort fees for our 10 night stay! As if $800 wasn’t enough!

[DoubleA]

‘No shade’ worked at the Kimpton Seafire – a little can of wine that retails at $13 in the shop.