[smitrax]

Used Amex in Dishoom Battersea last week.

[smitrax]

Hotel: Battersea Art Otel, London UK
Upgraded – No. Full apparently.
Welcome gift – welcome note & macarons
Late check out – Yes. 2pm as requested.
Breakfast – All A La Carte. Excellent. It’s in the Italian restaurant so don’t expect a full English.

Check in was not without mistakes and some issues with the bill but overall very good. Will be even better in finer weather and the rooftop is usable. £25 for having our dog with us and he got some treats, a toy carrot and his own can of water. Much better than many other ‘pet friendly’ hotels provide. 15% F&B discount did not apply to alcohol.

[smitrax]

Have booked Tap air to Rio via Lisbon in business for a trip in April. Was having a haircut with my Brazilian barber yesterday and he mentioned that Tap air were ‘nowhere near as good as BA’ which has got me a little worried.

Have I made an error here? We want to visit Rio and would usually try to use Avios as we can be flexible but on this occasion wanted to be there for a concert (that has since been cancelled) so other than the inconvenience of it not being a direct flight, what else could’ve worse than the BA alternative?

[smitrax]

Amex are now offering retention bonuses on this card which I don’t think they have done before.
I’ve been offered 40k points for £10k spend in three months which more than offsets the monthly bonus.

[smitrax]

Got in touch with Amex about the lack of offers on my cards recently and asked if there was any retention offers in lieu of offers. For the first time ever I got offered one on my Business Platinum card – 40k for £10k spend in 3 months.

[smitrax]

I was looking at booking that through FHR too. The rate seems so good (including the £75 statement credit) that I’m willing to take the risk of it not qualifying for other Hyatt benefits. Worth noting the pool is closed for a week around 5 – 12 Jan I think. Around then.

[smitrax]

RV wrote:

Chivvy wrote:

Does it make any difference if you sign up to the monthly account or the annual account?

Yes, the discount only applies to your first payment. So you will only get the max financial benefit out of this Black Friday deal if you pay the annual fee.

My understanding is that you get the discount on your first year of monthly payments and then at renewal it increases to the normal rate.

I did the annual one last year on Dec 1 and unless I renew at the standard fee my only option is to cancel and start a monthly plan.

[smitrax]

Thanks for the info and advice.

We’ve managed to get a pretty sweet deal on Business flights to Rio with TAP. £3,850 for both.

Hotels look pretty reasonable but is the Copacabana Palace worth a night or 2?

Fairmont does a breakfast at the Christ statue before it opens to the public. Might be fun?

Any recommendation for what to do, see, eat, stay?

[smitrax]

@NorthernLass I also go to see Bob Dylan quite frequently so maybe my expectations for singing ability isn’t set very high.

I’ll have to remind my wife she got a Chanel handbag while we were in Mexico a couple of weeks ago if there’s any resistance to me going on a mega Guns in Brazil tour!

[smitrax]

They’re still putting on 3+ hour shows with 30 odd songs. Axl’s voice does have its moments but he’s singing better right now than he has since 2016. Not sure any of us can perform like we used to in our 20s.

What I really need is for my wife to give me permission to go to all of the shows 🙂

[smitrax]

@RV The Rio show is at ‘Engenhao’ which seems to be a bit out of the way and maybe a pain to get to from where we’re likely to stay. Any tips for travelling around Rio?

Rio seems to be more expensive for flights and Salvador’s show is at a venue that’s pretty much walking distance so that appeals. Don’t fancy getting soaked though.

Can’t imagine what that Guns show at São Paulo must have been like. I did shows in London, Warsaw, Budapest, Sofia and Mexico City this year. Aiming for 1 Brazil show, Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, and Atlanta next year.

[smitrax]

RV wrote:

I just did a quick check and there are several days in April with business availability LHR-Sao Paulo (4, 6, 9, 14, 15, 29). Couldn’t find any return dates though.

You can check Iberia for flights to Fortaleza, São Paulo or Rio as well.

Cities: I think it’s a matter of how adventurous you are, and what other plans you might have for this trip. Fortaleza is a beach destination in the North East, whilst Porto Alegre is in the south close enough to Uruguay and Argentina!

Belem and Sao Luis are quite far from any other major city, and tickets will be eye watering expensive.

As it’s your first time in Brazil, and if you value convenience / ease of finding good hotels / transport then I’d say stick with São Paulo or Rio.

Happy to advise further, but as I said it depends what else you will want from this trip.

Out of curiosity, which band is it?! I’m intrigued given the very different cities they will be touring!

Thanks for this. It’s Guns N Roses. The São Paulo show is April 4th so unfortunately can’t make use of those flights.

We’ll only stay for about 5 nights and will just want to explore whatever city we end up in. Will probably stay in a couple of different hotels to experience different areas as some fo these cities seem massive.

Fortaleza seems to be the cheapest place to get to but think Rio or Salvador would be our preference from the very brief research we’ve done. Also appears to be the rainy/humid season everywhere in Brazil in April, Is it very uncomfortable?

[smitrax]

Thanks, Rob.

I’m hoping the two GnR shows in July become available so if he can confirm they will make seats available vis the ALL experiences that would be great. View/location of the seats would be the most important question. Everything else is just gravy 🙂

[smitrax]

Froggee wrote:

@smitrax my confirmation says it auto-renews at the full rate.

What I don’t know is whether you get the final set of bonus points if you cancel before they have hit your account. I imagine it is buried somewhere in the Português Ts&Cs.

Thanks. Will see if lets me take a new subscription.

[smitrax]

Anyone know how the renewal works on this? I signed up last year with an annual payment and Nov was my 12th month. Does it auto renew or did I just buy a one year plan?

Managed to scrape platinum but don’t think much of the suite upgrade benefit. Limited value at hotels that do accept it but many don’t.

[smitrax]

Sammy wrote:

Thanks all.

I’m staying in a hotel in Roma North – none of the western chains but it appears to be safe, comfortable and clean and has very good reviews!

Thanks @smitrax – would you mind reporting back if you can go into Soho House for a drink and also the Sofitel (even if you aren’t staying there) – sounds like cool places and I like solo exploring!

Sofitel – no problem but you may wish to book in advance, especially if you want to be outside for sunset.

Soho – You will need to be a member, a guest of a member or staying there to visit.

[smitrax]

We’re home now and can report that there’s no lounge improvements since last year. Not for BA at least. There is one lounge that looked great, Elite Grand maybe, it has an Apollo moon lander capsule in it. Could see it from the door but wasn’t allowed in 🙁 No idea who gets access.

Loads of work going on in T1 along where most of the gates were making it a fairly unpleasant place to navigate.

[smitrax]

Any improvements in the lounge options?

[smitrax]

We landed in Mexico City last night and have been wide awake for a couple of hours already. Roll on breakfast!

Our flight BA243 departed from gate A10 which meant a bus ride to the plane. Really took the shine off the First class experience but was only a temporary interruption to an otherwise enjoyable experience in the CCR and onboard.

Staying in the Kimpton Vigillio for our first night. It’s only okay. I’m IHG diamond and other than a room minor upgrade there was nothing else by way of status recognition. Hoping for a good breakfast but even if it’s amazing I don’t think we’ll return here. Its clean and staff are nice enough but it’s pretty expensive for what you get. One tip for IHG properties here is to keep tabs on the pricing as they change significantly for no apparent reason.

Off to Soho House for tonight. We’ve visited before but never stayed as it’s ridiculously expensive and you don’t even get breakfast. We thought it was worth it for a treat for one night though. Weather here looks great for the next few days so just going to be drinking margaritas and snoozing by the pool I think.

Spending the final two nights at the Sofitel which we really like. The bar on the roof is a must for the views. It also has an indoor pool on/near the roof which is great. Late check out is a must if you’re on the BA flight back to the UK as it departs 9pm.

Traffic is worse than I remember and I remember it being absolutely terrible.

Feels totally safe, lots of police around and they like to have the lights flashing on their cars constantly so you know they’re there and the presence is reassuring. Having said that, I was just reading about the Mexican president being groped on the street so clearly the city isn’t without risk.

[smitrax]

NorthernLass wrote:

If you don’t get the 2nd seat, you can usually swap for a bit if you have a polite word with the cabin crew, and of course you can guest your companion into the Concorde Room if you’re departing from somewhere which has one!

Thanks. It’s LHR – MEX so looking forward to the Concorde room on the way out. Enjoyed your trip report that included Mexico City.

[smitrax]

Thanks @NorthernLass. Yes, have 2nd seat in J booked for the same flight. Had both seats out and back in J until about 36 hours ago. Here’s hoping we can score the final one 🙂

Hopefully it’s a seat blocking thing. It’s a 787.

[smitrax]

AndrewT wrote:

If you call they should be able to change the existing booking from Club to First, without explicitly cancelling. Having said that, the cancellation cut off is 24 hours, not sure if that also applies to changes. I would not check in online.

Either way, a First passenger gets a CCR guest, so no problem there.

You must surely know whether you now have a new PNR as well as the existing one. The email confirmation and/or the bookings in your accounts will confirm.

You can also ask about a cash upgrade at the airport, no Avios there.

Thanks.

Our inbound flights share the same reference. Outbound are two different references.

[smitrax]

I guess I don’t stay places where families go so I rarely experience noisy children.

I have stayed at plenty of luxury hotels and the main problem is people FaceTiming in the public areas. If they do it near me I will, one way or another, make it stop. Usually a shhh gesture or offering my EarPods will suffice. Obviously filming them works well too. If they ask what I’m doing I tell them it’s content for my Selfish C***ts YouTube channel unless the perpetrator looks like a gangster or is likely to assault, then I tend to favour asking the hotel staff to deal with it.

[smitrax]

Name: Radisson Blu Kas
Upgrade: Booked a premium suite with pool and was upgraded to a mezzanine suite with pool but after looking at both chose the original room.
Breakfast: Included. Good selection.
No Lounge
Notes: Very quiet during the day. No idea where everyone heads off to after breakfast.

[smitrax]

How long did it take to be accepted? I have the free card and applied for the + card almost 2 weeks ago and am still waiting to hear.