Bits: IHG 5000 points PointBreaks preview – with a London-ish hotel, HfP on Rip-Off Britain

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News in brief:

Shock as London-ish property hits IHG PointBreaks

IHG Rewards Club will be releasing the list of new ‘5,000 point per night’ PointBreaks redemptions during Friday.

We will run it on HfP on Saturday and the rooms will become bookable on Monday afternoon.

IHG released a teaser list yesterday. There are 120-150 hotels on the list usually, and this time they will include:

InterContinental Bandung Dago Pakar (Indonesia)
Crowne Plaza Johannesburg – The Rosebank (South Africa)
Holiday Inn Manaus (Brazil)
Hotel Indigo Columbus Architectural Center (US)
Holiday Inn Express Buffalo Downtown (US)
Holiday Inn Express Williamsburg Busch Gardens Area (US)
Holiday Inn Clermont – Ferrand Centre (France)
Holiday Inn Express London – Croydon (UK)

Yes, for the first time EVER, a London hotel is included.

Technically, of course, Croydon is not in London. However, I have done a couple of mattress runs at the Croydon hotel in the past (booking, checking in and leaving immediately, to earn promotional credit) and it is as near as you’re ever going to get for 5,000 points per night. It is under 10 minutes walk to East Croydon station where you can get a mainline train every few minutes to London Bridge etc.

It obviously isn’t the greatest place to stay for a London holiday, but come on …. a lot of people would take 12 nights at the Holiday Inn Express Croydon (with free breakfast) over 1 night at the InterContinental Park Lane.

You can book from Monday afternoon. I imagine that these rooms will go very quickly.

Head for Points on Rip-Off Britain

We were in Manchester yesterday to film a segment for the BBC’s Rip-Off Britain programme. This won’t be broadcast for a few months, unfortunately.

The story involves two people who were struggling to use their Avios points. One person was having trouble finding seats to Tokyo – a notoriously tricky route. The second was more complex, because the person involved had spent over £1,500 on 135,000 Avios during a ‘35% bonus’ promotion without fully understanding what he was getting into, especially as he lived in Scotland with few direct BA options.

With Simon Calder clearly on holiday, I was there to help out the two contributors which basically involved defending the commercial strategy of Avios Group / British Airways.

A photo from the session is above. I’ll let you know when it is due to go out.

PS. For anyone who thinks the BBC is blowing your money day in and day out ….. the total budget for this segment (not the whole episode) was £400. That is not a misprint. This included travel costs for all participants plus some home filming for the two contributors. I was not paid.

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This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Cate says:

28 Jul28 July 09:44

…. a lot of people would take 12 nights at the Holiday Inn Express Croydon (with free breakfast!) over 1 night at the InterContinental Park Lane.

Not in my house (clicks check in button for Conrad St James).
CV3V says:

28 Jul28 July 09:48

Times must be tough at the BBC, a few years ago they were paying £50 per minute for radio interviews!
- Aeronaut says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 11:41
  
  See Christian’s comment below – don’t think it was £50 per minute, rather a £50 appearance fee for a few minutes interview.
Lewis Watson says:

28 Jul28 July 10:26

Am still waiting for the venetian on a points break promo
- Alex W says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 12:15
  
  You can get cash stays pretty cheap there, tough.
Christian says:

28 Jul28 July 10:50

You should have asked to be paid for your segment. Having worked there, the rules were pretty clear, only people whose job – ie they were already being paid to front up in public did not get an appearance fee – typically politicians doing political commentary. For everyone else you would get a small contributors fee. Around the £50 mark for a few minutes live interview on the news for example, plus your return cab. This would have bound to have taken longer so you should have been paid more. You don’t think Simon Calder does it for nothing do you?
- Aeronaut says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 11:47
  
  I’m guessing Rob’s train fare to Manchester was paid by the Beeb? I suspect rather more of the budget for guests on Salford-based programmes is swallowed up by travel costs. (I hope the BBC has some sort of deal with Virgin Trains West Coast!)
  - Rob says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 12:00
    
    It was, and they have no deal. I was given £89.30 for an off peak return and told to book it myself! At least I got the Flying Club miles
    
    That was included in the £400 by the way.
    - Aeronaut says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 12:22
      
      £83.90, no? (That’s the cost of an Off-peak Return – a fully flexible Anytime Return is the bargain price of £338!)
      
      Having guests book the tickets themselves does mean that they (the guests) have the option to perhaps pay a bit extra and try and travel First class – the best value method for so doing being to buy fixed-time Advance tickets, of which there’s quite a lot of availbility on the west coast route.
      - Rob says:
        
        28 Jul28 July 12:47
        
        …. which I did!
    - RussellH says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 12:33
      
      Has not changed much over the years, then!
      
      I was on a Radio 4 quiz show in the early 1980s – did three rounds. The rail fares were refunded – they did pay a sleeper back to central Scotland so that I could get into work the day after the recording. They also paid a single appearance fee following the initial broadcast, plus a further 50% for the repeat a few days later. A further small cheque turned up after a few months following the rebroadcast on the World Service.
- Rob says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 12:03
  
  Radio 4 pays me £50 for a segment, and I can do that remotely.
  
  But, come on, I’m not arguing over £50. My time was the most valuable commodity.
  - Jerry says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 12:27
    
    BBC Daytime programmes do have realtively modest budgets comapred with peak time programmes and it’s not surprising contributors are not offered an appearance fee. Reasonable expenses are reimbursed (as Rob exprienced). Of course the value for HFP is the on-air credit. Martin Lewis (MSE) is very good at providing on-air advice in exchange for the moneysavingexpert credit which has proven much more valuable than any £50 the Licence fee could have offered him. Look forward to seeing the segment. We’re doing Tokyo in F on a 241 in September.
Carl says:

28 Jul28 July 11:36

I’m just back from a Club redemption to Tokyo. I didn’t find it that hard to find availability. I even had to move the flights because of a wedding and was still able to find new flights.
- Camille says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 11:49
  
  Nice shoes Rob!
  - Rob says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 11:59
    
    Magnanni – they look like Berluti, and are hand patinated, but 70% cheaper.
    - LB says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 12:22
      
      Oh my. I’m starting to believe I’m out of my league on this site…with my Hush Puppies.
- Alex says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 13:42
  
  Lucky you! I tried to find something for 2-4-1 voucher for NEXT year, to no avail. Same with the US. But good availability for Korea and Canada.
  - Tim says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 13:57
    
    Funny, I have done multiple 2-4-1 redemptions in club world with BA to Tokyo and always found plenty of availability. Im typically booking 11m forward though.
  - Rob says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 15:22
    
    You can get Seoul very easily and that is a very short connection, either for cash or Avios on JAL.
    - Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 16:16
      
      Shortish – over two hours surely?
      - Waribai says:
        
        28 Jul28 July 22:52
        
        Depends where in Japan you are heading. About an hour to my wife’s place.
      - Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
        
        29 Jul29 July 11:40
        
        Good point. I was thinking Tokyo. Still, ‘very short connection’ is something like KUL-SIN in my books.
Chris A says:

28 Jul28 July 14:00

O/T – I’m currently aiming to redeem a Marriott Travel Package ( with 90k SPG) which I should amass by Feb/Mar next year, with the merging of the schemes sometime in 2018 do people think these packages will remain? Rob?

Thanks
- Ian says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 14:24
  
  Very hard to know. But from what I’ve read it’s unlikely the 2 schemes will merge early next year. If you can, try to time taking out your travel package with a BA conversion bonus from hotel points.
  I managed to do one this year when the bonus was on. It meant getting 162k avios. Not bad!
  - Chris A says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 14:47
    
    Thanks Ian. Did you go for a Cat 1-5 redemption and where did you stay? Wow that’s a result! How soon after getting the stay certificate did the miles post to BAEC?
    - Jonny says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 15:02
      
      I did the same (for a Category 9 property). Avios posted within a couple of days, inc the bonus ones.
- Rob says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 15:20
  
  It is looking more and more like 1 Jan 2019 now.
Adrian says:

28 Jul28 July 14:10

The IHG point breaks list is as exciting as a BA sale!
Steve says:

28 Jul28 July 14:47

Someone was kicking off again on Moneysavingexpert about being ripped off over Avios.

They were advised to visit here
- Rob says:
  
  28 Jul28 July 15:19
  
  …. where they will be disappointed to find only sensible reasoned debate and probably that they were wrong in the first place 🙂
  - RussellH says:
    
    28 Jul28 July 16:58
    
    Looking for some BA advice:
    
    Is BAEC Bronze worth going for?
    
    Our recent LGW-OAK returns earned us 280 tier points; the BA site says that we would need either 20 tier points or 23 flights (!) to get bronze. If we were to do it, presumably it would last until 8 May 2019.
    
    But we are unlikely to be flying anywhere again this year (and if we were, it would normally be to Europe on avios.
    
    Suggestions and recommendations welcome.
    
    Thanks
    - Genghis says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 17:02
      
      Wouldn’t bother. It would expire at the end of the following month + a year after current TP year ends. So if your current TP year ends 8 May 18, status is to 30 June 19
      - Genghis says:
        
        28 Jul28 July 17:04
        
        Perhaps look at well priced revenue flights instead of avios for remaining flights this year if it’s something of interest.
    - Harpo says:
      
      28 Jul28 July 17:03
      
      Only useful perk is booking your seats a week in advance – can be useful for families but if you’re not likely to use it much not worth chasing for the sake of it in my opinion.
      - Kilburnflyer says:
        
        29 Jul29 July 06:19
        
        Handiest thing about BA Bronze (Oneworld Sapphire) is ability to book exit seats for free (instead of US$130pp) on Cathay Pacific Economy fares. Also useful for Avios J redemptions for free seat selection T-7 days (Saves £85pp on Upper deck seats), finally you can check-in at Business class desks which I found very useful in busy airports or ones with annoying self-check-in for non-status pax eg. On Qantas Domestic flights