IHG’s voco Reading hotel opens

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IHG’s new ‘conversion brand’, voco, has opened its first hotel in the South of England.

The old Millennium Madejski Hotel in Reading, by the Madejski Stadium, has been rebranded as voco Reading. The hotel website is here.

voco was launched by IHG last year as a brand with minimal brand standards, like Hilton’s DoubleTree or Marriott’s Delta. This allows existing hotels to switch over to it very quickly, since they do not have to make many changes to their bedding / showers / restaurant hours / lobby / parking / air conditioning / fitness facilities etc to meet ‘brand guidelines’.

That said, the hotel is doing some minor room refurbishments between now and June 2020. This is described, slightly worryingly, as “adding charming touches that make a world of difference, to create moments you’ll remember long after check out”. It is being done a few rooms at a time to avoid interference to guests.

Our review of voco Cardiff, the old Principal Cardiff hotel by the harbour, is here.

You can learn more about voco Reading here.

IHG Rewards update – December 2021:

Get bonus points: You can earn up to triple IHG Rewards base points with IHG’s new Autumn promotion. It runs from 1st October to 31st December. You can register here and our full article on the offer is here.

New to IHG Rewards? Read our overview of IHG Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG Rewards points, you can buy them here.

You will get a 100% bonus when you buy IHG Rewards points by 4th January 2022. Click here to buy or learn more.

Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from IHG and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

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

Gillydee says:

21 Dec21 December 16:13

OT: Is a Qatar sale to the Far East due any time soon? Not travelling until November but the spend would help me reach my Amex Gold 10k target by the end of January…..
- memesweeper says:
  
  21 Dec21 December 16:42
  
  Their ‘normal’ fares from Scandinavia in J are consistently good if you’re flexible with dates. Not sure it’s worth waiting for a sale.
  - Gillydee says:
    
    21 Dec21 December 18:39
    
    Thanks – even factoring in additional flights & hotels, it’s about £1500 cheaper. All I have to do now is convince the OH that it’s worth the longer overall journey time and faff 🙂
    - Polly says:
      
      22 Dec22 December 21:30
      
      Def worth it, if you can wait for the sale. The best planes, best seats. Yes, it’s not direct but for the TPs, the best option. Even with a plane swop you still get good planes from scandi.
Ikaz says:

21 Dec21 December 16:46

OT: I was flying from Edi yesterday and once we past security I saw that our flight was delayed 1.5 hours, went to the O2 priority app and registered the flight at that point for the Smart Delay offer, got two lounge entries within 5 mins (valid for N°1 or either of the Aspire lounges, it was late so plenty of space). I read about the offer here, so thanks to whomever highlighted it!
- Shoestring says:
  
  21 Dec21 December 16:55
  
  hope you drank a few
  - Ikaz says:
    
    21 Dec21 December 17:22
    
    Wasn’t able to as I was driving on the other side, I mainly did it for the Aspire points to be honest. I was glad to see that I didn’t need to register the flight before departure though.
Shoestring says:

21 Dec21 December 17:16

No1 &proud of it! who would not pay the £5 I ask you?
Evan says:

21 Dec21 December 18:26

OT: Lots of Scots posters here so asking for a bit of help – partner doing first ever TP run tomorrow to get silver back – LHR to GLA and return. Simple question, does he need to go through security and back in again? He’s checked in both ways already. Got PP so can access the Upper Deck. As he has 590 points and will get 10 with the flight up there (he’ll have his BP for that) would there be any point asking at the BA lounge? Cheers in advance.
- Ikaz says:
  
  21 Dec21 December 19:24
  
  It looks like he shouldn’t need to go through security based on Flyertalk reports, they have a thread here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1964325-back-back-immediate-turnarounds-ba-destinations.html
  Regarding lounge access, it is not unheard-of but far from guaranteed that BA lets him in
  - Shoestring says:
    
    22 Dec22 December 00:04
    
    Evan – no problem being a poove but can you pretend you’re not Scottish?
  - Evan says:
    
    22 Dec22 December 08:45
    
    Thanks Ikaz
Harry T says:

22 Dec22 December 00:47

OT:
Found some seats for a Peak first class return to Cape Town from London, using a 241. The Avios is pricing as 200,000, which is correct. However the taxes are pricing up as £3953.90.

This seems very very high – any thoughts as to what is going on here? I think the taxes should be closer to £1000.

Also having some issues with BA refusing to find these flights if I put that I want to start my journey from Inverness and connect in LHR. The flights show if I book them as direct from LHR or starting from NCL. Grateful for any thoughts on this too.
- Lev441 says:
  
  22 Dec22 December 01:09
  
  Strange – had a play around and I found the taxes to be £606.95 for a return in first on a few peak dates..
- Anna says:
  
  22 Dec22 December 10:15
  
  If there’s no availability on the INV-LHR route the system will say there’s no availability full stop. It’s annoying that it can’t tell you exactly what the issue is!
  - Lady London says:
    
    22 Dec22 December 17:52
    
    This is happening because BA has made a deliberate decision not to offer those seats in combination. Nothing to do with availability.
    
    Its been more common in the past that a seat through to a domestic destination would be available via London but only to London, not.
    
    So BA is either doing this in reverse or passenger is looking far enough forward for some other issue with Inverness to come into play.
- Lady London says:
  
  22 Dec22 December 17:58
  
  Get to final screen and tax rubbish like this sometimes clears? Unless BA’s now testing truly dynamic pricing on some dates.