Happy Christmas from the Head for Points team

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• Shoestring says:

  25 Dec25 December 13:56

  Happy Xmas from our place in the sun, cut another stack of logs this morning – the bigger Xmas lunch is tomorrow with the rellies (after yesterday’s birthday (son) which was quite a fantastic roast lamb studded with garlic!) so playing it cool today

• LondonFoodie says:

  25 Dec25 December 14:05

  Merry Christmas from Punta Cana, 241 club tix bought at midnight – thanks Rob, Anika and team!
  P.s. – avoid the Melia Paradisus Palma Real at all costs if you ever come this way. Can’t event begin to explain how disappointed we are having paid 5kfor 10 nights.

  • Ben says:

    25 Dec25 December 14:19

    What has been so bad about the Melia. Looking at punta Cana next year…

    • RICHARD says:

      25 Dec25 December 15:46

      We stayed with Royal Service at Paradisus Palma Real for Easter and had a great time. Well worth paying the extra for the Royal Service as the main hotel was crazy busy.

    • LondonFoodie says:

      25 Dec25 December 18:15

      Overall generally disappointing for the price point.
      The main hotel is on the beach – which is a really amazing beach and the pool is great. But that puts you in the lowest caste of the hotel. You get a bracelet based on your room. The Reserve and Grand Reserve are newer and nicer – we would have stayed there and paid up, but we wanted to be close to the beach. Royal Service is probably great – but adults only. The rooms are large but have an early 90’s design and haven’t been refurbished. The beach loungers for the Reserve and Royal Service are nice and have mattesses. But 80-90% of the normal people ones are broken and in poor condition. (I’ll try and make a video review tomorrow).
      The food is OK, I didn’t come expecting much, but Lacks variety, we have been here for 5 days now and breakfast, lunch and dinner have been 95% the same (except today Christmas). There are some bookable restaurants (meat,Italian,Japanese) but trickier with little kids, so you are pretty much bound to what they servr every day.
      Hungry after lunch? There’s a Snack Bar – or so I was told. The snack bar is actually a BBQ station with very tasty burgers and hot dogs. Vegeterian? Want ice cream? Kids want a snack? Your are SOL.
      Oh and lunch opened 25 minutes late a few days ago – not great with hungry kids.
      Service in the restaurant is poor and highly variable. Ask for coffee at breakfast you can wait for a long long time. We resorted to just grabbinh a jug and serving ourselves. Ditto water during lunch and dinner.
      On the positives the bar staff are great and good selection of drinks.
      It just feels like there is no manager on site. In 5 days we’ve never seen the hotel manager or anybody who seems to be in charge. So the service is generally messy and inconsistent, averaging on poor.
      There’s a really nice kids club with awesome staff and a large kid pool area located in the Reserve. But want to have a water while there with your kid? SOL again, as the bar will only serve Reserve guests.
      Oh, and then you get a “personal concierge” who’s job is to hound you to have breakfast at the new hotel because they get some point. All my explanations that I don’t want to take two young kids to the new hotel for a la carte breakfast didn’t help much. He wants his points. (Super nice guy – but very persistent)
      We’ve had a few other larger issues but they were specific to certain staff so less relevant here.

      So yeah, first world problems, but not things I expected at 500/room/night.

  • Peter K says:

    25 Dec25 December 14:25

    I’m such a HfP geek that I was wondering why spending 5k *points* on 10 nights was so disappointing…then I realised that actual money might be spent on a hotel 😂

    • LondonFoodie says:

      25 Dec25 December 18:18

      🤣🤣 unfortunately it’s real hard earned cash. At least the flights for 3 out of 4 were on miles 😉

• Alan says:

  25 Dec25 December 14:43

  Merry Christmas all! 🎅🎄🎁

• Nadeshka says:

  25 Dec25 December 15:17

  Merry Christmas!
  We are all checked in for our flight to India tomorrow, in CW with a 241 and a baby. Thanks to those who advised on ticketing the other day, it came through yday.

• Alex M says:

  25 Dec25 December 15:20

  Merry Christmas from terminal 2! Btw the airport is not that empty today….

• sunguy says:

  25 Dec25 December 15:34

  Merry Christmas from the Bucks/Herts/Chiltern borders…..

• meta says:

  25 Dec25 December 15:51

  Merry Christmas all from São Tomé! BA First to Accra on Avios (finally had the new Afternoon Tea) then two nights at Accra Marriott on points. Going back with Tap Portugal in business using Miles&More miles. Tap now has newer planes on the route, so more specious seats in business on A321neo. Not your standard economy turned business. Also paid only $150 usd in carrier charged and taxes for my partner and me for the return leg.

• Richard says:

  25 Dec25 December 15:53

  Merry Christmas from Cartagena – via the site discovered low tax flights to Bogotá with Iberia ✅

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