The HfP chat thread – Friday 26th November

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Anna says:

26 Nov26 November 13:06

Kimpton Charlotte Square is now calling its rooms “Essential” and “Premium”, thus making it sound like a Holiday Inn 😂
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 13:46
  
  Part of ihg’s great rebrand and standardisation of room categories
  
  Sounds like a decent idea with piss poor execution.
- Duncan says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 14:24
  
  “Essential” is a bit of a ridiculous room category for a premium hotel. If they want to standardise room categories across all of IHG they should allow for certain categories to simply not exist in some hotels.
  - Anna says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 15:21
    
    I concur!
    Some Hiltons have rooms designated “cosy double” which I take to mean there’s about 6 inches between the bed and the walls on the either side …
    - andyT says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 15:51
      
      Three-quarter size double bed so you snuggle up to each other…..
      - Anna says:
        
        26 Nov26 November 18:38
        
        Definitely one to avoid then, I’m not even keen on the standard double!
- Andrew says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 16:04
  
  Yes, IHG seem to have changed the executive room category to premium room – my booking yesterday was upgraded to premium rather than my usual exec and I thought that meant it was just on a higher floor or something, but was indeed a usual exec room.
Phil says:

26 Nov26 November 13:15

Monese promotion TAP30 – add to have a chance of winning back spending up to £200

Details at https://monese.com/li/en/promotions/lucky-tap

BTW – where do people look to know about the SHOP100, etc promotions? (Apart from here of course!)
- Dominic C says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 13:38
  
  I’d like to know the answer to that question too if anyone knows
  - The Accountant says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 14:12
    
    The app sends a notification and they send an email as well
    - mark2 says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 14:35
      
      not to me!
      - Phil says:
        
        26 Nov26 November 15:21
        
        Me neither!
      - The Accountant says:
        
        26 Nov26 November 16:36
        
        Maybe you opted out of marketing/offers?
    - Aston100 says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 17:54
      
      I’ve only ever had one email, a couple of months ago and that came a day after the promo (which I’d already been notified about from elsewhere).
      I have all the marketing and comms turned on in the app.
Piers says:

26 Nov26 November 13:23

On a chat with Amex to chase the missing bonus points for adding a supplementary card, after having waited the 90 days that I was quoted at the time. Now I’m getting this as a response:
” as per offer additional 5k points gets added in 90 days once they spend threshold amount of 2k GBP on their card ”
Has anyone ever seen a spend requirement on the supplementary card T&Cs, to be eligible for the bonus points?
- Rob says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 15:10
  
  There was one during the special offer earlier this year, but not usually.
Will says:

26 Nov26 November 13:32

It’s been a while since I stayed at a Hilton. I can’t seem to get to a point where it tells me how many points a room is “per night”. I’m trying to book 5 nights to take advantage 5th night free – I got the impression it was 95,000 points a night – but it appears that is an “offer” for the first night.

How do you find a breakdown of the points per night? It could be a rate change mid-stay.

Thanks in advance
- Rob M says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 13:37
  
  Search for 1 night, for points, using flexible dates – it should show you a range of dates – e.g. 4 weeks – with the points cost per night
- Gareth says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 13:37
  
  Try five individual booking queries
- TGLoyalty says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 13:48
  
  It gives you the breakdown by night when you click book
  
  5th night free is always the cheapest of the nights not the actual 5th night.
John says:

26 Nov26 November 13:39

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/26/experience-i-earned-more-than-40m-air-miles

It’s the guy who did that Thai farmer thing
- Rob says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 15:09
  
  Thanks John. Have popped on Twitter.
- Anna says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 15:38
  
  Great story, I wonder if he has an IHG MC?!
  - Peter K says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 19:45
    
    He won’t after December 3rd if he did I’m sure!
Martin says:

26 Nov26 November 14:22

Anyone have any experience of how long it takes Verifly to sync with BA ie how long should expect to wait for BA to see I have completed all the steps on Verifly and allow me to check in ?>
- Daftboy says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 14:57
  
  Usually instantaneous – once you have completed all steps on Verifly you should be able to check in online right away
- Rob says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 15:04
  
  It is done via machine learning – no human looks at your submission, it is read by computer. Usually done in a minute.
  - Can says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 15:20
    
    that’s not what machine learning is rob
    - Rob says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 16:37
      
      Yes, sorry, machine reading – you know what I mean.
      - Martin says:
        
        26 Nov26 November 21:05
        
        Thank all – it took a couple hours but all fine now and checked in – maybe a few get manually checked
  - Neil Spellings says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 16:21
    
    For someone who works with ML, it’s a pretty valid use case I think. Someone has “taught” a model how to recognise valid submissions and reject ones it doesn’t recognised (perhaps for secondary validation by a human). Automation of identify verification, ID documents etc are currently one of the most common use-cases for machine learning.
    - Can says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 19:19
      
      Yeah but for ML is task is trivial.
Hulk says:

26 Nov26 November 14:26

Addison Lee can’t pick me up from LHR T5 tonight – fully booked apparently
- Rob says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 15:04
  
  All of the London taxi firms are having a severe driver recruitment crisis. Huge proportions of their staff went off to Amazon, Ocado etc over the last 18 months. There are some very aggressive signing on bonuses currently available and Uber just put up its fares by 10% (25% to Heathrow).
  - Aston100 says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 17:58
    
    Everything is going up in price faster than it should be.
    Is it the B word again?
    - Rob says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 19:03
      
      Less so, because of the licensing requirements in London which make it tricky for anyone fresh from Heathrow to get taxi work. This is simply the repercussions of the drivers being fired or walking away during lockdown and being welcomed with open arms by Amazon and Ocado etc, none of whom make you ferry around drunks at 3am who vomit in the back of your vehicle.
      - Anna says:
        
        26 Nov26 November 19:33
        
        Or verbally abuse you and refuse to pay!
- Andrew says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 17:28
  
  AL has been very difficult to use for a couple of months now, especially when booking in advance, immediate request can be easier to get.
Rob says:

26 Nov26 November 14:35

Quick Question

Is the 3k supplementary bonus for gold cards still automatuc, or do you have to wait to be targetted?

I recently added Sup card to BA blue and never receieved the 1k bonus.

Thanks
- VerdantBacon says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 14:39
  
  Supposed to be automatic but it seems they’ve been very slow. I contacted them yesterday about a Plat Supp and they added the points manually as it had been over 90 days.
- VerdantBacon says:
  
  26 Nov26 November 14:40
  
  Also don’t have to be targeted, just make sure you go through this link
  
  https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/supplementary-cards/
  - s879 says:
    
    26 Nov26 November 17:12
    
    Added Platinum supplementary many weeks ago and BA supplementary too but no points added.
    - VerdantBacon says:
      
      26 Nov26 November 17:43
      
      I chased after about 4 weeks but was told it could be up to 90 days, once 90 days passed and I still didn’t get it, I contacted Amex and they added the points right away for me. Seems very different to when it used to just take a few days!