Bits: Avios & Charles Tyrwhitt sale, Iberia multi-partner bonus, tour McLaren factory with Hilton

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• Mr(s) Entitled says:

  3 Jul3 July 07:25

  1 hilton package left

• Sohan says:

  3 Jul3 July 07:27

  I did the McLaren tour last time (thanks Rob!) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Small group of people, you can bring a friend, really impressive factory, a lovely meal, and great tour from the lovely PR team.

  The other reason to do this is to see the back catalogue of original McLaren cars laid out on the factory floor. For an F1 nut, this is brilliant.

• Swissy says:

  3 Jul3 July 08:08

  Sold out 🙁

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 08:39

    That’s earlier than last time then 🙂

• the realharry1 says:

  3 Jul3 July 08:53

  just mentioning it again as people often ask how they can earn their first IB points – on Plustore you can navigate to El Corte Ingles (dept store) and they are happy to deliver to UK (or anywhere)

  2 Avios per Euro

• Julian says:

  3 Jul3 July 10:28

  I’m a big, albeit now ageing, F1 fan, who really followed McLaren back in the days of Senna, Prost and Mansell and then again with Hamilton.

  But in their current pathetically performing state and completely ruining the rest of Alonso’s career (presumably he gets a shed load of money for this to put up with it) I certainly wouldn’t pay anything like this for this trip.

  75,000 Avios is worth at least £750 people to most people in redemptions and arguably is worth up to £1500 or possibly more depending on how you redeem. For me that’s far too much to tour a factory and have a nice lunch (latter worth no more than say £75 and factory visit worth what, may be £50 at most, being very charitable).

  Of course I realise that for people who have been gifted millions of Avios while flying in the course of their already well paid marketing or sales job that the equation for them will be rather different.

  • Wally1976 says:

    3 Jul3 July 10:36

    It’s Hilton Honors points and not Avios but still a fair amount to “pay” (and I’m a big F1 fan).

  • Will says:

    3 Jul3 July 10:51

    You could have bout 80,000 Hilton points for $400 a coupe of weeks ago, so it’s about £300 for 75,000 or £150 per person if you look at it like that.

  • Crafty says:

    3 Jul3 July 12:18

    Slightly bitter comment to be posting on a site that’s all about earning and spending points…

    • Gavin says:

      3 Jul3 July 13:46

      Agree, no interest myself but presumably for a keen F1 fan buying this package would not be dictated by their notional value of a Hilton point

      • Julian says:

        4 Jul4 July 02:08

        However I think most keen F1 fans in 2017 are no longer fans of McLaren but instead are fans of Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull or even Williams.

        Funny thing is that even when McLaren success was at its height second time round in the late 1990s and Hakkinen went roaring through the streets of Woking (where I then worked) in his car to celebrate a second F1 championship their “factory” was still based in a very small and modest industrial estate facility in central Woking. Then using their successful name they fairly outrageously managed to get planning permission on the Pristine Green Belt Paragon site (where these tours are now being offered) to focus on a million other things in addition to F1 and ever since then (or at least ever since Hamilton’s first F1 title) they have completely and utterly lost their way.

        Anyway to me McLaren always is and was Ron Dennis so with Ron now totally out of the picture I can see no point in touring the F1 facility of a completely down and out F1 team. But seeing as how bad things now are for them then why restrict the tour to Hilton Honor Points holders and why not open it up as a small F1 theme park to any interested parties at 100 quid per visit.

        If this was an offer to tour the Ferrari factory in Italy (in particular) then I would take an altogether different and more positive attitude towards it. This recent Telegraph article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2017/04/28/mclaren-sink-deeper-biggest-crisis-once-proud-teams-history/ neatly sums up their current situation.

    • Rob says:

      3 Jul3 July 14:43

      I know people with 1 million Hilton points and no great desire to spend them on staying in more Hilton hotels – this sort of thing is great. Anyway, this is literally something that you cannot buy, so the value is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

      I doubt I would go if Hilton rang me up and offered me a free ticket, because F1 is really not my thing. However, there are people on the Starwood auction site who pay literally hundreds of thousands of SPG points (and you can multiply that total by 4 to get to an equivalent Hilton points valuation) for Formula 1 VIP tickets and this is in a similar vein.

• Wally1976 says:

  3 Jul3 July 10:54

  OT – my 3000 MR points for £500 spend on the Amex gold credit card have finally arrived 🙂

  Still no Avios from registering with Marriott though 🙁

  • Mzungu says:

    3 Jul3 July 18:06

    My 3000MR points still not posted, but Mrs Mzungu’s posted with the transaction that crossed the threshold. Chased Amex today, said they can’t see why they haven’t posted, should now be there in 10 days, usually much less.

    • Wally1976 says:

      4 Jul4 July 16:26

      They said 7-10 working days to me and in the end it took, I think, 6 working days.

• Talay says:

  3 Jul3 July 17:21

  OT but I need (or rather would like) some Hyatt points to redeem at the Park Hyatt Tokyo. I currently have zero !

  Any ideas ? I generate well into 6 figures on annual spend for my companies but am currently channeling this into SPG for Marriott travel packages.

  • Rob says:

    3 Jul3 July 18:17

    Can’t be done ….. no easy route if you live here.

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