Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: has Accor scrapped Happy Mondays?, IHG redemption sale in Mexico / LATAM / Caribbean

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

Has Accor scrapped Happy Mondays?

Accor’s low key Happy Mondays was actually the best hotel promotion in the UK.

Every Monday and Tuesday, Accor would dump its unsold UK rooms for the following two weekends at this website.  The absolute maximum you could pay was £80 for the Pullman in London, but most rooms were £40 to £60.  Ibis hotels outside London were just £25 per night, and sometimes some of the London Docklands properties ended up as ‘outside London’ and so were £25.

These rooms even counted for Accor promotions, which could in some cases make your room virtually free if there was a good bonus points offer running.

Happy Mondays may have been scrapped.  Instead of a new batch of rooms, if you look at the site today it says:

“This offer has now ended, BUT COME BACK NEXT WEEK to discover our NEW SET OF EXCLUSIVE OFFERS – SECRET DEALS BY ACCORHOTELS, giving you access to at least 20% discount and exclsuive [sic] hotel packages in the UK.”

Accor gave Happy Mondays virtually no promotion and unless you read HFP you probably wouldn’t have known about it.  It was a risky offer as it could easily have cannibalised existing bookings if guests had cancelled and rebooked.  My recommendation was usually to book a redemption night with another chain and then look to switch that at the last minute for a ‘Happy Mondays’ room, saving your IHG, Hilton, Marriott etc points for a better deal on another day.

It certainly sounds like ‘Secret Deals’ won’t be as generous as ‘Happy Mondays’, but let’s see.

Accor Happy Monday

50% discount on IHG rewards nights

IHG Rewards Club, the loyalty scheme for InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn etc, has brought back its aggressive reward night sale.

The good news is that reward nights are discounted by a full 50%.

Unfortunately, it is very restrictive.   The promotion is only valid in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean.   It works for bookings made by 7th May for stays before 30th June.

That said, if you’re heading to the region in the next two months you might want to take another look at your accommodation choices.

Full details of the offer can be found here


IHG One Rewards update – April 2024:

Get bonus points: IHG One Rewards is offering 2,000 bonus points for every two cash nights you stay (not necessarily consecutive) between 1st April and 31st May 2024. You can read our full article here and you can register here.

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

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

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.

Comments (67)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Brian says:

    Just messaged Le Club on Facebook and they confirmed that Happy Mondays are now Unhappy Mondays…Oh well. That is, I think, the final nail in the coffin for Accor for me – they stopped bonus points counting towards status, their promotions, while generous, have crazily restrictive booking windows (unlike IHG) and now this.

    • Brighton Belle says:

      +1 Accor are doing everything right to send me to other chains

  • Charlie says:

    O/T
    My emails keep bouncing back – Rob can you send me a referral for the Lloyds Avios card please?

    • Rob says:

      Will do. Were you using .com (which doesn’t work) or .co.uk?

      • Charlie says:

        I did .com and (auto returned using phone) and .co.uk (server error using different connection) – though I actually think it’s a problem my end.

        Thanks will look out for it.

  • Andrew* says:

    O/T: Aer Club points turned up over the bank holiday weekend for me and my wife; I know of another HFP reader who also got their points…

    As above, using Facebook Messenger – with Aer Lingus – seemed to help…

    • Kathy says:

      Thanks, I’ve just sent a FB message to enquire. Though to be honest I’m more concerned about 10200 economist Avios not posting than 250 Aer Club ones!

      • Cate says:

        We’re still waiting for the Economist Avios as well. May send the CEO a short sharp message and ask for an ex gratia payment for distress….

      • Andrew* says:

        So would I, but not having an economist subscription I was happy to message Aer Lingus from time to time …

  • Doodles says:

    It’s disappointing that the alternative Accor offer was not in place this week. This was the first time I was going to try and book using Happy Mondays. I wanted to book Ibis Styles Heathrow but instead have booked Ibis Styles Reading Centre (a new hotel, I think), rate is £55 but convenient for GWR train home and if they do introduce something by next week, I can still cancel it.

  • JamesB says:

    OT BA: Anybody any idea if I can book two award flights for the same passenger on the same plane or does the system spot and prevent the duplicate booking? I want to take advantage of availability to KUL but no idea at moment if I will be starting from LHR or EDI so wondering if I can book both and cancel one later. Alternatively, would BA allow me to drop domestic sector if no longer required?

    • Anna says:

      Two family members and I had flights to Germany cancelled and re-routed. Two were RFS and one was cash. The re-routed flight was actually cheaper than the original, so I re-booked the cash fare then asked BA to cancel the more expensive booking, which they did. So for a couple of days the cash passenger was technically booked to travel on 2 seats on the same flight. It’s worth a try, but will probably require 2 separate bookings.

      • Anna says:

        (Incidentally, with a jobsworth attitude to beat all others, BA refused to refund the difference on the fares and kept insisting we were only entitled to re-routing or cancellation. Thankfully I possess a modicum of common sense, so took the cancellation option and made my friend a new booking for £40 less than originally paid. There was no cancellation fee as it was BA who changed our travel plans).

    • Rob says:

      You can drop the domestic leg, that isn’t an issue.

  • N says:

    Tesco phones from a few days ago back in stock

  • Crafty says:

    OT: About to empty out an Amex MR account with c.50k points. Is this article still considered gospel https://headforpoints.com/2016/05/10/best-use-american-express-membership-rewards-points/ or have any recent changes to hotel schemes significantly moved the foundations? Currently I plan to convert to Club Carlson as I am concerned about overexposure to Avios at a time when the BA product is in precipitous decline – or is this silly of me?

    • the real harry1 says:

      have you read https://headforpoints.com/2017/04/16/review-of-marriott-rewards/

      ‘Travel Packages are the way to go
      When it comes to redeeming, the Marriott travel packages – combining both airline miles and hotel nights – are a VERY good deal. 390,000 points would get you 7 nights in a top-tier Category 9 hotel (worth around £2,500 if you choose well) and 120,000 Avios points, worth a further £1,000.’

    • Rob says:

      Carlson is fine, but remember they have very little of quality in North America or Asia so you should be planning to use them in Europe or the Middle East. Starwood has more flexibility now that you can move the points to Marriott Rewards too (but I would stick by the valuation).

      • KK says:

        Hey rob, sorry to hijack a post for my random (half random) things.
        remember your double IHG points promo from last year? Basically, I booked my February trip in early December (quite a while before the end), but never managed to get the points.
        I’m wondering if you (or your leads) can take a look at it.
        Feel free to shoot me an email. Thanks a bunch!

        PS: It was a very good promo and got me to read your site a lot more (Sent it to a few flyertalk buddies too)!

        • Rob says:

          Send me an email to rob at headforpoints.co.uk with confirmation number, hotel, dates, name, IHG number and I will send it across.

  • Pierre says:

    O.T. as well, but if you are in need of an Avis rental and want to get cheaper price, it’s always worth messaging their Facebook teams, I’ve managed to get € 10 off a one-day on-airport rental during one of the French long weekends in May (Friday evening-Saturday noon), ca a 25% discount!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.