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Get your HfP Christmas Party tickets – with £3,500 of prizes to be won

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As we announced last week, we are pleased to say that we are holding our second Head for Points reader Christmas party on Tuesday 12th December.

Like last year we are taking over the Dry Martini bar at the Melia White House hotel from 6pm to 8pm.  This is situated just a few minutes walk from Warren Street, Regents Park and Great Portland Street tube stations.

This is a great opportunity for you to have a few seasonal drinks and, more importantly, to meet fellow readers and to share your travel hints and tips – and perhaps even learn a few inside secrets that can’t be written about online.

melia-white-house

Qatar Airways is generously sponsoring the party and underwriting the majority of the bill.

And we have a very cool prize draw ….

There will also be a prize draw on the night.  Everyone will be given a free raffle ticket on arrival.

One guest will win a Business Class return flight with Qatar Airways from the UK to any Qatar Airways destination!  (Well, almost anywhere – you can’t backtrack from Doha which means North America is excluded and Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, and Auckland are also excluded.)

Regular readers will know that we rate the Qatar Airways business class product very highly – especially the new Qsuite currently being introduced (photo below) which comes with its own door.  The fact that you can earn Avios and British Airways tier points when you fly with Qatar Airways, due to their membership of the oneworld alliance, is an extra bonus.  If the prize winner books themselves onto a Boeing 777 service from London Heathrow they have an excellent chance of being able to try Qsuite!

Here is the list of all raffle prizes that have generously been offered so far:

The main prize:

  • Qatar Airways:  1 Business Class return ticket from the UK to any Qatar Airways destination (some small print applies, but not much)

And over £1,500-worth of other prizes donated by some of our friends:

There should be another couple of prizes to add before the big night.

We would like to thank everyone above for generously donating the prizes.  As there are only 150 people coming, your chances are good – 1 in 10.  Bring a friend or partner and you’ve got a 1 in 5 chance of winning!

For clarity …. you need to be in the room when the raffle is drawn (probably 7.15 – 7.30) to claim your prize.  Bear this in mind if you think you might have to leave early.

A goody bag for every guest

Whilst we are still working on the final details, we are hoping that that all guests will receive a goody bag on departure.  No promises though.

If your company would like to contribute promotional material (150 sets needed) to the goody bags in return for a contribution towards the bar bill, please email me at anika at headforpoints.com.

How do I get my ticket?

Because we need to ensure that people who ask for tickets turn up, we are charging £20 per ticket.  This price includes VAT.

However, your £20 ticket covers unlimited house wine and beer between 6pm and 8pm.  Soft drinks will also be available.  Spirits etc can be purchased for cash.  We are not making a penny from this and indeed Qatar Airways is footing the bulk of the cost.  After 8pm, the bar will remain open for cash payments for anyone who wants to stay longer.

To give as many people as possible the chance to buy a ticket, we have decided to sell the 150 tickets in two batches this year.

  • Batch One will go on sale on Friday 24th at 10am
  • Batch Two will go on sale on Saturday 25th at 10am

We have set up two ticket sale pages:

If you are buying a ticket on Friday please use this link

If you are buying a ticket on Saturday please use this link

You can buy up to two tickets but please don’t be nervous about coming on your own.  Frequent flyers are a friendly bunch and always happy to share details of their recent trips and miles-earning tips.  There will be name badges this year to make introductions easier.  We would actually recommend that you do not bring a guest if you don’t think that they will want to chat about travel all night, as it might ruin the fun for both of you.

American Express is accepted.

We look forward to seeing you on the 12th.

Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (233)

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

  • Cousin Benson says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:32

    Very much disappointed, but this is what always happens when i try to make a special event. Everybody else wants to come along and there is definitely a shortage of spaces. My friends there is always a next time. Snooze and you lose. Good luck, Benson

  • Lumma says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:36

    Refreshed the page as soon as the time on my phone clicked to 10am, said not yet on sale, refreshed again and said 70 available. Clicked to buy one and got it no problem.

    Good luck to those trying tomorrow morning

  • lev441 says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:46

    That was harder than getting BA Avios J seats at t-355 days!

  • Martin Barber says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:46

    I was lucky and got one. Given that these things tend to favour those on fast connections, it might be fairer to run a draw in future so that everyone has an equal chance.

    • Rob says:
      24 Nov24 November 11:00

      It took us 8 hours to sell them last year so we weren’t quite expecting it.

      The thing with running a website is that you really struggle to get a feel for demand for things like this. I honestly wasn’t sure last year we could even sell 150. And if we could sell 500, would I really want to do that? (It’s the old business joke …. “we lose money on every item we sell, but we make up for it on volume”.)

  • Graham Walsh says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:50

    Missed out too, will try tomorrow AM

    • Polly says:
      24 Nov24 November 11:54

      Graham,

      Are you going to the consolation drinks this evening in Covent Garden for the Patinum Card Event…? We are away so can’t go.. But hoping we get another good showing next Friday Dec 1st at the same event! Hoping Rob can make that also!

      • Rob says:
        24 Nov24 November 11:58

        I have to go the Bath next Friday night now, unfortunately, because my daughter has a hockey game there on Saturday morning.

        • Polly says:
          24 Nov24 November 14:45

          That’s a shame..never mind..hope you get a good showing this evening then. Hope she wins at hockey..it’s such a great sport…

          • Rob says:
            24 Nov24 November 15:39

            I don’t want a good showing this evening because I have no clue if Amex is set up to handle more than 5 people.

      • Waribai says:
        24 Nov24 November 16:17

        Got a nasty cold so postponing my visit till next week. Any updates? Heaving?

        • Rachael says:
          24 Nov24 November 20:51

          Totally heaving. We all had to wait out side for 20 or 30 minutes, with one in and one out allowance. I think a lot were Head for Points people so correct 1000 Head for points = 3000 people… Not really but they didn’t allow many people in. I suggest you arrive early or just before 5 to ensure to enter.

        • Polly says:
          25 Nov25 November 05:16

          Waribal..dont bother it seems it’s all off! No room for us lot it seems even if we are plat card holders…not even bothering to try to get in. Unless amex plan to fix it by Friday which l doubt!

      • Jonny says:
        24 Nov24 November 16:22

        Popped my head round the door at lunchtime today… it’s not a massive space if hoards descend later…!

      • Graham Walsh says:
        25 Nov25 November 14:26

        I have my kids every Friday night so can’t do the Amex pop up drinks. Plus is looks a shambles

  • Kirill says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:50

    Rob why only 10 comments are shown on each page, really painful to read.

    • Rob says:
      24 Nov24 November 10:59

      The site is set up to show 10 PRIMARY comments. What usually happens is that people reply to a comment, and someone replies to the reply, and replies to that reply, so there are 10 PRIMARY comments per page but actually about 40 comments in total.

      What is happening here is that everyone is starting their own comment thread so we get to 10 very quickly.

  • ian says:
    24 Nov24 November 10:54

    I will be at Disney with the family- 2 adults 2 kids booked using 2×241.

    In to Tampa in J out of Atlanta in F with short internal.

    Booked hotels through Emyr

    Hope everyone enjoys the party.

    Thanks for the daily articles……

    • Sussex Bantam says:
      24 Nov24 November 13:39

      I’d be really interested in how you get on with the Atlanta part of this as I considered doing exactly your plan but in the end split my family with 2 of us coming back from Tampa and 2 from Orlando. Would be great to hear your feedback after your trip !

      Have a brilliant time at the Happiest Place on Earth…

      • Scallder says:
        24 Nov24 November 14:44

        ian – (apologies in case you’re already aware of all of this, but just in case not )make sure you download the My Disney Experience app, so you can book Fastpasses 30 days in advance (60 if staying at a Disney property), although dining reservations are open 180 days ahead to anyone. Found that booking 3 fastpasses for as early as possible was a great method as once you’ve used the third you can pick a 4th (and once used the 4th you can use the 5th). As soon as you have scanned in for your 3rd fastpass of the day, you can get the 4th straight away so can sort it out in the queue for the ride.

        Sussex Bantam – whilst not doing an internal and re-checking to BA, we flew black MCO-ATL-LHR with Delta and then Virgin and the whole process was very smooth so if doing flights with Virgin/Delta it was a very straightforward process and Atlanta is very easy to get round as an airport (airside at least).

        • Sussex Bantam says:
          24 Nov24 November 16:39

          Thanks Scallder. We are on a 241 so was actually considering driving to ATL. Apparently its an 8 hour drive but the ATL flight is late in the day so the drive can easily be done in one day (and shared with my wife). Anyway I’m thinking the kids are now old enough that we don’t need to double team them so we should be OK splitting up (fingers crossed)

          ian – if you need any tips please let me know. We’ve done the Disney thing twice already so know our way around. Rob can pass on my email address.

      • ian says:
        24 Nov24 November 19:06

        we did similar 2 years ago however we flew into Miami, stopped at a friend then drove to Orlando, flew home direct from Orlando in J. (only needed 3 seats back then).

        All fastpasses are booked. My wife considers herself somewhat of a pro……

        Slightly nervous about the return as we have 3 hours from landing at ATL to flight leaving and unless we get very lucky we will not be able to check through baggage so will have to collect then re check-in. happy to report back on my return

        We thought about splitting up, however youngest is 3yo so could be a handful on a long flight.

  • Mark says:
    24 Nov24 November 11:21

    it was sold out @ 10:00AM when I hit F5 as I was monitoring since last night. seems bots at play indeed

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

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