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Final HfP Christmas Party tickets sold at 10am – three new raffle prizes added

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The 2nd and final batch of tickets for the Head for Points reader Christmas party, sponsored by Qatar Airways, will go on sale at 10am today, Saturday.

The party will take place on Tuesday 12th December from 6pm to 8pm at the Dry Martini Bar at the Melia White House hotel, Regents Park (Great Portland Street tube).

The link to buy is here.

melia-white-house

The first 75 tickets sold out in a minute yesterday.  If you missed out, hopefully you can jump in today.

(It is quite clear now that not everyone who wants to come will be able to make it.  Sorry.  Last year it took us 8 hours to sell 150 tickets – and the price was cheaper – so we never expected such overwhelming demand this year.  It looks like around 1,000 people tried to get tickets yesterday.  Next year we will look at a different model, potentially a nominal entry fee with a cash bar and space for 300 instead of 150.  However, for 2017, we are where we are.)

Three new raffle prizes added

Every guest on the night will get a free raffle ticket.  We now have roughly £4,500 of prizes to give out.

Warning – the raffle could take a while, given how many prizes we now have!  The upside is that your chance of winning is better than 1 in 10.

Here are the three new prizes we are announcing today:

  • Avios Group – 20,000 Avios
  • Virgin Flying Club – 20,000 Virgin Flying Club miles
  • Vueling – a €500 flight voucher, which should be enough to get two people a return flight in ‘Excellence’ class (terms and conditions apply)

Thanks to Drew, Karen and Adam for these prizes.

As a reminder, here are the other 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:

And a goody bag

Every guest will take home a goody bag.  We have some decent items lined up to include.

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.

The 2nd and final batch of tickets will go on sale TODAY at 10am via this link.  Realistically I would not expect them to last beyond 10.05.

You can buy up to two tickets per person. American Express is accepted.

Thank you to Qatar Airways

We couldn’t have put the party together without generous financial support from Qatar Airways.

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!

There will be Qatar Airways staff at the party if you want to know more about what they have to offer.

Qatar Airways Qsuite

Category

Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (160)

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

  • Capt Hammond says:
    25 Nov25 November 12:56

    Congratulations on selling the tickets so quickly – it’s a reflection of the quality and popularity of the website which only comes about because of the hard work you and Anika put in. Some sour comments on here today (especially from those asking for special treatment because they post on here now and then – what’s all that about?). I didn’t get a ticket either but that’s just the way it goes. Have a great night and hope to be there next year…

  • Martin Barber says:
    25 Nov25 November 14:14

    I’d be amazed if anyone went to the trouble of buying or writing a bot for this event.

    Tips to maximise your chances in ticket sales are all pretty obvious but it amazes me how many people do otherwise:

    – Use the fastest possible computer
    – Have the fastest possible broadband connection
    – A full-sized keyboard and mouse might improve your speed compared to other entry methods
    – Use the fastest possible browser – this will not be IE
    – Do a dummy booking of another event so you know what screens will look like and where buttons to click will be
    – Register and store your credit card details against your profile in advance
    – Get the URL that gets you closest to the part that is closed until the sale opens – on one website I use, I know how to guess the event id in advance and be on the event page before others
    – Use F5 to refresh that page
    – Don’t wait for all elements on the page to reload before refreshing again, just the elements that confirm the sale has not yet started
    – Rope in as many people as you can to try on their own separate computer and separate broadband connection – you can confer at the payment stage in case more than one person is successful
    – Avoid changing the default options during the buying process if at all possible – in today’s HfP sale, the time taken to change the default quantity from 1 to more will likely have lost you any small chance you had
    – Be very very quick
    – Assume some people will get a ticket in their basket and fail to complete the purchase, so keep refreshing after the sale for at least an hour to stand a chance of getting such a ticket when it returns to inventory – I’ve known some sites take two or even four hours to do this

    • Lumma says:
      25 Nov25 November 15:35

      To be fair, I got my ticket on Friday morning with my 2011 MacBook just by clicking refresh when the clock on my phone clicked over to 10am. Maybe I was just extremely lucky

    • Kinkell says:
      25 Nov25 November 16:01

      I’ll blame our dreadful broadband connection then for not getting a ticket. Ultra, superfast, openreach and other well known providers wont even entertain our patch of rural Highland. I did go last year ( BA RFS from Inverness, family visiting and wonderful christmas shopping) . Those of you with lightning fingers lucky enough to get a ticket will have a really enjoyable time.

  • Martin Barber says:
    25 Nov25 November 14:17

    I actually wrote use CONTROL-F5 to refresh, but because I put CONTROL in less-than and greater-than symbols, it is not displayed!

  • Martin Barber says:
    25 Nov25 November 14:23

    How about some HfP regional events? I’ve hired smart nightclubs in Birmingham in the past close to the train station and they are keen for opportunities for early evening business when they would otherwise be closed.

  • Leo says:
    25 Nov25 November 17:22

    I might get shot for this suggestion – on the basis that the event is so very popular (and well done guys btw) in the future might you not bother at all with prizes? There’s a suggestion that some people might have applied for tickets solely because the chances of walking away with a valuable prize are relatively high. If numbers need to remain quite small next year maybe leaving out the prizes would ensure that those really interested in the points world (and those who put the effort in to help out via comments) have a better chance of attending the get-together. I say this not having applied for tickets and it’s just a thought. Of course it may well be the case that everyone with a ticket is genuinely interested in networking and chatting points – it’s probably quite likely on reflection and I hope is the case. Prizes could still be offered through an online raffle maybe, or like those competitions throughout the year.

  • Martin Barber says:
    25 Nov25 November 20:12

    I agree. Ditch the raffle and goody bags. Make it a social event where tips can be shared.

    • Temp says:
      26 Nov26 November 08:45

      Disagree. It makes the event a bit special. Otherwise it would just be any old ‘meetup’. If there is a worry that people are only attending for a chance to win a prize – which I really don’t think is the case (I don’t understand why people are being so conspiracy theory about this given the comments clearly show the demand) – raffles could maybe not reveal what the prizes are beforehand.

      But tbh I have no problem with how this was done. I didn’t get a ticket, but that’s life. I’m not gonna cry and moan and work out how the process/event could be changed so next time I do. Yes maybe a bigger venue would help, but remember this is just the second year. Which is testament to how well Rob and Anika have done… Congrats!

      Hope the lucky ones all have fun. Maybe see you at 8…

  • Henry says:
    5 Dec5 December 19:06

    Is anyone selling tickets? Would really love to go if anyone has any spares.

    • Rob says:
      5 Dec5 December 21:02

      No-one has asked us to find a new home for theirs unfortunately.

      We have a plan for next year to get around this, and may even trial a Summer event. The Melia bar has a terrace apparently.

      • Jay says:
        5 Dec5 December 21:38

        +1 on lookout for a spare.

        Sounds promising re: Summer event! Would be great if could work out that those who weren’t able to get tickets for the Xmas event get an opportunity first to be able to attend that.

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

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