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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

Comments (160)

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

  • MissLondon says:

    Missed out on tickets again… despite having iPad and phone on the Eventbrite page at the ready before 10am.

    Not feeling the Xmas cheer… these tickets were harder to get than a BAEC business class redemption flight to Sydney for Xmas…

  • Billy says:

    To be fair I wasn’t all that keen to purchase a ticket but when I read that the chances of winning a prize were 1 in 10……well that changed everything.

    I don’t think people used bots its just that more than 50 people were on the site at 1000 at the same time. I was refreshing from 0959. There are thousands of people that read HfP that dont comment on the comments section

  • SamDubs says:

    Just like first batch – At 10:00:01 – 50 tickets remaining – clicking checkout at 10:00:03 – sold out. Crazy! Guess I’ll see you next year.

    Having been a subscriber since pretty early on its fantastic to see how successful Rob (& now Anika) have been in growing the site – the speed of these ticket sales is testament to that. Kudos to you both!

    Very best of luck to everyone in the raffle and hope you all have an enjoyable evening!

  • mutley says:

    There are thousands that visit this site weekly and hundreds daily, given the level of traffic surely the organisers should have had the foresight to firstly hire a much larger venue, and accommodate say 500?

    • Rob says:

      A bigger venue would not make a better event. That is a big mistake to make.

      We will do something different next year. The issue is not finding a space, it is finding a space with a large cash bar that would not charge venue hire (if we guarantee minimum spend). Suggestions welcome.

  • EvilGazebo says:

    Same for me. Gone instantaneously. There’s selling out fast and then there’s bots. Although given this readership’s propensity to game systems I’m not entirely sure we can complain….

  • Rajesh says:

    Completely agree with you all, and had exactly the same experience. Showed 50 available tickets at 10am, tried to check out and then they were all unavailable. Think there may have been an issue with Eventbrite or some bots at play. Definitely shows how popular the Xmas Party is Rob, so definitely a bigger venue and different system for tickets next year. Hope everyone who’s going has a great time. And look forward to managing to attend the 2018 HfP Xmas Party.

  • Mickael says:

    +1 missing out on tickets, refreshing at 10.00.00 yesterday and today but no luck at all.

    Maybe we could organise parallel events on the same evening, what stops us meeting somewhere else in a pub? I didn’t care at all about the raffles, what I was looking forward to is talking to other people and sharing experiences. I think we can still do it.

  • Lochlann says:

    Looks like I’m one of the lucky ones, having taken the advice to try on the Eventbrite app.

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

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