HfP competition: Travel in style this Summer with a luxury polo shirt by Niccolò P.

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• LeMain says:

  21 May21 May 05:20

  Another advertorial that seems only very tangentially related to helping “business and leisure travellers maximise their Avios, frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. “

  • Simon says:

    21 May21 May 06:00

    Yes. Luckily no one is forcing you to look at the site or to pay for it.

    • John says:

      21 May21 May 06:59

      And if everyone stopped looking at the site then where would it be? “Get a refund of your non-existent subscription” comments are more annoying than “this looks like an advert which I am not interested in”

  • Peter K says:

    21 May21 May 07:26

    I find it funny how advertorials are written and quite enjoy reading them. It’s like they think they can fool the reader into thinking it’s a normal article but badly fail.
    I don’t mind it being on HfP personally and will enter the competition but it clearly is nothing to do with miles/points.

    • N says:

      21 May21 May 09:07

      +1

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 08:58

    I’ll check your IP address against the entry list later just to see if you did enter 🙂

    • @mkcol says:

      21 May21 May 11:42

      Oh the shade!

  • Tim says:

    21 May21 May 17:07

    No objection to this advertorial at all.

    I am however faintly amused at the implication that because I like saving money on flights, I will be the sort of smart casual idiot who pays £125 for a polo shirt.

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 18:46

      As you get older you will see the benefit of buying a pricey polo shirt every 10 years than a rubbish one every 18 months. You should look at a few sites like permanentstyle which will totally change your approach.

      • Fenny says:

        21 May21 May 20:13

        I have t-shirts that are considerably older than the apprentices I used to work with. If any of them cost over £15, it’s because they were from events where I was willing to pay for a keepsake.

    • ankomonkey says:

      21 May21 May 19:52

      I bought myself a t-shirt in Turkey while on a work trip last year. It cost me about £6 and I bought it because I liked it and wanted it rather than needed it. It’s really soft and really good quality. I have another trip over summer and plan to buy loads. 10 for £60 should last me 18 years if worn sequentially by Rob’s estimates, and I’ll have £65 left to eat like a pig while I’m there. On that basis, maybe I should buy the next size up…

      • the real harry1 says:

        21 May21 May 20:21

        I bought about 25 Adidas Olympics 2012 T-shirts – originally about £25 but I got them for £4 6 months later, lots of different designs on black, red, white. Just opened a new one last week, they’re great quality plus people keep asking me if I was a competitor lol

• Worzel says:

  21 May21 May 05:56

  Sadly, a Library of free information, and help from readers comes at a cost.

  • Nick says:

    21 May21 May 06:07

    I don’t mind that, but I’d really rather it were noted explicitly. Yes it’s sometimes apparently clear, but it’s not always obvious what’s paid for, and I would trust Rob much more if he were more open about that. A simple line saying ‘this is a paid partnership’ in an article would do. MSE has always had a page detailing ‘how we are funded’ and it won them nothing but respect very early on. Just my opinion of course, it’s his site and he’s free to ignore it if he wants, just as I’m free not to visit, but I’d like to think he’d at least consider it if encouraged by reasonable comments.

    • TripRep says:

      21 May21 May 06:32

      That seems a common sense approach and I believe would reduce the number of negative comments.

      Now do any HFP readers want to give away free hotel stays or car hire? 😀

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 08:45

      HFP policy (and indeed the policy of every other publication on the planet, including this weeks guest publication ‘Avocado Week’) is basically ‘give us a valuable enough prize and you can have a couple of paragraphs to plug your business’. Next week we have 35,000 Avios to give away (subject to final sign off).

      By definition, as we don’t have any products or services of our own, – unless we go down the shops and buy something ourselves to give away – a comp is always going to be a collaboration with another company! Unless we have a competition without any prizes and you just fill in the entry form for fun …….?!

      • Wivus says:

        21 May21 May 12:56

        I will pay for an advert for Avocados if you think HFP readers will shift 20-30 tonne?

    • Brian W says:

      21 May21 May 21:29

      Nick, I find your comment unbelievable and common with so many on here. Bitter.
      Who cares?

      It’s a competition for a polo shirt. Yes, a garment of clothing that none of us really care about in the world we live in. Some of us would wear it, some wouldn’t. HFP are clearly working with this company, that’s just common sense. But who cares? What does it matter? We are all here reading Rob’s website because we benefit from it, we gain from the insight of his experience and all other commentators on here. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t read this blog.

      Do you dig Tesco up when they are in collaboration with Coleman’s on a Tesco.com competition to win a year’s supply of English mustard?

      Your comments aren’t reasonable, they are unpleasant and of no use to anybody on here. Like others have said, and often do in reply to nonsensical remarks like yours, just move on to the next daily article.

      Rob is running a business, the business is expanding, and we are all gaining from that growth with a greater readership. Costs increase, income streams diversify as a result. Basic business economics.

      You’re free not to visit as you say but most would rather you just gracefully moved on to the next article of interested you gave some positive input where relevant.

  • LB says:

    21 May21 May 08:08

    Well said.

    • LB says:

      21 May21 May 08:09

      That was in response to Worzel.

• TT says:

  21 May21 May 07:12

  £125.00 ….for polo shirt? Surely not! Great buy for the london centric based club of high earners, half the price of our mortgage here up north were the sun never shines! (Meant as a joke, so please no its a free site comments) maybe we can try to wear the polo shirt with one of the crazy expensive ties that get promoted on this site and bank 5 avios along the way!

  • John says:

    21 May21 May 07:21

    I wonder where they are made. If in Europe then it’s probably OK, if China you will probably be able to get the shirts which failed quality control for £10

    • Peter K says:

      21 May21 May 07:28

      Manufacturing is only in Europe is mentioned in the article.

  • James says:

    21 May21 May 09:46

    Duly entered the competition thanks.
    Would never spend £125 on a polo shirt.
    For holidays, I buy all my T’s and polo shirts from SportsDirect.
    Plenty of colours available. T’s 3 for £11 and Polos’s £6 each.
    I take them in the packaging wear them once and leave them behind.

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 09:47

      I used to do that with socks ..

• Pierre says:

  21 May21 May 07:46

  Will they shrink in the wash? And how heavyweight is the cotton? I find M&S do better quality polo shirts for £15 than many priced at £75+ Avios points with M&S too… Though not quite sure if M&S are ‘passionate about travel’. But I couldn’t give a flying …. if they are or not. As long as their polo shirts don’t shrink in the wash…

  • Lumma says:

    21 May21 May 09:59

    As I wear polo shirts for work each day I have many from a big range of prices and the more expensive ones are some of the worst quality ones after a few times through the washing machine. I’ve had real Hugo Boss polos as well as possibly copy ones bought off eBay (the listings claim that they’re factory seconds but there’s subtle differences between these and the real ones) and the £20 eBay ones have ended up being longer lasting than the real ones.

    The best travel polos, if anyone is looking, are from Uniqlo, £15 each and they pretty much never need ironing

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      21 May21 May 13:00

      Either a golfer or polo shirt model.

• Gomigo says:

  21 May21 May 09:17

  OT Rob, we were expecting some form of privacy notice from you in connection to GDPR roll out which is round the corner. This is a requirement since you hold, manage, process and controlling personal details of your readers. Is it something that we can expect in next few days?? I’m sure there may be some privacy lawyers in this reader community who can better advice on the matter. I sharing this in best interest so that you are risk free !!

  • Charlie says:

    21 May21 May 09:45

    I would have thought that as we each signed up to the mailing list individually and by choice that he’s already covered? Not sure.

    • Rob says:

      21 May21 May 09:52

      Already done! The mailing list is covered because, as Charlie says, everyone on it signed up directly via two-factor authentication for the sole purpose of receiving our emails.

      Gleam is covered as per the notice at the bottom of the competition entry box which appeared for the first time today. There is a new page explaining your rights re comment data and how you can have it accessed or deleted, the link to which is at the bottom of every page under the comment box. There is a note on the Emyr page discussing how we deal with your hotel booking enquiry.

      In terms of directly identifiable data – which is the core bit – that is it and we are 100% compliant already.

      In terms of indirectly identifiable data we are running a bit behind but that is due to the nature of the WordPress ecosystem. Everything will settle down over a couple of months.

      • the real harry1 says:

        21 May21 May 17:43

        I’ve been helping my wife with GDPR the last couple of weeks as she got delegated the compliance responsibility for her place of work. Deadline is 25th May. I think HFP clearly complies with most of it already as you got our explicit consent to keep email addresses when we signed up for the daily emails. Plus to unsubscribe is easy and clearly given as an option in the emails. I see there’s a privacy policy down under – I think HFP would be wise to mention that explicitly this week (is it new?) in an email as this is partly a cover backside exercise (could just be a paragraph on a Bits). Also, what do you do with data (names and emails) received in competition entries? You should really be looking to destroy that data soon after the competition end, making this clear with each competition entry, state that you will never pass personal details to third parties (unless entrants have given consent to be signed up to – say – a newsletter).

        • Rob says:

          21 May21 May 18:37

          Er ….. doesn’t it say all that in the small print under the entry box?!

      • the real harry1 says:

        21 May21 May 18:56

        Yep – never bothered to read that before but looks compliant (competitions). Quite expensive consultant has been advising my wife and, adopting her advice, your privacy policy is not explicit enough, merely an add-on hidden in hard to read colour font/ background in no-man’s-land. So to cover backside you could point all existing subscribers to your privacy policy in an email – and of course any new subscribers to get a link as well when they sign up. Consultant’s attitude is about evidencing you’ve done things to be compliant with GDPR requirements. Even if it starts getting a bit silly.

        I’m sure you’ve got it covered and this is basically another year 2000 episode – but who wants to be the fall guy?

      • Alan says:

        21 May21 May 22:08

        Lol don’t think you mean 2FA – that’s for more secure logins to websites where it’s password + code 😉 Agree though there has been active opt-in so can’t see it being an issue.

        • Rob says:

          21 May21 May 22:31

          Sorry, meant double opt-in!

• Ian says:

  21 May21 May 09:19

  Not being a rich Londoner, I too would take issue with the comment that the shirt is “worth £125”. It may cost that much but it’s most certainly not worth it.

  • Rob says:

    21 May21 May 09:59

    I saw one in Zegna in Harrods over the weekend which I quite liked but it was £475 …

    • Andrew says:

      21 May21 May 13:29

      Surely only £445 with the current Amex offer?

  • John says:

    21 May21 May 13:28

    The real question is are 2 shirts worth one night at an Intercontinental 🙂

    • James says:

      21 May21 May 21:32

      Reminds me – I got a FREE black Intercontinental Polo shirt as a welcome gift on a points stay in Nha Trang last year.

• Andrew says:

  21 May21 May 09:23

  The trouble with Polo shirts is that if I wear:-

  A red one – I look like postman
  A dark blue one – I look like our office cleaner
  A pale blue one – I look like our cleaner’s supervisor
  A green one – our facilities staff
  A black one – our security staff
  A yellow one – local football team
  A white one – Boots staff at lunchtime
  Orange or Brown and I look like a courier

  I’m wearing a pink one today. I can’t go wrong with a different shade of pink.

  • Frenske says:

    21 May21 May 10:59

    Turquoise? Normal coloured with an coloured collar edge?

  • johnny_c-l says:

    21 May21 May 11:13

    Solution – add a picture of a little horse on the left chest…or stick on a pair of sandals with them and pretend you’re on your summer hols.

    • ankomonkey says:

      21 May21 May 20:05

      “…stick on a pair of sandals with them and pretend you’re on your summer hols.”

      Best post I’ve seen in a while 🙂

  • Wivus says:

    21 May21 May 13:02

    Buy stripey ones

  • ankomonkey says:

    21 May21 May 20:03

    Great post!

• Nicky says:

  21 May21 May 09:25

  It amazes me that people allow themselves to get so wound up about adverts that appear on the site and whether or not they are travel related: get a life people, scroll past them and be glad that someone like Rob set up the site to help so many of us to discover the joys of turning left when not earning a Fortune 500 wage or getting on a plane every month curtesy of our employers. Wow 1st world problems: no doubt I’ll now get a slating for being blunt but hey it will give me something to laugh at ????

  • Malibu Stacey says:

    21 May21 May 09:54

    Many of doing that long before Rob set up the site and it has become much harder to do so now as a result.

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