Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Highlights from the Head for Points Christmas party

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

Thank you to everyone who came to the Head for Points Christmas party at the Holiday Inn Camden Lock on Tuesday night, generously sponsored by Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Money.

It was another great event.  Apologies to everyone who tried to get a ticket but didn’t get lucky.  We have some interesting ideas for a massive Summer party – it is far easier to secure a venue in June – so keep an eye on HfP for news nearer the time.

Here is the room:

This, sent by a reader, shows me giving my little speech:

Here is Richard from Malaysia Airlines announcing the winner of their raffle item, whilst Lisa practices her ticket-bowl holding:

Another shot from the raffle draw:

I need to give special thanks to Sinead at Virgin Atlantic, photo below as she gave her speech.  Virgin Atlantic came in at the last minute as headline sponsor – less than a week before the event – which enabled everyone who came to enjoy a free drink.  She did a great job of getting the sponsorship approved internally and supplying the decoration on the night.

To the person who got hit by the falling 2 foot wide credit card, as seen in the photo below …. sorry.  Sinead didn’t hang that up.  It was one of my crew ……

Thank you to the companies who supplied our raffle prizes.  In alphabetical order:

Air New Zealanda crate of wine

Alan Boswell Insurance – 5,000 Avios

American Express – two tickets to a National Theatre production of your choice

ANA (All Nippon Airways) – a model plane and £100 John Lewis / Waitrose voucher

Cross Border Financial Planning – £100 travel voucher

Crowne Plaza Heathrow Terminal 4 – a free night voucher

Enterprise RentA-Car – £100 One4All voucher and a goody bag

Escape Yachting – a lunch or dinner cruise on the Solent

Etihad Airways – TWO prizes of a pair of tickets to a Manchester City home game

Eurostar – 1,000 Club Eurostar points

Flybe – 2 return tickets from a London airport on a route of your choice

Heathrow Express – a pair of return Business First tickets

Heathrow Rewards – FOUR prizes of 10,000 Heathrow Rewards points, convertible into a £100 shopping voucher or 10,000 Avios or other airline miles

Hotels.com – THREE prizes of £100 hotels.com vouchers

Malaysia Airlines – two tickets for Liverpool v Chelsea at Anfield next April

Plaza Premium – TWO pairs of two lounge passes for any Plaza Premium Heathrow lounge, including Terminal 5

REAL Transfers – return Mercedes transfer to Heathrow, Gatwick or London City from within the M25

Send My Bag – £100 voucher

World’s Best Martini Challenge Party – two tickets

If you came, we hope you had a good night.  I disappeared about 10.30pm but the final few didn’t leave until around midnight.  We look forward to seeing you again (plus hopefully a lot more of you if we can secure a suitably large venue) in the Summer.  Thanks to the Holiday Inn Camden Lock team for their help, especially with the clear-up.

Comments (26)

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

  • Genghis says:

    Thanks to the HfP team for organising. It was an enjoyable evening.

  • Anne says:

    We had a great evening, superb work all round by the HfP team and good to meet some fellow points and miles obsessives!
    Special thanks to Sinead from me as well – as well as ensuring we all had a free drink on Tuesday, she won one of the raffle prizes at one point and it was her generosity in not accepting the prize that meant my number was drawn instead. I won a night at the new T4 Crowne Plaza, really looking forward to that but think it might be missing from the list above?

    • Mike says:

      Well done for Sinead for not accepting the prize – selfless commitment and outstanding behavior for a Virgin employee as the event sponsor.

      • Callum says:

        Calm down! I’m sure she’s a very nice person but it’s also completely normal for anyone related to the draw to not be allowed to win a prize.

        • Russ says:

          It used to be, not anymore.

        • Rob says:

          But she wasn’t related to the draw. Virgin did not provide a raffle prize and Sinead did not pull the tickets out. There were 20 people in the room (as our invited guests) who worked for airlines, hotels, card companies etc and we gave them all tickets. The only unofficial rule is that we didn’t want anyone winning their own prize! One of the Etihad people won.

          Rhys and Lisa had tickets too but whilst they are on my payroll they are not permanent staff. My wife chose not to take a ticket. Obviously I didn’t have one but that might have been pushing it a bit 🙂

  • Cat says:

    It was a brilliant evening! Thanks for organising!
    On a related note, why do hangovers get so much worse with age?

  • Neil says:

    Brilliant night! Thanks to all the team & Rob

  • Memesweeper says:

    Thanks Rob, good evening, and I hope to see you in the summer!

  • Waribai says:

    Thanks Rob, Rhys and all those involved in organising the night. It was a great evening as per usual and I’ll try to start posting a bit more on the blog again once work calms down for Xmas!

  • Alex Sm says:

    “To the person who got hit by the falling 2 foot wide credit card, as seen in the photo below …. sorry! Sinead didn’t hang that up. It was one of my crew ……“

    That was me!!

    But fortunately I wasn’t hurt. I was hoping to get rewarded by one of the prizes in the raffle but… to no avail.

    Maybe you can at least secure me a free ticket to the summer party in compensation? 😉

  • mutley says:

    Thanks Rob and team for a great evening, didn’t win a prize, but Mrs M and I did speak with Robs lovely wife, and I picked up some great tips from those who know way more than me re; the points game.

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.