Get 25% off New York redemptions at five IHG hotels

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• N says:

  12 Feb12 February 09:15

  OT. Looking at hotel/accom in Hong Kong. Solo trip but it needs to be cheap cheap cheap. Spotted marriott have two hotels at 12.5k and 17.5k per night but don’t know how reasonable their location is considering I’ve never been to hong kong…

  • Rob says:

    12 Feb12 February 09:39

    It’s HK. It is small and the subway goes everywhere.

    • BJ says:

      12 Feb12 February 11:13

      Not really so small if you get out to Aberdeen, New Territories etc. But I agree with the sentiment, public transport is fab and makes it feel small. Every area has it’s merits, none I wouldn’t stay.

  • Keith says:

    12 Feb12 February 10:31

    Last time I was there for work we stayed at Harbour Plaza North Point. It’s very close to Quarry Bay underground and there was always an Uber to be had if you wanted to stay above ground.

    Felt like it was well located. Didn’t take long in a cab back from Lan Kwai Fong. Can’t have been that expensive if you’re going to pay cash somewhere.

    You need to get on board with the well-worn-in 80s vibe and decor, but once you’ve embraced the ‘in shower landline’ etc it is a comfortable place to be. And they do an extensive breakfast with almost too many choices (the buffet area was about the size of an Olympic sized swimming pool).

    As rob says though, it’s tiny and everywhere is within very easy reach on the sub way. If you can find 17,500 – 25,000 Bonvoy redemptions around there would seem like a decent choice to me.

  • Genghis says:

    12 Feb12 February 11:12

    We’ve always stayed in the Admiralty area: Conrad and JWM – easy to get everywhere.

  • bsuije says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:41

    If the Courtyard on Water St is one of the options above, I think it offers a free shuttle bus service into the central business district, which would then presumably be quite well linked into rest of HK.

    I stayed at the Cordis in Mong Kok a few years ago, and found the location perfect. I think it was a fairly cheap option, too (paid cash), but that was in comparison to other higher-end properties…

• marcw says:

  12 Feb12 February 09:35

  I think it’s pointless spending points in NYC at current price levels… hotel prices there are very soft until april (perhaps not Easter).

  • Anna says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:35

    Hmm, the Embassy Suites we’re staying at the end of May is $500 per night so I was happy to use 210,000 points for 3 nights. That week seems insanely expensive anyway, my F & J redemption flights are currently pricing up at £10k in real money for 2 of us!

    • marcw says:

      12 Feb12 February 13:20

      End of May is a different story. But my point was that until end of April, prices are very soft, which is when the promo is running.

      Nevertheless I’ve stayed mid-may paying just £100 a night in a Hilton Garden In (total 3 nights). Booked last minute though.

  • Spurs Debs says:

    12 Feb12 February 14:30

    Not the first week of April either …. it’s wrestlemania week. My grandson can’t wait!

• Gill says:

  12 Feb12 February 09:40

  Anyone know if the Lloyds avios upgrade spend year starts from the card accept date or the card annual fee charge date? There’s a three week lag between the dates which coincided with a reasonable chunk of holiday spend which I’m hoping it falls into the new card year. The 2nd year annual charge came out in the same month but after the spend. Thanks.

  • Simon says:

    12 Feb12 February 10:35

    I think the fee gets applied on the last day of the anniversary statement month. So I’d go with activation/ first use anniversary.
    I’m pontificating however and a phone call would clear it up!
    No 60 days notice for me yet, and mranniversary is 50 days away!

• Mark Rogers says:

  12 Feb12 February 09:58

  I’m one of those who got caught out by the VAA card. (I thought I opted for full balance but either I didn’t get a choice and my memory is bad, or it wasn’t acted on.) Worse, it took me a few months to notice, and cost me about £70 in interest as a result.

  Obviously this is my fault for not checking, not reading things carefully enough, etc. But it’s interesting to see that several others have been caught out. When you use credit cards a lot, it’s easy to assume that a new card works the way the others do without even realising you’re doing it.

  For me the biggest pain, and the reason I’ve all but stopped using the card now, is that logging in to their website is hard work. If you have a properly secure password then selecting characters X, Y and Z from it is not trivial, it means extracting your password from your password manager, pasting it somewhere, and working through it to extract the letters. Which is why I didn’t bother very often(knowing the DD was set up), and when I did it was to check something other than a statement so I didn’t spot the interest. If (as others do) they also had an app which I could secure with my fingerprint it would also have been easier, but they don’t.

  It turns out that their policy is that they will refund the first month’s interest if asked. For me, that was one penny. (I asked them to do it on principle, and they failed to, so in the end I got a £20 goodwill gesture on top, which was a small victory.)

  But they’ve lost my non-Amex spend to Tandem and if it’s catching others out they’d be wise to fix this.

  • Shoestring says:

    12 Feb12 February 10:02

    They already fixed it

  • Doug M says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:20

    Get a better password manager. 1Password works really well, no association other than I’m a customer.

    • Mark Rogers says:

      18 Feb18 February 16:54

      Does 1Password handle the “characters 1, 3, 11 from your password” type of login? If so I will take a look. LastPass doesn’t, nor are they interested in fixing it because if a site is asking you that question then it means they’re storing your password in a decryptable format, which isn’t considered good practise.

  • RussellH says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:50

    Sounds to me as though people should be insisting on postal statements, and spending 5 minutes per month checking it carefully.
    I have always done this since I first took out a Barclaycard in the early 1970s.
    I know it is not fashionable, but whenever possible I insist on paper statements. Every credit card I have issues them on request.
    I did have a Halifax statement not turn up in time last year, and they immediately accepted that as a valid reason for my not having paid.

    • callum says:

      12 Feb12 February 13:28

      Not only is it not fashionable, it’s very wasteful! If you want to check your statements you can just read the PDF ones.

      • Leo says:

        12 Feb12 February 13:43

        +1

      • RussellH says:

        12 Feb12 February 14:06

        True, but I was also thinking of Mark Rogers who was unhappy with the log-in process, and as a result has all but stopped using the card.
        No log-in, no PDF.
        As to being wasteful??
        I see it as supporting the postal service, something that I made enormous use of when I was working, but seems to be increasingly under threat.

      • RussellH says:

        12 Feb12 February 14:19

        Oh, and if I want to look back at a staement from the past, which is not unusual, it is far quicker to go to the filing cabinet and pick out the statement than to turn on a computer, log-in to a website, find where the old statements are, if they have not already been deleted, that is. Then download it and print it.
        And why should I have to pay for the paper on which the statements are printed?

        • Rob says:

          12 Feb12 February 15:17

          When you have to trawl through all of your statements for VAT and tax returns, you need them on paper. PDFs don’t cut it, especially as you would be flicking from Excel to PDF every 5 seconds.

      • Alan says:

        12 Feb12 February 22:07

        Agree VM website a bit annoying with the bits of a password method but once downloaded I just keep them all in the relevant Dropbox folder so easy to refer to.

        @Rob – I still use Quicken XG 2004 – dated but makes it much easier when dealing with tax returns! I reconcile each statement as it comes in too #geek

      • Mark Rogers says:

        18 Feb18 February 17:01

        Just to say that I do keep all statements in PDF form, but because VM is a pain to work with I was downloading them in batches and not then looking at them in depth as a result. I did switch to paper statements when this came to light, although that was very much after the horse had bolted and when I can face logging in again I’ll turn them off.

        The simple fact that so many have been caught out is an indication that VM could have done better. I freely admit that my failure to check properly is on me, but my loyalty to that brand has switched to one that doesn’t require me to give them special treatment and does what I expect.

  • RussellH says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:59

    As to logging in to their website, it sounds as though they have adopted a similar scheme to the Clydesdale Bank, which also asks for three characters from a maximum of 16 character password.
    FWIW I never save financial passwords, but I do keep written prompts under lock and key. I use three or four syllable words which I can easily associate a number with, and then add a couple of other symbols between syllables. I find that this makes the pw easy to remember.
    What gets me are the otherwise respected institutions that:-
    a) do not have a case sensitive pw system (Amex)
    b) do not allow non-alphanumueric sysmbols (too many to list)

  • TGLoyalty says:

    12 Feb12 February 15:35

    An app is on the way. Few people are beta testing. does the business from what i can see

• A says:

  12 Feb12 February 10:07

  Does HH ever offers any discounted redemptions?

  • marcw says:

    12 Feb12 February 10:12

    Yes, when cash rates are very low – but then its pointless to use points

• Jovanna says:

  12 Feb12 February 10:09

  I took out the Virgin Black card in Sept / Oct. Had the MBNA version before this. Received a 15000 sign up bonus after the first month. I’ve put £2k-£3k through each month. I’ve not had any other bonus. Received my 4th statement last week, so nothing from holding the MBNA version previously.

  I also seem to recall that there was an additional bonus if I put £1000 through the card for the first 3 months but nothing on that front either.

• Matt says:

  12 Feb12 February 10:30

  OT – How are Creation credit cards working with Curve?
  Are curve cash withdrawals, payments to HMRC etc working OK or are they being put through as cash advances? How are people doing with their Creation Marriott/IHG credit cards?

  Thanks in advance lovely HFP people!

  • Alex Sm says:

    12 Feb12 February 12:21

    This is one of the few cards which still work perfectly with Curve – I withdraw £200-500 every month from Creation via Curve and it works good in terms of everything (treated as purchase, accrue points etc). Could change any day of course as Curve is in trouble these days but so far so good!

  • Mr Dee says:

    12 Feb12 February 16:37

    HMRC is not a financial institution so don’t get it confused with cash withdrawal charges.

• BJ says:

  12 Feb12 February 10:49

  Just paid £80 into my NSI account using my Virgin Atlanti card via Curve to hit the £1000 spend target. Will that work or will it be coded as cash and not count towards the target?

  • pablo says:

    12 Feb12 February 11:35

    Shush, don’t kill the golden goose!

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