Hilton Honors has quietly increased the points price of three London hotels

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• Matthew says:

  12 Jun12 June 05:32

  Fingers crossed I can get a ticket this year…tried every time and never succeeded yet!

  Either way, I’d imagine there are quite a few HFPers going to the Jessie J gig this weekend?!

  Looking forward to both….

  • n_g says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:17

    Link is bringing me to githubs 404 page. Correct one appears to be https://github.com/Dalimil/Eventbrite-Tools

    Hadn’t seen this before, thanks for posting.

    • Alex Sm says:

      12 Jun12 June 08:36

      I managed to easily secure 2 tickets last year without any bots or trolls

      • Rob says:

        12 Jun12 June 08:49

        We are not expecting problems this year due to the big capacity increase. At least, I hope not because they will be sold in one batch. If regular contributors want to come we always try to make it happen regardless, although there is always a hard cap from the venue.

      • Shoestring says:

        12 Jun12 June 11:30

        I think you could be surprised, there are people who have cottoned onto the fact that it’s one of the best opps going to win a decent raffle prize (ie high chance, comparatively, vs other raffles, lotteries etc)

        Pay £10, get £7 in drinks & an entry into the raffle for an effective £3

        • Rob says:

          12 Jun12 June 11:39

          Good prizes, lower odds this time! But I genuinely don’t know what will be offered yet.

  • Matthew says:

    12 Jun12 June 14:28

    Great, thanks for the info Rob.

• Shoestring says:

  12 Jun12 June 06:56

  how can I do that anonymously? dropbox or something?

• Anna says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:18

  OT – I think the manager at the Langley must read HFP, one of the most recent reviews on Tripadvisor refers to the “very generous” breakfast buffet – unless they were in a different dining room from the one Rob photographed!

  • Freddy says:

    12 Jun12 June 07:51

    Probably was generous first thing, the TripAdvisor person demolished it and left poor Rob with the scraps when he finally got outta bed

    • ankomonkey says:

      12 Jun12 June 08:24

      I like the use of “demolished” here 🙂

  • Rob says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:27

    Even if they were replenishing it, it would be – literally – 5% of the size of a buffet at a major Middle East hotel!

  • Peter K says:

    12 Jun12 June 09:28

    I tend to ignore reviews on TA unless the person writing them has at least 10, preferably over 30 contributions. They can easily get 5 or 6 contributions by just posting one review and a few photos of it.

    • ankomonkey says:

      12 Jun12 June 16:27

      +1

      I switched a booking from a Cairo property that had loads of TA 1-contribution reviews from a variety of international names and hometowns. Many referred to the same two members of staff.

• BSI1979 says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:25

  Apologies for the massively OT, albeit it is a follow up to a post last week re World Cup cricket tickets.

  A poster (‘Sanya’) had queried whether there were still tickets available from the main ICC site. I have already replied there but unsure whether they would have seen it so just to reaffirm

  IRO England, tickets IRO of the Windies game available from £95 for an adult, the Afghanistan game from £40, & Sri Lanka from £95. A number of other games are available as well.

  • Sanya says:

    12 Jun12 June 16:25

    Thank you this has been helpful. I’ve had a look and should be able to nab some!

• Fm says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:29

  OT: I have the premium IHG rewards card and have hit the 10k spend. My anniversary date just passed last week. Have read Robs article about keeping the card and not paying the fee, but not quite sure whether I should see the free night voucher, either in my IHG or Creation account before I cancel?

  • Kevin says:

    12 Jun12 June 07:43

    You should able to see the free reward night in your IHG account by now once you achieve the threshold spend.

    • h2d says:

      12 Jun12 June 10:01

      In my experience the voucher posts the following month i.e. anniversary date + one month

  • Peter K says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:59

    If you have the IHG app then of you go to the”redeem” tab it will be in there as redeem a free night.

    • Fm says:

      12 Jun12 June 13:07

      Great thanks, no sign of it yet so will wait till it posts or they send me a statement. Haven’t spent on it yet so would be ok to cancel as per Robs article.

      Working on spending 10k elsewhere this year otherwise might have considered keeping it!

  • Crafty says:

    12 Jun12 June 12:04

    Sorry if I’m being dense but why cancel? Why not maintain the card and earn a second voucher?

• Shoestring says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:29

  https://github.com/Dbz/WebCache

• Brighton Belle says:

  12 Jun12 June 08:04

  Hilton is trying it on.
  Bankside 24-25 Aug
  Cash £244
  Points 160000 . Price @ 0.35p/point £560

  Why would anyone bother collecting and using points when at redemption they’re going to be mugged.

  Hilton Variable points is just a way to rip you off. Points have a completely unknown value now so why bother with Hilton loyalty?

  • Anna says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:12

    That’s a bank holiday weekend, also in the school summer hols so I’m surprised the cash price isn’t higher also! I agree about the points, people are going to have to be very organised and focus to get good value. I’m now saving mine for a 5 for 4 high end redemption, not sure we’ll ever get to the Conrad Maldives but something in that category!

    • Spurs Debs says:

      12 Jun12 June 08:23

      I’m saving mine for Hilton experiences. I looked at redeeming for my Tokyo trip next year but the amount of points they want for more than a basic room is ridiculous. A 80k room is off no benefit for me as no separate shower which I need. Even if I wanted to book an accessible room it was something like 140k points. .

      • meta says:

        12 Jun12 June 08:41

        Not sure if you realised, but both Conrad and Hilton in Tokyo allow you to book standard award rooms and then upgrade for cash. You just pay the cash difference between the standard room and the new room. Sometimes, if there is no price difference they allow it for free.

    • TripRep says:

      12 Jun12 June 09:28

      Anna I agree. I’m beginning to think with the recent (almost sneaky) lower end HH point hikes, what’s the best way to spend them and get decent value. It’s also a bit annoying these increases occurred a couple of weeks after a buy bonus offer has ended.

      Hard to ignore the Conrad Rangali Maldives is now offering better relative value, I did spy some of their water villas for 95k again recently, so following your suggestion, 76k/night for 5 nights. That’s ~£250/night if you use the cost of buying points in the recent promo.

      Have to say, now they have learnt their lessons from the cruise ship Cluster F, I’m feeling the draw to return again, maybe early 2021 to burn some serious points…

      • Rob says:

        12 Jun12 June 10:25

        Have they learned any lessons?

        • TripRep says:

          12 Jun12 June 10:57

          I read a comment on the Rangali FT thread (relayed from the management) stating there’s no intention to accept similar visits.

          Given the negative publicity of last time, I’m sure we’ll find out pretty darn quick if they stick to that.

          Rob – given the lower end property point increases what’s your current recommendations for value burning HH pts?

  • Rob says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:21

    You are being unreasonable. IHG would simply say ‘reward nights sold out’. Hilton is saying ‘reward nights sold out but you can use your points to buy a cash room for this price if you really want’. Hilton is the better deal because at least you have the choice.

    Book 6 months in advance if you want the nicest Hilton in London for free on August Bank Holiday weekend!

    • Brighton Belle says:

      12 Jun12 June 08:33

      There’s a heck of a lot of sold out reward nights then 4 months out. I think you are not seeing the opportunity Hilton is taking to squeeze redemption prices up in the way NYC now has a way to squeeze up prices via mandatory amenity and resort charges . Ok so nobody is forced to go to these hotels but these programme enhancements will just drive me to Hotels.com. Loyalty is for the stupid or rich. I have only one of those and the other is imminent.

      • Rob says:

        12 Jun12 June 08:47

        Hilton does not do ‘last room availability’ for rewards. This is why Hyatt and Marriott are more powerful, because if a hotel has a standard room left for sale it must offer it as a reward night.

        • TripRep says:

          12 Jun12 June 09:37

          Rob – pretty sure I got the last room at Dundee DT last July during the nearby Golf Open. 20k points for a £300+ room

        • metac says:

          12 Jun12 June 14:30

          With Hyatt, not necessarily. They can restrict at popular hotels based on length. So sometimes even when standard rooms are available you can’t book if you want say 2 nights and hotel has 3-night minimum policy for redemptions. It’s also now part of T&C that hotels can if they wish reduce availability or have minimum length at peak periods. So some hotels are playing games. However, if you have enough points, you can book more nights online and then call to reduce. Agents are oblivious to hotel policies. I recently had this issue with the new Park Hyatt Kyoto where they had 4 or 5-night minimum, but read on FT that there are other hotels doing the same. Marriott is still more powerful in that sense.

  • Andrew says:

    12 Jun12 June 09:57

    It’s hard to justify using points when Hilton is tom-catting around between credit card offers.

    This month it’s First Direct, they’ve been on and off the offers pages on BoS & Halifax for most of the year so far too. Not forgetting Amex Offers.

    (Rumour has it that Lloyds is getting ready to launch offers on their MBNA white-label site too.)

• Michael says:

  12 Jun12 June 08:53

  What’s on the agenda for the party? what will be discussed? do you consider it a networking event or something more casual and a bit of a chit chat?

  • Colin MacKinnon says:

    12 Jun12 June 09:00

    A good party should never have an “agenda” 🤪

    • Rob says:

      12 Jun12 June 10:28

      You get to talk about this stuff with people whose eyes don’t start to glaze over the second you start talking 🙂 Well worth £10 – with £7 of free drink thrown in!

      There will be quite a few industry people there too, so it is also a good chance to talk to people who genuinely do have influence at the major airline and hotel schemes. The European head of one of the major loyalty schemes will definitely be there, as he is writing the sponsorship cheque.

      • David says:

        12 Jun12 June 12:55

        An “agenda”?! Have you been to a party before…?

        • Binks says:

          12 Jun12 June 15:20

          Lol

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