A new (well, rebranded) IHG voco hotel recently opened in Solihull.
voco is IHG’s new ‘conversion’ brand allowing existing hotels to switch to IHG without having to adopt the long list of ‘brand standards’ required to be a Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza etc. You can learn more about voco here.
The first UK voco was St David’s in Cardiff. This has now been followed by voco St John’s Solihull, which has presumably gained lots of yellow cushions, curtains and paintings over the last few weeks!
This hotel used to be the Renaissance Solihull, one of Marriott’s brands, before it was taken over by Kew Green Hotels.
Until 24th August, the hotel is offering 50% off all IHG Rewards Club points bookings. This means that you can get a free night for just 12,500 IHG Rewards Club points, which is an excellent deal.
The voco St John’s Solihull hotel website is here if you want to find out more.
(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Promos’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
OT Does the £150 spend at Heathrow for the 3000 HR pts bonus have to be in the one transaction? I did 2 transactions in 2 qualifying shops and the bonus points didn’t post. I’ve emailed them and initially they declined the points saying it had to be one transaction but they have since posted the 3000 bonus points. I thought it could be more than one transaction as long as it was on the same day!
As many transactions as you need to reach £150 in that day
Leaving Newcastle at 13.40, arriving MUC 16.40 looks great timing to me. Under 2 hrs drive from home, so could leave here at 10 – 1030, so no need for a hotel stay at the airport. Already thinking about going for Fasching next year!
Happy birthday Virgin Atlantic! 🎉 🎉 🎉
OT: BA upgrade/downgrade
I’ve been told changing versions of the BA Amex involves just applying online and the new card will replace the current one and everything else stays the same (adjusting for the fee). My question is can someone get a referral bonus this way? If I downgrade my BAPP to the Blue by applying through a friend’s link, can they get a bonus?
no
May well work, yes.
Paying Amex by Virgin Credit Card via Curve – any reports of cash advances recently?
I believe you can not use Curve card to pay off Amex balance.
You’re not allowed too but you can.
No
OT: we had quite a negative experience recently with BA check in desks recently. We put in a complaint to BA a month ago and they finally called back yesterday. They have offered us 10k Avios per passenger for the issues. Issue was mainly terrible customer service leading to minor injury to a child (not caused by them obviously but due to the customer service agent being so difficult, our child got hurt in the delays etc). Is this compensation what we would expect? We didn’t expect to get much as this works out 30k between us so somewhat pleased but we don’t know what the norm would be anyway.
What class of ticket were you travelling on? Sounds like Business to me (or F). in which case 10K sounds about right.
If you were in Economy, sounds like they think there’s just the possibility of liability/ fault here, otherwise it would seem pretty generous.
Thanks Shoestring. Was economy actually but paid more than the cheapest ticket price. Interestingly it’s 2 adults, a 2 year old and a baby (2 year old who has a BAEC Account also got the points) so 10k each excluding baby.
“not caused by them obviously”. Where’s the causation…..?
Several issues with the service but the main one (which caused the injury) was that our luggage’s were 16kg 18kg 23.2 and 24.3kg. So well below 23kg on average. Two year old was screaming her head off and hitting the wall and being a very challenging 2 year old and 5 month old baby crying. The agent was insistent we take all the luggage back, head to self weigh and get it arranged so everything was under 23kg. The self weighs didn’t actually even work so we had to play guesswork and whilst rearranging, something quite heavy fell on my daughter (as we were trying to rush it with two very unsettled children. )
We actually pleaded with him to consider that we were going to struggle somewhat as the kids were so difficult and taking 7 pieces of luggage and a buggy back to self weigh with 2 kids was going to be difficult.
Absolutely no empathy, pragmatism or reasonableness at all by the agent who could see the situation in front of him but felt the need to be so very difficult about 1kg in one suitcase.
That was just one of the (many) issues but the main one!
So in essence…go back away from the desks with all our luggage and 2 screaming kids to remove 0.2kg from one and 1.3kg from another. Other suitcases were well below the allowance.
that’s ridiculous when you consider 32kg is perfectly OK in Business, they just put a ‘Heavy’ sticker on it – the agent could have used a teensy bit of discretion here! (I’ve often got away with over-23kg, eg 23.8kg as the home scales are not brilliant)
sounds like you paid for a seat for the infant? we were too mean to do that, just sat them on our laps 🙂
I doesn’t help with this situation but I’ve found the hand-strap style weighing devices to be fairly accurate. Available from all main home delivery sites.
Pooling of luggage in a group travelling together has apparently been stopped. 23kg is a much harder limit than it used to be.
Having said that Silver and Business get 32kg each piece for all of their allowance so it does look like your checking agent felt he was under pressure to make a point.
Personally as you were only looking to offload 200g, I.e.less than 8oz, and about 2 and a half llbs from the other, I’d have just reached in at the counter and removed enough from the 2 heavier suitcases as it wouldn’t be much. No way would I trek to self-weigh. Those machines weren’t working in T3 last time I was there either.
What were thé issues?
Yes we did think it was just a tad unreasonable. I wouldn’t have minded so much if we were without the kids but the situation is stressful enough with 2 crying kids and it was just being unreasonable for the sake of it.
I do think that being less than a kilo over the 23kg is the sort of petty beau rocratic mindset far too prevalent in Britain nowadays, how pathetic and you do have my sympathy.
However, I do also get a mite irritated by the attitude of entitlement expressed by some parents of ill behaved, in disciplined children running riot and expecting not only that the rest of us should put up with it but expecting special treatment not accorded to the rest of us. Just saying.
Whilst I understand what you are saying, we try very hard to discipline our children but my daughter is clearly going through her terrible two’s and we have a 5 month old baby at the same time to deal with. I think there was a discussion on here the other day about parents not caring at all if their kids misbehave and I totally agree with getting annoyed at that but trust me when I say I try all too hard with my two year old and am at wits end hoping the terrible twos ends very soon. I have been brought up in a strict disciplined environment so try and foster the same for my own kids.
I don’t expect special treatment, but my time is clearly more divided and when dealing with two children under 3 who don’t behave rationally at the best of times, then some compassion from fellow human beings is not expected, though much appreciated.
My favourite is women using prams as battering rams. Ever been on a London bus in the suburbs recently? Even saw one getting really upset the other day when she was asked to leave the bus and take the next one as someone with a motorised wheelchair needed the pram/disabled space.
If she was already on the bus with the pram I can understand her frustration.
Is it really etiquette that a pram already on board has to give way for a wheelchair? Surely if the space is already being used then whoever is trying to board the bus waits for the next one.
Lady London that is an astonishing comment.
Have you tried getting on public transport in London with a pram recently? It’s bloody hard work. And I’m a 6 foot tall man. My partner is 5’2″ and less than half the weight of some of the people she needs to try and negotiate past.
Waiting at a bus stop is a tense lottery. When a bus turns up with room for your pram you breathe a huge sigh of relief. Often at busy times you may have to let 2-3 buses go past first. Or just walk for an hour plus instead (my partner often had to do this).
So, now, can you imagine how frustrating it is when you’ve finally managed to board a bus and then someone with a wheelchair wants to board at the next stop? And you are forced to leave which means a further 15+ minute delay to your already much delayed journey?