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SOLD OUT: Get your Head for Points Winter Party tickets

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As we announced on Tuesday, we are pleased to say that we are holding our fourth Head for Points reader Winter Party on Monday 20th January.

The first batch of tickets will be sold at noon on Wednesday.  If you won’t be behind a computer at noon (although the Eventbrite app does the job too) the final batch will be sold at 9pm on Thursday.

Click here to be taken to the correct Eventbrite page to buy.

Marriott Grosvenor Square

Where is the Head for Points Winter party?

We are taking over the Westminster Ballroom at the Marriott Grosvenor Square in Mayfair from 6pm to 9pm.

This is situated in the same square as the old American Embassy, now being turned into a Rosewood hotel, and the new Biltmore Hotel.  It is very close to Bond Street tube station, and also walkable from Green Park, Marble Arch etc.

Marriott Grosvenor Square is a great venue, with more indoor capacity than we had in the Summer at the Renaissance.

As this is a Marriott property, Marriott Bonvoy has very kindly stepped in to sponsor the event.

You will receive a free glass of wine, bottle of beer or soft drink courtesy of Marriott Bonvoy (thank you).  A full cash bar will be available for further drinks at usual London prices.

If you wish to stay on beyond 9pm, the bar will remain open for a little while, although at some point we may be asked to move to the hotel bar.

Introducing our charity partner, Orbis

A couple of months ago, Rob and I sat – by chance – next to a someone who worked for Orbis at a dinner.

Orbis works to prevent and treat avoidable blindness and visual impairment globally. They provide specialist training and equipment to doctors, nurses and eye care teams onboard the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.  You can read more about Orbis and the Flying Eye Hospital on their website here.

We thought it was an excellent cause with a direct link to aviation and something that we would like to support.  We are doing this in two ways:

we are adding a £1 donation to Orbis to the ticket price, which means we are charging £11 instead of the usual £10

for the first time, it will be possible to buy additional raffle tickets on the night.  You will still get a free ticket on arrival, but additional tickets can be purchased for £1 each.  100% of the proceeds will go directly to Orbis.

This should allow us to raise over £1,000 from the event.

Head for Points Christmas Party

What can you win in the raffle?

We are putting together a selection of 25-30 prizes drawn from our travel industry contacts.

Marriott Bonvoy has generously offered to donate the main raffle prizes.  We don’t have the full details yet but it should be good.

Other prizes confirmed to date include:

2 sets of 20,000 Avios, donated by Avios.com

A pair of Business Premier tickets, donated by Club Eurostar 

A limited-edition hardback coffee table version of ‘British Airways: 100 Years of Aviation Posters’, donated by British Airways 

10,000 Avios, donated by Avios partner Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers 

20,000 IHG Rewards Club points, donated by IHG Rewards Club 

5,000 Heathrow Rewards points (x 4 sets!), donated by Heathrow Rewards 

2 passes for any Heathrow Plaza Premium lounge (x 2 sets), donated by Plaza Premium 

A weekend car rental, donated by Avis Budget 

4 passes for any Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse (must be flying Virgin Atlantic), donated by Virgin Atlantic 

A Signature ELITE Class Experience at Luton Airport (be driven to your plane!), donated by Signature (click for review) 

£100 of British Airways credit and three elite memberships, donated by Reward Flight Finder 

Three annual premium memberships to SeatSpy, donated by SeatSpy 

A return Mercedes airport transport to Heathrow or Gatwick from anywhere inside the M25, donated by REAL Transfers

£150 voucher from Aircraft Model Store 

A Dash Cam, donated by Enterprise Car Rental 

A Malaysia Airlines goody bag, donated by Malaysia Airlines 

A Vietnam Airlines model plane, donated by Vietnam Airlines 

An Aspinall passport cover, donated by Curve 

Email rhys [at] headforpoints.com if you’d like to donate something in return for some publicity, backlinks and free tickets.

All attendees will receive one raffle ticket for free, and the Orbis staff will be happy to sell you additional tickets on the night for £1 each.

How do I get my party ticket?

Because we need to ensure that people who ask for tickets turn up, we are charging £11 per ticket.  This price includes VAT and covers our ticketing fees, venue costs and the hotel fee for installing a PA system.  It also includes a £1 donation to Orbis.

We are selling the 500 tickets in two tranches:

The first batch will be sold at noon Wednesday

The second batch will be sold at 9pm Thursday

This is, we think, the fairest way of allowing everyone to participate, whether or not they sit behind a computer during a weekday.

We are using Eventbrite again.  Eventbrite has an excellent mobile app, so even if you are not behind a computer at noon on Wednesday you should still be able to purchase.  Set up an account with your credit card data before you head out.

Click here to buy tickets.

You can buy up to two tickets per person but please don’t be nervous about coming on your own.  Frequent flyers are a friendly bunch and always happy to share details of their recent trips and miles-earning tips.  We are also inviting our airline and hotel contacts so there will also be trade people milling around who are keen to chat.

Rob, Sinead and myself look forward to seeing you on Monday 20th January.  Here’s the link you need.

Category

Marriott Bonvoy

Comments (146)

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

  • Newbie A says:
    8 Jan8 January 06:00

    Maybe I am not awake enough yet, but I cannot see where I can put credit card into the eventbrite app or online. Some help pls.

    • Chas says:
      8 Jan8 January 06:34

      It can’t be done from the app as far as I’m aware. From the website, click on the person logo (top right), then your account name from the drop-down menu, then the 3 lines (top left), then Credit / Debit Cards.

      I’ll probably regret posting this, as no doubt I will now fail to get the 2 tickets I want due to a lot more people successfully adding the cards to their account and being able to buy tickets. So I’m sure that Rob and Rhys will recognise my selflessness when putting me top of the reserve list… 😉

  • English teacher from Tunbridge Wells says:
    8 Jan8 January 07:08

    Rob, Sinead, and I look forward to seeing you…

    (Just doing what I can to address the rampant misuse of ‘myself’ instead of the personal pronoun ‘I’)

    • Cat says:
      8 Jan8 January 07:26

      +1
      Maths teacher from Elephant

    • Anna says:
      8 Jan8 January 08:51

      +1 PhD in literature. Also “could of” “may of” and so on. Had to correct my facial lady’s email flyer yesterday 😂

      • Cat says:
        8 Jan8 January 16:00

        I can’t even tell you how much “could of, would of, should of” bothers me Anna!

      • Lady London says:
        8 Jan8 January 18:05

        Aha. Are you by any chance the one that did their Ph.D thesis on Harry Potter? I do recall it was you who coined the word “Voldesite” and kicked off its more subtle successors @Anna 🙂

        • Cat says:
          8 Jan8 January 18:11

          Voldeportal! That’s my terrible pun, and I’m absurdly, disproportionately proud of it!

    • Brasov says:
      8 Jan8 January 12:14

      Yes but just calling it rampant misuse without explaining, will turn people off.

      My understanding is that “myself” is a reflexive pronoun to be used in sentences like “I wash myself”

      • Cat says:
        8 Jan8 January 16:02

        Brasov – you should always use the pronouns that you would use if the other people were removed from the sentence.
        You would say
        “I look forward to seeing you…”
        Rather than
        “Myself look forward to seeing you…”
        So it should read
        “Rob, Sinead, and I look forward to seeing you…”

        • Shoestring says:
          8 Jan8 January 16:12

          @Cat that’s also an easy way to remember how/ when to use ‘& I’ – which so many people get wrong, thinking they are getting it right & indeed thinking they are grammatically superior!

          eg Are you coming with John & me? correct (you would never say ‘with I’)
          Are you coming with John & I? – hopelessly incorrect
          [Are you coming with John & myself? – I think this is OK/ acceptable, when I was working in Calcutta they might even have said ‘with John & mygoodself’!]

          • Cat says:
            8 Jan8 January 18:17

            My parents taught languages (before they retired) and EFL, and these days my sister is a web editor, so I get nagged from all directions if I get that sort of thing wrong!

  • Louise Staveley says:
    8 Jan8 January 07:17

    Can you buy raffle tickets to support the charity if you are unable to travel to London for the event?

  • Chas says:
    8 Jan8 January 08:19

    If there’s the ability to buy the raffle tickets using Amex, then I’m sure that you’ll raise well over your £1,000 target for Orbis.

    • Rob says:
      8 Jan8 January 08:49

      They are bringing a card machine, no idea if it takes Amex!

      • Lady London says:
        8 Jan8 January 12:59

        Hum. Having a card machine that takes Amex is a bit “Card Machine 101” for anyone setting up to receive money from this audience :-), is it not?

  • Stu_N says:
    8 Jan8 January 09:10

    OT: Marriot Bonvoy. I had stayed 28 nights in 2019 which is sufficient to get Gold and I have Gold via Amex Plat anyway. I’ve just looked at my Bonvoy account on the iOS app and it says “0 nights” for 2020, which is correct, and “22 nights to Platinum” – plat is 50 nights normally.

    This would suggest there’s some sort of roll-over going on. Is this likely to be correct? 22 nights is eminently doable with my work and holiday travel pattern but 50 would be a stretch.

    • Lee says:
      8 Jan8 January 09:38

      I think they are still updating. 36 nights to Titanium for me at 1st Jan then became 38 nights to Titanium after two stays this year.

      • mutley says:
        8 Jan8 January 10:12

        I stayed 25 nights last year, new number says 53 nights to keep Titanium elite,,, I may get to around 35-40 via work, after that no chance.

        • Stu_N says:
          8 Jan8 January 10:57

          Thanks – looks like a system glitch.

          The Hilton counter just says “hold tight while we update things” which to me feels like a much better way of doing things.

    • George K says:
      8 Jan8 January 15:38

      The question here is.. if you do the outstanding nights now, will they dictate your status after January?

      Or is it a hard cut-off on December 31 for both status and nights?

  • TokyoFan says:
    8 Jan8 January 09:14

    OT:

    Re Platinum card, if I cancel or (hopefully) downgrade to Gold for free for a year, is the fee refund pro-rata on a days held/365 basis or full months/12 basis?

    Ta!

    • Lev441 says:
      8 Jan8 January 09:45

      Yes it’s on a pro rata basis based on a daily calculation.

    • Rob says:
      8 Jan8 January 10:09

      Not sure. A couple of years ago we heard it had gone to monthly but the refunds I had when cancelling cards last year did not seem to be in monthly chunks. I must be honest and say that I didn’t bother to work out what basis it was on.

    • Genghis says:
      8 Jan8 January 10:34

      I’ve been informed by Amex it’s monthly but de facto it’s daily.

    • TokyoFan says:
      8 Jan8 January 12:38

      Thanks everyone – I shall try and work it out when I get it and report back!

  • Harry T says:
    8 Jan8 January 09:31

    OT, no bits:
    Thanks to Rob for endorsing the Amstel. Just checked in and been given my room very early. I’ve been upgraded to a nice junior suite with a river view (I am Platinum Ambassador). The staff are lovely as well.

    The spa is closed but we have free access to the facilities at the Okura, with transport provided, apparently.

    • Genghis says:
      8 Jan8 January 10:25

      The pool in the basement is v pleasant if it’s raining outside.

      • Harry T says:
        8 Jan8 January 16:07

        @Genghis
        Sadly it seems that the pool is closed for maintenance! Apparently we can use the Okura facilities instead.

  • ankomonkey says:
    8 Jan8 January 10:07

    I thought the poster who always talks about EE offers at LHR hotels might be donating a prize…

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

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