Get a great points deal at the new Crowne Plaza Sydney Darling Harbour hotel

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• Paul says:

  11 Jan11 January 05:19

  The Crowne Plaza is in a decent location in Sydney’s CBD.

  On your doorstep are the restaurants, bars and Merlin attractions (Sea Life, Outback Life and Madam Tussauds). Within walking distance to Circular Quay (Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Arts, The Rocks and Botanical Gardens), Hyde Park, Sydney Tower, Hyde Park Barracks and the Australian Museum.

  Walk a little further and you will hit the Domain, the Art Gallery and Harry’s Cafe de Wheels.

• Lynn says:

  11 Jan11 January 05:33

  I agree, a lovely location.

  • Lady London says:

    11 Jan11 January 15:49

    Is the food scene in Oz as good as the publicity? How do costs of eating out compare these days?

    • Shoestring says:

      11 Jan11 January 16:02

      my cousin was head chef in the restaurant in Auckland Sky Tower – always on NZ TV as well (probably same audience figures as West Country News 🙂 )

      then he got bored of it and quit chefing altogether

• Sandgrounder says:

  11 Jan11 January 05:46

  OT- I am currently in the Diamond Lounge of the VIP terminal at AUH. This is available with Priority Pass. The lounge is comfortable and not busy at the moment. My passport was taken from me and immigration completed while I was at my seat. I will pass through a private security lane and be driven over to the terminal in time for my flight. So far, a very pleasant experience. At a cash price of $145.95, it has to be (on paper at least) one of the very best value PP services.

  • Benilyn says:

    11 Jan11 January 18:30

    No additional fees on top for all that? It’s included in Lounge Key so might try it out.

    • Sandgrounder says:

      11 Jan11 January 21:36

      Nope, nothing on top just a standard entry. Well worth a look if you are passing through.

• The Savage Squirrel says:

  11 Jan11 January 06:15

  OT – Suggestions for a hotel in Birmingham walkable from New Street station? Taking my team there for a two day conference. Points options not essential. Have stayed in RadissonBlu before and not impressed…

  • Jane says:

    11 Jan11 January 06:43

    Crowne Plaza is walkable and if you have status the lounge is pretty good (plentiful drinks, minimal snacks). Upgrades are fairly frequent. There is also a Staybridge Suites easily walkable, the location isn’t so great there but they do have a nice managers reception 3 nights a week (Tue / Wed / Thur I think). if you want more upscale the Indigo is very nice but usually out of budget on our corporate site.

  • Capt Hammond says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:25

    New Street is a short walk from the Mailbox which has plenty of decent bars and restaurants for team bonding purposes. Hotels in the Mailbox are an Indigo, an AC Marriott and a Malmaison. There is a Crowne Plaza not far away but it’s a bit tired and dated now, plus a newish HI Express and a fairly drab Hol Inn. Indigo or AC would be my preference.

    • Tariq says:

      11 Jan11 January 08:34

      I like the AC – can be good value some nights too.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:32

    Indigo at the cube about 10 mins walk from new street station. Within the mailbox complex so lots of restaurants and bars/pubs plus more in brindley place which is very walkable too.

    CP rooms are a little dated but the lounge is good and would get upgrade/lounge if spire and again not too far from Mailbox.

    AC is very clean, functional etc but ask for a room not facing the mailbox if you stay there.

    None loyalty you have malmaison and park Regis.

  • Grant says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:49

    Indigo or AC as others have suggested. Indigo preference in that area if the budget works. AC is very good value normally for what you get and I have often used it for mattress run purposes (along with the Marriott Five Ways which is very tired!)

    Hotel du Vin is a few minutes further walk away (but still easily doable from New Street) if points not important.

• andy li says:

  11 Jan11 January 06:15

  Hyatts, not Hyatt’s. It’s not a possessive.

  • pauldb says:

    11 Jan11 January 06:44

    Hyatts’ would be okay.

    • Shoestring says:

      11 Jan11 January 06:56

      clumsy, though – I know the shorter the better but for the same number of letters, ‘two Hyatts launch in Manchester’ would work clearly/ correctly/ elegantly

      • Andy li says:

        11 Jan11 January 22:11

        He’s changed it. I’m happy now.

• Craig says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:06

  OT: Has anyone tried an esim for use in China, planning to take advantage of the TWOV for a night at the Waldorf in Shanghai on the way to Hanoi.

  • Kai says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:19

    Order a CM-link sim card here – it’s roam-free in China and you can access Google / Facebook etc directly.

    • Craig says:

      11 Jan11 January 11:01

      Thanks Kai, that looks perfect for the 30 hours we are in Shanghai.

  • JenT says:

    11 Jan11 January 11:05

    We used China Unicom (CUniq) last time. Same as CM – access to Facebook, Google, etc while there. Sim card posted to home very quickly and the cheapest provider we found. Excellent service in China and all worked perfectly – you have to activate the sim first in the UK IIRC.

• EwanG says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:20

  Unfortunately it’s going to be quite difficult to avoid Iranian airspace if you have a plan which is taking off from *within* Iranian airspace, unless you have some sort of teleportation device!

  • Freddy says:

    11 Jan11 January 07:41

    +1

• Shoestring says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:32

  Trainline: If you’re looking for a way to save money when travelling by train, you’ve come to the right place! Splitting your train tickets with SplitSave, our new split-ticketing app feature, can be much cheaper than buying a single ticket if you’re travelling on a long journey. You’ll need our iOS or Android app to save money with SplitSave.
  https://www.thetrainline.com/trains/great-britain/split-tickets

  Trainline are launching a new split ticketing app today (see my link). No idea if it’s any good as I’m not into apps. There are a couple of good sites that do it from a regular desktop so no idea what advantage these companies think they derive from barring users on mansize desktops.

  But the ticket splitting logic is very good. I save nearly £500 a year on my kids’ season tickets (commute to school) by splitting them halfway, they stay on the same train in the same seat and you wouldn’t know it was a split ticket except they have 2 season tickets instead of 1.

  On a return journey Cornwall-Paddington, I also regularly save my wife £80 by ticket splitting.

  Always worth a quick check on a split ticketing site for virtually any train journey (not Edinburgh Waverley-Haymarket, though!)

  • Craig says:

    11 Jan11 January 08:27

    I’m not even sure that could reduce the price of £37 for two of us return to The Smoke. More direct trains from Lincoln has reduced this to less than 2 hours each way, now if only getting to Heathrow wasn’t a complete PITA by train.

    • Craig says:

      11 Jan11 January 08:35

      I should proof read before submitting, even I am offended by my grammar this morning!

      • Shoestring says:

        11 Jan11 January 08:42

        these *are* direct trains! you just split the payment into 2 or more parts, eg instead of buying 1 ticket A—>C you buy 2 tickets A—>B & B—C

        you don’t get off the train or change seats – it’s exactly the same journey on the same train

        or did you mean ‘non-stop’ trains from Lincoln to London? by definition, a train-splitting ticket will always be a train that is not non-stop

        • Craig says:

          11 Jan11 January 09:32

          I’ve looked many times when booking LNER, if it’s combined with another operator then there can be a saving. When it’s entirely operated by them then booking direct is cheaper.

  • AllezGlasgow says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:01

    I travel from Glasgow to Liverpool a lot and use http://www.trainsplit.com as it allows me to choose specific seats, especially useful as Avanti don’t offer this any more.

    • Shoestring says:

      11 Jan11 January 19:04

      I often use Raileasy https://raileasy.trainsplit.com – 2.4% bonus on top

      But the real story here is that Trainline sells 20% of all the rail tickets sold in the UK
      [The company said that travellers could collectively save £340 million this year using its new “splitsave” feature. Industry bosses fear the sum could be far higher as it represents a big hole in the industry’s fare income, which was £9.8 billion in 2017-18. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, recently said that split ticketing could cost the industry £750 million a year.]

      • Shoestring says:

        11 Jan11 January 19:05

        Trainline said it had calculated that splits could be found on 64 per cent of journeys.

      • Lady London says:

        11 Jan11 January 20:50

        Well perhaps if they priced train fares in the UK, the rail industry wouldn’t have these problems then.

        It’s come to something when a flight to Edinburgh from London is £48 and can be much less, and the rail companies want £300 or even £400.

        No sympathy.
        I hope the rail industry has much more of these problems.
        Until they price fares reasonably.

  • ChrisC says:

    11 Jan11 January 12:54

    It ws grtting a mention on BBC today.

    I was looking at Brighton-London-Manchester.

    They were happy to sell me split tickets but with no saving over buying it as normal.

    And as I had to pay for the tube between Victoria and Euston under split tickets it was more expensive in toto!

    • jc says:

      11 Jan11 January 13:35

      To be clear, the potentially lucrative split ticketing concept is where you split at one of the stations the train calls at, not the one where you’re changing trains. You just stay on it, and show the new ticket if the conductor asks. I don’t see why that would lose tube access

      • jc says:

        11 Jan11 January 13:37

        In other words it sounds like you were trying to split at London, whereas the wins would be found by splitting at e.g. Milton Keynes.

      • ChrisC says:

        11 Jan11 January 20:22

        I’m quite aware of how split ticketting works
        I simply put in Brighton as start and Manchester as the end. I didn’t specify anything other than that.

        The trip split it came up with was something like Brigton to Victoria then Euston to Manchester with a split on the EUS-MAN leg.

        even with the split it was still more than buying it as a single trip where I would get the cross london tube included.

        So like all things it’s best to check the unsplit trip cost.

        • Shoestring says:

          11 Jan11 January 20:30

          I did a dummy purchase on Raileasy (22nd January after 10am – and it came up with a decent % saving (£6 off £53) plus it was clear the Tube was included when you connect stations across London
          [Part 2 was
          London Undergrnd Zone 1-2 to Manchester Piccadilly
          Advance Single (V2R)]

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