Last week was the 12th week that we have been running Head for Points from our various homes.
I’d managed the first 80-odd days without any problems, but last Monday I finally hit a bit of a wall. On Wednesday I went back into our office – which is an 8-mile round-trip walk – for the day, just to get out of the house.
An 8-mile walk and a day ‘out’ put me in a better mood on Thursday. And then, out of nowhere, an email popped up from Park Plaza Hotels, offering £99 stays at the five-star Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London, and €89 stays (€97 with city tax) at the Park Plaza Victoria in Amsterdam.
I thought this was an impressive deal, although it was obviously restricted. You had to stay by 30th September, and of course at present the Dutch Government isn’t even allowing UK residents to enter the country. Luckily this was a fully refundable deal.
I popped it onto Head for Points during Thursday, although I didn’t expect much from it. I probably wouldn’t have bothered at all if I hadn’t already discussed Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in an article earlier that day on the 100% bonus for buying Radisson Rewards points, which is still running if you’re interested.
Within an hour, however, readers were booking. And they didn’t stop.
On Friday morning the article was emailed out – and booking went crazy.
(The offer still seems to be live even though Radisson has pulled the landing page. Go to the hotel pages directly – London here, Amsterdam here. Under ‘Special Rates’ select ‘Promotion Code’ and put in the code FLASH for a stay between 4th July and 30th September.)
By Sunday night, over £41,000-worth of rooms had been booked via the link in our article. Many more readers will have booked direct, so the total will easily exceed £50,000.
This is, by any stretch, an amazing response. Obviously, given that these rooms are refundable, quite a few will be cancelled in the end. However, you couldn’t ask for a bigger vote of confidence in travel from the HFP readership than booking £50,000-worth of rooms across just two hotels in 48 hours.
The success of this deal has cheered me up considerably. It is clear that the desire to travel is still as strong as ever amongst our readers, as is their willingness to jump on a good deal.
It’s ironic that this article is being published on the same day that the UK Government is introducing quarantine, effectively killing off both incoming and outgoing tourism.
Few people seriously believe that this will last beyond the end of June, however. We look forward to sharing the best of the travel bargains with you as Europe, if not the rest of the world, starts to open up this Summer.
About Head for Points
Has anybody seen or heard anything about when the USA borders might reopen to travellers from the UK?
Remember that most US airports aren’t even open for US citizens flying in from outside. There are only 13 (?) airports across the country accepting international flights and those have dedicated corona facilities.
Booked – just a few moments ago so rooms still available. Thanks for the heads-up!
The offer has been extended until 15 June.
It has ALWAYS said 15th June, even last week, but this made no sense given the ’48 hour flash sale’ email and landing page …
Seems that we can go to Sri Lanka from 1st August but there is now a $100 visa fee, and a requirement for a negative Covid-19 test within 72h of departure, a further test on arrival, and further tests after stayng 5 and 10 day. Sort of puts the UK quarantine and testing strategy into new perspectives.
Its ironic that these third world countries utterly riddled with poverty and every pestilence known to mankind seem to think that they need to react in this hysterical way to this not particularly lethal disease in any historic or properly contextual terms.
What a outdated view of the world Julian. Developing countries’ entire existence is not to satisfy the whims of some spoilt rich westerners on holiday.
🙂
+1
Sri Lanka has had 11 deaths in a population of 21 million.
Which country is riddled with pestilence again?
They (and other countries) should use this opportunity to impose a travel insurance requirement as well, at least for health care. They must get fed up with selfish travellers who seemingly can afford to swan off round the world but not cough up £100 for cover which would stop them from being a drain on local resources and avert the ensuing crowd funding appeals.
How will they not be a drain on local resources regardless of whether an insurance company or random internet strangers pay for their healthcare?
I think the $100 Visa fee is effectively the insurance. They know they cannot count on individuals having valid cover even if they present a paper so this gets around it. I think it is likely that we will see a lot of such fees under varying descriptions from many countries going forward.
Who pays for the tests?
Shoestring
😂😂😂😂👍
Can anyone help in how to activate the Radisson account please? I have joined, but every time I log in it says I must activate and then bounces me back to the log in page? I have tried calling them last week, but still waiting for a call back.
Regards
Did they send you an email, check spam folder? Years since I signed up so I do not recall but all sorts of accounts accounts are generally activated and verified via email.
Booked a ‘London Eye’ room for late September. 2 nights. Thanks for the tip Rob.
As another pro-travelling data point, we booked our Seville-Madrid-Barcelona trip yesterday for September.
If you fancy a stay at the Alfonso in Seville, there’s some crazy low weekend rates in August. We are talking 150-200 euros a night instead of 400+.
I am unlikely to travel abroad this year but I am definitely going to travel next year! I missed out on Singapore and Malaysia this month and I’m saving my pennies to go for a month away early next year – the trip I missed plus New Zealand and more if I organise myself well. So, keep up the good work HfP team, we need you!
+1. No travel plans for the rest of 2020 but into spring 2021 I will be and already looking at planning that.
Rob – Using your link above to Radisson gives a 404 page not found. The Amsterdam deals certainly don’t show via a normal availability search.
Yes, seems dead now, even if you try use code ‘PROMO’ directly.
the code was ‘flash’ not ‘promo’
And just tried it for Amsterdam and it still works
€97.72 per night inc tax for superior king. 89 is the base rate
Duh. Amended!
Booked for Amsterdam – was 100 EUR rather than 97 EUR 🙁
Club World or other business class worth it for such a short flight? Have BA Silver anyway.
£400 or so for two people on BA and probably won’t get much cheaper. Versus £200-250ish in economy. KLM says £700.
£160 for some food and champagne not really worth it over 1.5 hours IMO? Not even a good tier point destination.
On such a short flight, the only reason to go Club Europe is for the tier points.
I got easyjet flights for £45, I forecast that I am going to be very happy with them.