Bonuses: get 10% on lastminute.com gift cards and 500 points with a UK Accor hotel booking

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• Matthew says:

  16 Jun16 June 04:37

  I think you can sneak it under the £1k mark as Etihad will let you buy upto 25% of the miles during the redemption award booking process. Saving about £65 or so off the numbers above IIRC. I haven’t got enough Etihad miles though to check…

• Jonathan says:

  16 Jun16 June 07:27

  IHG 100% buy points bonus extended to 20th June.

• ken says:

  16 Jun16 June 08:34

  Does anyone have anything good to say about Lastminute ?

  I’d give them a very wide berth.

  • Crafty says:

    16 Jun16 June 08:40

    +1, having dealt with the senior management in a business context.

  • sarah says:

    16 Jun16 June 08:56

    No, I would avoid like the plague (or Covid -19). I had to do an Amex chargeback in order to get my refund on a fully cancellable hotel reservation. Their twitter is full of people trying to get their money back and complaints about their customer service.

    They clearly have a massive cash flow problem and I guess they are hoping to get some money into the business. I would have some sympathy if they didn’t have such woeful customer service. I certainly wouldn’t be giving them any money.

  • Stuart Evans says:

    16 Jun16 June 09:33

    ++1 about never dealing with Lastminute.com ever again. I had a pre-paid booking for the Sofitel at LHR T5 in mid May but the hotel was closed the date of my booking. To their credit, Sofitel have refunded the money back to Lastminute.com. But getting the money back from Lastminute.com is proving a nightmare, with at least on example of them blatantly lying.

    • Phat Git says:

      16 Jun16 June 20:25

      Interesting. I had a booking via them also for the Sofitel at T5 for Last Sunday. Payment has landed back on my card today.
      Still wouldn’t use them again, hotel confirmed they cancelled the booking and refunded the money at the beginning of May!

  • Benilyn says:

    16 Jun16 June 10:40

    No, very bad experience. Would avoid. be careful of what you can spend vouchers on.
    Vouchers also can not always be applied when going through trivago etc to bring down price etc.

  • memesweeper says:

    16 Jun16 June 12:58

    I’ve had first hand experience of their chronic IT problems. I’ll not trust them with a booking again. Sad for an iconic British brand to have been so completely trashed by recent mismanagement.

    • Crafty says:

      16 Jun16 June 22:54

      Iconic British brand? Is it really?

      It’s a very Italian company now.

  • Vit says:

    16 Jun16 June 13:15

    Please don’t be like me (buying their giftcard earlier this year). Please do not. I beg you.

• Phil G says:

  16 Jun16 June 08:40

  Can you purchase points with the travel bank account? ( currently with the 50% bonus)

  • Rhys says:

    16 Jun16 June 08:54

    Unlikely as its processed by a third party (points.com)

    • Yuff says:

      16 Jun16 June 09:54

      Can you use the travel bank to pay for miles and cash on a reward booking?

      • Rhys says:

        16 Jun16 June 10:05

        You can’t use Travel Bank credit in lieu of miles, but it’s not clear whether you can use them for the taxes and fees element. Worth giving them a call.

  • Rob says:

    16 Jun16 June 10:15

    No, points.com processes those payments.

• Concerto says:

  16 Jun16 June 09:08

  I wanted to mention the Accor 500 points bonus per booking yesterday. Apparently it is good for Central Europe too, namely D, A and CH. Couldn’t find anywhere to register, though…

  • RussellH says:

    16 Jun16 June 10:21

    I do not see anywhere to register on the linked page either. Maybe you just have to use that page to make a booking?
    No link to log-in either…

• Kilburnflyer says:

  16 Jun16 June 10:57

  RE: Hilton Points, the Hilton Labriz Seychelles looks like a solid option at 80k points per night (64K with 5th night free).

  Has anyone stayed there? Would be interested to hear your thoughts (aware that €145pp boat transfer to Silhouette island is required)

  • Gavin says:

    16 Jun16 June 11:13

    I considered it and did quite a bit of research. Having been to Seychelles twice now, there is so much to see and do, especially on Praslin and La Digue, but also on the main island (with a rental car). Staying at the Hilton Labriz you’re being price-gouged by Hilton for everything, and the island itself doesn’t look very interesting. We decided to use our Hilton points for 2 nights at the Hilton Northolme (which was great) but spent the majority of our time on Praslin and La Digue. If I was offered 5 nights at the Northolme or 5 nights at La Digue in a B&B, I’d take La Digue every time.

    • MD says:

      16 Jun16 June 20:20

      @ Gavin – Have to disagree. Stayed at both. Northolme is perfectly pleasant, lovely staff, decent food but no beach and essentially nothing to do except chill by your pool and enjoy the ocean view (which we were very happy to do!). Basic villa not great in our opinion (just from looking at it) and from talking to other guests. The upgrade is well worth it (didn’t get a free upgrade as HH diamond, had to pay which annoyed me a tad). You could use it as a base to explore Mahe, but why you then wouldn’t stay somewhere better like the (fantastic) Banyan Tree I don’t know.

      Labriz on the other hand was superb. Lovely beach and ocean, great food. Much preferred the beach villa to the inland one (had an upgrade to try an inland one with pool) but YMMV. Yes it isn’t cheap but even though you’re captive you certainly aren’t being “gouged” on a level of e.g. anywhere in the Maldives. And to say the isalnd isn’t that interesting is absurd, it’s a gorgeous national park. Plenty of walks and boat trips available. Giant tortoises!

      To use your analogy, if I was offered 5 nights in Northolme vs 5 nights in Labriz , I’d pick Labriz every time (although to be fair we did genuinely enjoy Northolme, so consider a split for your first time).

      • babyg says:

        16 Jun16 June 23:51

        agreed of labriz over northholme.. im returning to labriz in October (hopefully) for 10 days..

  • Secret Squirrel says:

    16 Jun16 June 13:03

    Be careful with Hilton Northolme, basic rooms can be not so good, awful views unless you upgrade to villa with pool.

• Rahul says:

  16 Jun16 June 13:18

  Did any one notice that Radisson has blocked all points booking in all major countries. I tried in the US, Argentina, Philippines for April 2021 and no availability in any hotel which is hard to believe. I purchased points last night with a hope to book some stay, it is very disappointing!!

  Rob, can you find out through your contacts if it is a technical glitch or deliberate block of points booking while they are selling points with 100% bonus ?

  • Rob says:

    16 Jun16 June 13:47

    Very weird. Unfortunately we never deal with Radisson at all. I don’t even know if they have executive staff in the UK.

• Concerto says:

  16 Jun16 June 20:35

  Thanks, Rob, for indicating the link for Germany , Switzerland and Austria above. I couldn’t find it anywhere else. Actually, your link threw up a special room option of 500 bonus points whereas no other link had this option. It really wasn’t a lot more than the base rate for the room, in my case €76 for Mainz City.

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