InterContinental has announced that it is taking over management of one of the most famous hotels in the Pacific, Fiji’s Grand Pacific Hotel.
The contract starts immediately, but the InterContinental brand will not appear above the door until 2022. This will allow for a refurbishment to bring it up to InterCon standards.
This will be the second InterContinental hotel in Fiji, joining the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa in Natadola Bay.
The Grand Pacific Hotel opened in 1914 and apparently features on the Fijian $10 bank note! It sits on the main sea front in Suva.
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About Head for Points
Credit to where credit is due: KLM. They have stuck to the regions of the U.K. through thick and thin. I appreciate BA does not have unlimited slots at LHR. But KLM are more of a ‘British’ airline than BA is.
Just protecting their Schipol business?
It’s an interesting viewpoint but the same could be said of many hub & spoke carriers. Eg. BA probably serve as many/more airports in Germany than Lufthansa do. Holland is also a much smaller market than UK so KLM need many more connections to survive than BA do.
The UK is also relatively small geographically so no benefit in travel time or environmentally in having eg. Birmingham or Cardiff to Heathrow. For me living in Sheffield I’d already say it’s quicker/easier to drive 2 1/2 hours to Heathrow than 1 1/4 hours to Leeds or Manchester to get a domestic connection. Once you get into Scotland then BA actually offers pretty good spread: EDI, GLA, INV, ABZ.
That sounds a like a well reasoned and sensible point, what the hell are you doing on this forum???!!!
KLM do a little bit more than just protect the regions – they do seem to protect the nature of flying being a pleasant experience. A free snack and (alcohol-included) drinks, even in economy, even on, say, AMS-LCY… pretty decent.
I do not have any IHG points. Would anybody advise buying 500,000? No plans for spending time at any IHG this year..
No!
+1, avoid buying points or miles unless you have an immediate use for them.
…or buying the minimum possible to keep one’s points alive, rather than seeing them expire.
The 100% bonus offer is quite a regular occurrence at the minute, so this is unlikely to be the last chance. As other have said, don’t buy speculatively, only dive in when you have a plan for them (& are reasonably confident of getting value from them).
You’re asking should you lend 2k to a company interest free with no agreed redemption date with you at the very bottom of the most unsecured creditors. Oh and in a currency they have sole discretion to revalue at any time.
When that company has run several promos like this which appear to be getting more frequent and with higher limits which sits more down the quick cash grab end of the scale than sound investment.
In the midst of a global pandemic…
It would be madness at the best of times.
I think it is only the devaluation risk that is a possible concern.
IHG aren’t going out of business anytime soon.
That said, buying 500k (or is it actually 1m after the bonus?) with no plans on usage is a silly thing to do.
OT Bit: Where has our gossip article gone today?
Was it something we said Rob?!
Some weird IT issue – it was set for 2am but did not go live. Just fixed.
What sort of long haul flying schedule do we expect BA to have running in August?
AmEx Platinum 100 pounds back offer – I’ve had it saved to supplementary cards, worked for one back in June, but I no credit for the second card spend this month. Has anyone received a credit on more than just the primary card recently?
Yes, supplementary card still working
Thanks for confirming. I’ll wait patiently then 😀
No chat thread today?
Oh well. For members of the LBG community, “Everyday Offers” are steadily returning with a welcome 10% fundsback for Spar popping up this morning on my BoS accounts.
For those who signed up to the new variant of the Halifax Rewards account, the £5 rewards are going to pay on 13th of the month, or so they claimed this morning.
I got my free cinema and half price popcorn voucher last week, I thought that was better value for me than the £5 given my local Vue is Leicester Square!
The movies will be best option for most probably. We already had those with Club Lloyd’s so settled for the £5.
I really don’t fancy sitting in a cinema for 2 hours, especially wearing a mask. I wore one for about the same time yesterday while having medical tests, it made my face hot and damp and steamed up my glasses! All in all it was quite unpleasant and I’d rather stay at home with Netflix.
@Anna
You get used to face masks – I wear them a lot at work.
Glasses wise – I have the same issue unless I have a mask with an adjustable nose bridge. I just bought the Wolford mask for travel and haircuts – the adjustable metal bit in the nose bridge means my glasses don’t steam up.
Try wearing them all day long. The problem is that you had to choose your benefit some time ago and I believe those choosing movies are now stuck with them. Needless to say I’ll not be choosing movies from Lloyds come October.
Regular facemasks should not be an issue. I wear one all day every day. A simple surgical type mask (think what your dentist wore pre-Covid) if pinched/vented correctly (Youtube it or ask someone who wears one for their job every day to show you ), will not get sweaty or steam up your face as it will vent out of the sides.
Part of the issue is that people are using cloth masks of innappropriate material or getting hold of FFP2 or FFP3 respirator masks, (or the KN95 chinese knock-off versions) as they’ve heard they are better – or shops don’t know what they’re seling. Not only will they not be better (not least because most KN95s are fake – which is why they’ve been rejected from the medical supply chain and are now hitting retail) but they’re infinitely less comfortable to wear.
Finally, if you go to the effort of wearing a mask but leave your nose poking out the top then give yourself a nuggie and think about what you’re doing…
you can push a freezer tie (doubled or tripled if yours are fragile) into the top seam of a cloth mask, or sew one in, or if keeping your cloth mask through a few washes, sew on a small piece of fabric you can insert the freezer ties into between washes, this can help with nose fit
Harry T – yes you have my utmost admiration for performing procedures while wearing a mask, I just about coped doing my own pin prick antibody test which managed to make me feel faint 🤦🏻♀️.
The £5 is basically 1% ca$h back on paying Amex…. better than Curve (although I don’t partake in that myself)
I don’t pay anything for my accounts but get the offers.
Don’t think you need any fee accounts to get the offers. Tge rewards we are talking about are different from the offers. They come with accounts where you have to jump through hoops but easily done.
@BJ is it worth getting that paid Rewards account?
Up to you, you need to pass £1500 through the account every month (or park £5k in it at 0%!) plus spend £500 on the debit card. Only £5/m in return. I just set up SO and pay £500 to NSI…for us, it’s a free weekend night in Aberdeen or Newcasle every year.
Each cinema voucher lasts for 12 months and you get 1 voucher each month if you meet the criteria for that month. Not only that you get a half price popcorn voucher. As far as I’m aware the Lloyds Club only gives you 6 cinema vouchers a year.
If in a year’s time we are still in the same position we will have bigger problems that these rewards!
@Anna, I hate wearing masks too but hoping that as things get better and I have 12 months to use each voucher, going to the cinema will be enjoyable then!
Yes, I know Sam, that’s why I said it was the best option. We dont go to movies that often so the Lloyd’s offering was fine for us. I am wondering if we will soon see changes to the Lloyds and BoS accounts too.
Good news re IC Fiji. Suva is not much of a tourist destination on its own, but handy for flights to other countries in the region (most of these depart from SUV rather than NAN).
What’s the best way to get there and what is covid situation?
Best way is via LAX or AKL, but seeing as they are both closed to travellers you are up the proverbial sh!t creek. Have a week in Southend instead, I hear the pubs and fish and chips are rather good.