Will Avios redemptions to Dubai on Qatar Airways restart?

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• Nick G says:

  6 Jan6 January 06:11

  What’s poor about the rooms rob? Passed this hotel many a time and it’s only 40 mins from where I live via train. Always fancied it but prices are steep

  Great news about Qatar flew Abu Dhabi – Doha a few times and it amazed me what they could serve up in an hour or so flight

• KP says:

  6 Jan6 January 06:13

  The Principal York pictures look stellar on the website, including rooms. Don’t know what Rob is talking about ?

  • Harry T says:

    6 Jan6 January 06:54

    I mean, he has actually stayed there, rather than looking at the website…

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    6 Jan6 January 08:03

    I think he’s talking about *checks notes* a lot of work being done on very nice public areas but the rooms still being poor, at the Principal hotel in York which is next to the train station.

    I’m inclined to at least consider the possibility that the guy who has had more hotel stays than I’ve had, um, hotel stays, knows the difference between a good and a bad hotel room and if you look carefully in the text you’ll notice the manager remarking herself that this is in fact reflective of the reality.

  • Kai says:

    6 Jan6 January 08:46

    Try checking TripAdvisor reviews rather than solely looking at their website? For one thing most of the rooms had no aircon when it was 30 degrees when I stayed there last summer.

    • Harry T says:

      6 Jan6 January 12:45

      FYI I checked out of Moxy York because their aircon doesn’t cool the rooms, it only heats them.

      • Chrisasaurus says:

        6 Jan6 January 20:41

        That would be very disappointing- and it should be made very clear on booking- though in a City like York I imagine only the new builds (eg HI) stand any chance of getting air conditioning installed

  • Dick Steele says:

    6 Jan6 January 12:44

    I’ll give you a few pointers on why Principal York is a shower of a hotel:

    Tiny bathrooms – the sink in my room was miniscule – the size of one in a plane toilet

    Small bedrooms – You need to pay A LOT of money to get a decent room.

    Lack of status recognition – IHG status doesn’t get you far here

    Poor, snooty service – staff hear complaints all too often and are indifferent to criticism. You need to stand your ground to get compensation.

    No air conditioning in many rooms – unacceptably hot in summer

    Queuing 20-30 minutes for breakfast and then the service was slow for drinks

    I won’t return even if it was £50

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:15

    I’ve mentioned on threads here several times about the Principal (and all its previous incarnations) being a bit of a local joke as an old LNER/BR hotel that has veered through various levels of dumpiness without ever getting beyond that. If it didn’t have a great location in a tourist city that has severe constraints on central hotel supply it would have died on its arse by now.
    There’s hopefully a new Hampton on its way in a pretty central area that’s being redeveloped too.

• Andrew says:

  6 Jan6 January 06:54

  Perhaps the return of the £999 flights to Dubai from U.K. on QR including the GCC sector ticketed in First to gain access to Al Safwa lounge in Doha and a total of 400TPs.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:19

    I paid £795 from BHX to DXB 4 years ago. Great experience on a 787 then a local a32x with very good first class seats. I though Al Sawfa was a little too big and cold but still a very relaxing experience.

• Ade says:

  6 Jan6 January 07:27

  I stayed at the Principal York last year and found the junior suite very disappointing. The room was spacious but there was nowhere to sit apart from on the bed. I was told only some junior suites have a seating area and I was really paying the extra money for a view of York Minster. That all seemed very odd to me and not what the website implied. That wasn’t the only issue though. We had staff burst into our room without knocking on two occasions, waited more than 30 mins at the bar for a drink, didn’t bother at all with breakfast as the queues were so long and found some staff extremely rude and unhelpful. The building is beautiful but the experience is one huge let down.

  • Dick Steele says:

    6 Jan6 January 12:49

    I agree about everything. The staff in particular let Principal York down. Snooty and indifferent. You get a far more genuine welcome in a Premier Inn.

  • BP says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:40

    I thought the very definition of a Junior Suite was it had a seating area in the bedroom?

• Andrew says:

  6 Jan6 January 07:30

  I’m a bit confused why a new hotel in a small U.K. city and which isn’t part of a loyalty program is news on here? I know it’s slow news at the moment but…..

  • TGLoyalty says:

    6 Jan6 January 08:48

    It’s still a UK travel site, York is a popular travel destination for many people and Malmaison is a decent enough chain.

    I’m not sure why Rob wouldn’t mention it.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      6 Jan6 January 08:49

      Oh and if you just wanted some weak link to loyalty you might be able to book via hotels.com

      • Stu N says:

        6 Jan6 January 09:19

        +1 – it’s good to know about options for UK city breaks as no-one is going anywhere abroad for quite some time.

        • Andrew says:

          6 Jan6 January 09:33

          Fair enough, guess not everything is for everyone.

        • John says:

          6 Jan6 January 11:52

          Or even England city breaks as 90% of us aren’t going to Scotland or Wales or NI for a while

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          6 Jan6 January 13:20

          It’s also a very relevant article as, now we’ve established the Principal is a pile of poo, which has already affected a lot of readers, then even point-loving HfP readers may need a non-loyalty alternative.

  • Amanda G says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:16

    I love it when people so obviously from the south show their knowledge of the country. As someone who’s lived in York for the past 15 years, I can confirm that we have millions of visitors every year, the train station (massively in need of a overhaul) is a main hub between the north and south as it’s 2 hours direct to KGX. The bus park just outside of York centre, is regularly full of foreign tourists, especially Chinese. So much so that some of our signs in our “small city” are now also in Chinese. They contribute a massive amount to the tourism here and we even have some attractions such as museums & the York Dungeons. But mostly its attraction is the fact is still relatively unspoilt as the city is surrounded by Roman walls and gates.
    On a different note, I’ve been watching the Malmaison building for a long while. I used to work in the building when it was Yorkshire House and to be honest it was a 1960/70s monstrosity spoiling the view of the river line, it’s been on progress for at least 2 years and still doesn’t look better from the outside. It’s main competitor is the Grand, the only 5* here. It’s a much nicer hotel from the outside and literally next door to the old Aviva building, but still not part of a loyalty scheme.

    • Sandra says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:24

      @Amanda Gee – I’m probably biased coming from Yorkshire but York is far more important in English history, particularly early history, than London and much of the south. It could easily have become the capital instead of London. It’s a beautiful city and area with much more than just old buildings to see!

    • steopia says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:50

      I’m a softie southerner, but I have family in York and love to visit. It’s a wonderful city. Stunning majestic Minster, river, Roman walls, museums, Bettys, little shops. And I like the train station, a cathedral of noise. Fast trains north and south. The foreign tourists are onto something. The two English cities outside London I recommend foreign tourists visit are Bath (for the architecture) and York.

    • John says:

      6 Jan6 January 11:58

      LOL those signs saying “left luggage” along Queen St when you turn right out of York station… The Chinese on them translates to “gauche valise” / “links gepäck” etc

      • Dick Steele says:

        6 Jan6 January 12:51

        LOL someone just Google translated them? 😂

    • Rob Collins says:

      6 Jan6 January 19:10

      I currently have a booking at the Indigo Hotel, York for a 60th Birthday celebration for my brother in law in late May. Notwithstanding the fact that it might not happen (originally planned for May last year), I’ll keep my eye on this in case there are any good deals.

    • Callum says:

      7 Jan7 January 11:02

      I love it when people from “the North” (or South, or anywhere really) get overly defensive about their area for no apparent reason.

      They didn’t even mention the North, let alone disparage it!

• Bob says:

  6 Jan6 January 07:30

  Having stayed at the Principal York in late 2019 I have to disagree that it’s a troubled hotel unless there’s been significant change since then. Admittedly I was upgraded to a Junior Suite due to IHG status and I got an absolute bargain at £100ish for dinner, bed and breakfast (deal found on HfP actually – thanks Rob!) but the room in my opinion was beautiful, the food was more than adequate and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there.

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 09:05

    You got a junior suite, that’s why.

    You should be grateful your room was actually above ground.

    • Mark says:

      6 Jan6 January 10:01

      Sounds like you were in the Family rooms – in the basement. We stayed in those same rooms in Aug ’20. We had to ask for the heating to be put on as they were so cold and dark (and it was 27 degrees outside!), and the bathrooms were accessible rooms, so wet rooms, which was a nightmare with kids!

      • Rob says:

        6 Jan6 January 10:35

        No, I wasn’t in one of those rooms, I just know they exist.

        We got two micro rooms which were only just big enough for the bed (remember I have Spire / Ambassador etc) overlooking the park where, all Summer, there was a socially distanced outdoor pub set up – nothing to do with the hotel – which ran until late.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      6 Jan6 January 10:21

      So perhaps it’s more that the rooms need some work/reclassification.

      I thought the rooms in the principal Manchester were also very odd. Some very big rooms with sparse furniture and felt very cold for it.

      Starwood don’t seem to have done as good a job as I would have thought.

      • Rob says:

        6 Jan6 January 10:32

        The ones is the new wing, which I didn’t see, are apparently totally out of sync with the rest of the hotel and are a long walk. The ones in the old building were designed in Victorian times and are exceptionally small now they have had bathrooms added. The park outside is often used for live events which cause substantial noise in the rooms until late in the evening.

  • Si says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:07

    I completely agree with the above. I did the opening offer dinner and breakfast deal too. I actually paid for the junior suite but found it very pleasant, especially after they failed to charge me for any of the drinks I had before or with dinner and also my parking!!

    I had never been to York before. I loved it, especially and surprisingly the railway museum which thoroughly enjoyed half-cut after hitting the Christmas market’s mulled wine and craft beer stalls a little too hard.

    This was clearly 2019…. it was a simpler, happier time back then! 🙁

    • Anna says:

      6 Jan6 January 14:50

      The railway museum is a gem, we visited a few times when my son was going through his train phase!

      • Si says:

        6 Jan6 January 18:19

        Hopefully your son was more sober than I was!

  • Sal says:

    6 Jan6 January 11:06

    Ive stayed here on 2 occasions and had 3 rooms during those visits. All the rooms were really lovely and to a good quality. The bathrooms are of high standard. We only stayed in the main building with a king or standard view room. I wouldn’t recommend the annexe from reviews (also the main building has the history). The staff were lovely, the only issue i had was the staffing levels, they struggled to clean our rooms on one visit and we didn’t end up checking into the room until 5:45pm, they also guaranteed 4pm check out to most of the hotel the previous night which didn’t help.

• Oh! Matron! says:

  6 Jan6 January 08:54

  Have stayed at the Hotel Du Vin in york. What a lovely place. The room was quite contemporary in the new wing, but inside, especially where you had breakfast / dinner was, well, amazing. It’s worthwhile eating here, partly due to the 15% discount if a guest

  • mike says:

    6 Jan6 January 13:56

    +1

• babyg says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:43

  Oh this would be great (QR to DXB/AUG), especially with BA dropping AUH, hopefully QR will have some reward availability by the end of the year to either AUH/DXB, any crystal prediction on dates?

  • Blenz101 says:

    6 Jan6 January 10:46

    Assuming Qatar reopens its borders (post Eid would be my guess) I would be fairly confident flights will be back around the time of the rescheduled Expo2020 in October in DXB.

    EK/EY (i.e. the UAE Gov) don’t have a great incentive to encourage QR to compete with them as an extra hub delivering passengers to AUH/DXB meanwhile whilst Doha itself remains closed.

    Also the UAE was far more keen on keeping the blockade vs KSA.

    • babyg says:

      6 Jan6 January 10:59

      Thanks for the input Blenz101.. that could work out nicely for the Abu Dhabi F1 in December. I would much rather fly QR to AUH vs BA to DXB (plus the QR cabin/service benefits)

    • Aston100 says:

      6 Jan6 January 17:13

      Which Eid? The one in May after Ramadan, or the one in July after the Hajj?

      • Ben says:

        7 Jan7 January 17:45

        Presumably Eid al-Adha aka “Big Eid” on 20th July

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