Virgin Hotels is coming to Glasgow

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• Prins Polo says:

  3 Apr3 April 04:16

  Anything on the massive IHG devaluation?

  • ChrisC says:

    3 Apr3 April 04:38

    It’s not certain this is a devaluation.

    Rob suggested in yesterday’s chat that this could be an IT glitch and I think the same.

    Maybe we should wait a couple of days for confirmation of what it actually is?

    • Rob says:

      3 Apr3 April 09:51

      That’s what I’m doing.

      As the Indigo Leicester Square was 93,000 points but InterCon O2 was 31,000 when I looked last night, I think it’s fair to say things are not as they should be.

      It’s certainly not a devaluation however, taken across the portfolio. There were London hotels as low as 15k.

      • RussellH says:

        3 Apr3 April 10:46

        We have just booked two nights at the Indigo Stratford -on-Avon at an average of 15 500 pts / night, which worked out at ~ £10 less than the cash price.
        The HIX down the road was only about 55% of the price of the Indigo, but the points price was higher!
        Mind you, we have had a few cheap points stays at that Indigo…

        • Harry T says:

          3 Apr3 April 10:57

          @Russell
          I’m seeing points prices of around 45,000 for the Indigo in Stratford at weekends in the summer. When did you find such low prices?

      • BP says:

        3 Apr3 April 12:40

        Six Senses Maldives is looking great value at 100k when Kimpton Fitzroy is 100k some nights!!

  • IanM says:

    3 Apr3 April 08:43

    I checked the O2 for June and the points price had gone down so don’t see any issue

    • Yuff says:

      3 Apr3 April 12:29

      Checked our IC park lane booking at although cash price has dropped, since I booked, reward nights have gone up to 86k a night, I thought there was a 70k cap on IC’s 🤷🏻‍♂️

• Phillip says:

  3 Apr3 April 04:34

  The good thing is that Star Alliance airlines do through checking on separate tickets, which at least means you can stay airside despite multiple connections.

  • John says:

    3 Apr3 April 05:42

    How to get to Amsterdam on star? 3 transits is not worth it. 4 to Australia (but it won’t be happening)

    • Phillip says:

      3 Apr3 April 07:48

      Makes for a good status run!

    • ChrisC says:

      3 Apr3 April 10:52

      If you are close to Birmingham, Manchester, Heathrow or City then Swiss via Zurich?

      • The real John says:

        3 Apr3 April 11:05

        So you think BHX-ZRH-AMS-FRA-Asia-SYD is a good idea (even with no covid issues).

        The top level comment from Phillip suggested that “through checking on separate tickets” would be helpful here.

        John at 0542 pointed out that in order to take advantage of this benefit, whilst using the €1700 deal to Sydney (not that I can find any dates), 4 transits would be required. Turning what would be a 20 hour journey on oneworld into a 36 hour journey.

        In 2017, I did use a deal mentioned on HFP to do LHR-ZRH-LHR-MCT-DOH-BKK-PER-BNE-drive to OOL-SYD and back (on 3 different tickets) which took about 100 hours each way in total but I actually had business activities in most of the stopover cities.

        • ChrisC says:

          3 Apr3 April 11:45

          The question I was answering was John’s “how to get to Amsterdam on star?”

          I wasn’t commenting on if it’s a good idea or not just was it possible!

          Sure depending where John lives a direct BA or KLM or even the train would be more direct but then he’d have no through checking of bags and the risk of a misconnect. He could fly to AMS the day before and stay over night but isn’t that also adding in a complication?

          But if wewant cheap tickets these complex routings are part and parcel of the game.

    • kitten says:

      3 Apr3 April 11:27

      Eurostar?

  • Clive says:

    3 Apr3 April 10:34

    Hi Philip is that a written rule as it is quite critical for an up coming trip I have?

    • The real John says:

      3 Apr3 April 11:07

      It is at the discretion of the check-in supervisor. If you state your itinerary people can comment on whether it is likely to succeed.

      Also if it is “critical” for an upcoming trip should you not have checked before booking.

      • Clive says:

        3 Apr3 April 12:25

        John critical meaning that instead of having to cancel if I can through check then I would be allowed to travel due to new rules. Itinerary is:

        AMS-ZRH-BKK with LX
        Connection
        BKK-HKT with TG

        • Phillip says:

          3 Apr3 April 17:12

          Clive, it’s not written anywhere unfortunately but I have never had an issue with Swiss, including through checking on non-Star partners such as Cathay Pacific and even BA. They have interline agreements with both of them.

  • Radiata says:

    4 Apr4 April 22:21

    Be careful with number of legs though.

    I had a DUR-JNB-DOH-AMS-NWI with DUR-JNB on SA, JNB-DOH-AMS on QR and AMS-NWI on KL.

    SAA very happy to interline but warned only three legs would be done so had to pick up bags in AMS. On the way down the same issue arose but proved moot as I had to pick up bags in JNB regardless to clear customs and recheck for domestic leg.

• The Savage Squirrel says:

  3 Apr3 April 07:35

  I don’t really understand it, but it’s very common for Vegas properties to open in this condition, particularly just before calendar or financial year end. I believe it’s to do with something like time-dependent development grants or tax breaks or booking tax losses into a particular year being dependent on opening within a certain timeframe. Circa (downtown) did the same recently, opening with over 90% of its rooms still unavailable.
  In any case; for all Vegas properties … give it a few months to shake down before going there (not that it’s an issue for us at the moment 🙁 )

  • TGLoyalty says:

    3 Apr3 April 10:40

    Honestly not sure what the reviewer expected on day 1!

    I’d wait a few weeks before expecting a decent experience and months if I wanted a well run establishment (of this size)

• Oh! Matron! says:

  3 Apr3 April 08:36

  May I vent? “Opening night led to crowds that were probably too big for safety”

  Yes, opening the hotel when it’s obviously not ready, in the middle of a pandemic, probably isn’t the brightest thing in the world. But, if ocean’s 13 has taught us anything, hotels always have a soft launch, which this obviously was

  BUT: No one forced anyone to be here…. If you were scared of the crowding, you should have stayed the hell home. Why is it so difficult for people to understand this?

  Have a great Easter, all.

  Paul
  PS: Please don’t, for one second, that my knowledge of the world comes from movies…. 🙂

  • The real John says:

    3 Apr3 April 09:09

    He didn’t enter the places he thought were too crowded.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      3 Apr3 April 10:41

      Unbelievably lots of people are still ok with crowds. Doesn’t bother me.

      • The real John says:

        3 Apr3 April 11:13

        Even if there was no covid I avoid super crowded places – nothing has changed for me just like I’ve always washed my hands when coming home and before eating.

        Some people seem to have thought that before 2020 it was acceptable to cough and sneeze into other people’s faces and when “covid is over” it will be ok to do that again.

        • kitten says:

          3 Apr3 April 11:30

          Brilliant comment @The Real John

        • Brian says:

          3 Apr3 April 12:30

          Agree. One of the worst symptoms of the Covid pandemic seems to be a complete absence of common sense. Not sure whether the vaccines help with that, though.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          3 Apr3 April 12:57

          Some people are just filthy

• ChrisW says:

  3 Apr3 April 09:34

  Never ever stay at a new hotel right when it first opens. Give it at least a month for management to iron out the problems

  • Lady London says:

    3 Apr3 April 12:12

    …unless you’re given a really good offer!

    worth considering as same applies to restaurants

• Graeme says:

  3 Apr3 April 10:29

  My wife’s the architect on India Buildings. She has had to fight tooth and nail with the Virgin Miami based design team not to have the hotel in old town Edinburgh look like the Vegas one, and I believe Virgin are being sued on their Dallas and Washington hotels due to incompetence. The suites with castle views in Edinburgh will be stunning although £400pn that Virgin want to charge may be unrealistic!

  • Rob says:

    3 Apr3 April 15:54

    Something odd happened with SanFran as well, with the owner trying to dump them very quickly: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/virgin-hotels-files-lawsuit-against-owner-of-san-francisco-property-301054371.html

  • Peggerz says:

    3 Apr3 April 18:33

    Hi @Graeme.
    Great news that your wife has been fighting to stop the Edinburgh hotel looking like the Vegas one. India Buildings had a lot of character and hopefully a lot of that has been retained. The new section down by the Cowgate is fairly shooting up and I heard last month about a rooftop bar/resto. Do you know if they retained any interesting artefacts from the archeological dig last year?

  • Dave says:

    3 Apr3 April 20:53

    Has it changed from the initial render? Because that had nothing in keeping with the listed buildings it’s attached to

• geoff says:

  3 Apr3 April 10:53

  I think your first link to the Lufthansa ex-UK article is wrong – it links to an Amsterdam article.

  • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

    3 Apr3 April 15:14

    Weirdly the correct article from 14 Feb 2021 seems to have disappeared and in searches it instead links to this reminder article from 27 Feb: https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/02/27/reminder-excellent-lufthansa-and-swiss-first-and-business-class-deals-from-the-uk/

    • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

      3 Apr3 April 15:15

      Either way its academic as those deals finished on 08 March…

    • Rob says:

      3 Apr3 April 15:43

      Sorry, fixed.

      The 14 Feb article diverts to 27 Feb because the two articles are basically a copy of each other and there is no need to keep both ‘live’.

• BuildBackBetter says:

  4 Apr4 April 16:25

  Any info on a similar sale by Swiss? Usually both have sales at same time.

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