What happened at the Head for Points 10th Birthday Party?

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Thank you to everyone who came to our 10th Birthday Party on Wednesday evening at the Renaissance St Pancras hotel.

Our last summer party – back in 2019 – was also at the Renaissance and we decided to head back thanks to its big outdoor terrace:

We had around 500 people there, but with the patio it certainly didn’t feel too crowded until we made everyone come back in for the raffle draw.

…. and here it is, during the raffle:

Here is a shot taken earlier when the sun was brighter:

With 500 of you and three of us, we were never going to be able to chat to everyone, but we did our best. Here is Rob, chatting with a couple of guests:

Barclaycard took up a corner of the room and was giving away goodie bags as well as answering all your Barclaycard-related questions. I think this is the first time they’ve been in a room with Barclaycard Avios cardholders and they were thrilled to chat to you all about it.

We want to thank Barclaycard for sponsoring the event and providing the canapes and cupcakes:

It is not an exaggeration to say that without Barclaycard’s help – financially and logistically – an event of this scale would be extremely difficult to manage, and we are grateful for their backing.

Here is Sinead with Esme from Barclaycard and Richard from Malaysia Airlines – respectively our primary sponsor and headline raffle prize provider.

We had a couple of brief speeches from Rob and Esme before the raffle:

We decided to have a shorter raffle for this event, as is traditional for the Summer parties, although we still had an excellent line-up of prizes.

Our grand prize, generously donated by Malaysia Airlines and the Sabah Tourism Board was two Business Class flights to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo, via Kuala Lumpur, plus a two day package in a premium chalet at the Sutera Mantanani Resort on Mantanani Besar island.

This was won by Josh O, who I think it is fair to say was thrilled!

HfP Party Malaysia Airlines prize winner

Next up was a two night stay for two people in an Atelier Suite at Excelsior Hotel Gallia, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Milan:

We also had a two night stay for two people in a Deluxe room at Augustine, a Luxury Collection Hotel in Prague:

Plus a two night stay for two people in a Studio Suite at JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa:

Here I am, with one of our winners:

Other prizes included:

1 ‘Be My Guest’ voucher which you can use at any Hilton Honors hotel worldwide! You don’t need reward availability – you simply book a standard cash room and hand over your certificate at check-in. No blackout dates, no restrictions. If you want to head to the Waldorf Astoria Maldives for one free night, you can!
100,000 IHG One Rewards points – which should get you at least £400 of free hotel rooms
10,000 Accor Live Limitless points – these are worth €200 off any Accor hotel cash booking, you can transfer them into Avios or you can redeem them for tickets to a Limitless Experiences event
10,000 Avios from Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers
1 Japanese alcohol hamper kindly provided by ANA, All Nippon Airways

…. and a big thank you to all the companies that generously donated prizes.

Thank you again to everyone who came and made this event such a success, and especially to Barclaycard, Malaysia Airlines and the Renaissance St Pancras team. See you next time!

Category

General

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

captaindave says:

9 Jul9 July 10:00

Looks like it was a great evening – Congrats to all the raffle winners !

Any chance of a summer event in Devon sometime 😉
ZW says:

9 Jul9 July 10:55

Rhys is so handsome!
- Mike says:
  
  9 Jul9 July 11:07
  
  Gosh yes he is and so well dressed
  - G says:
    
    9 Jul9 July 13:25
    
    More queens at that party than a royal wedding; and I count myself amongst them!
    - VinZ says:
      
      9 Jul9 July 15:53
      
      Really? I thought the HfP readership was more on the straight side, I’ve always been quite intimidated by the thought of it… on top of not knowing anybody at all!
      - Gordon says:
        
        9 Jul9 July 16:18
        
        “Not knowing anybody at all” Prob best really judging on past comments by people 😉
      - Rob says:
        
        9 Jul9 July 17:26
        
        This is why we invite 80 airline and hotel representatives too – they wear special badges and are always happy to chat and hear what you think.
        
        50% of ticket sales are to solo guests, 50% buy two – so 1/3rd of guests came on their own.
      - Dr Tom says:
        
        9 Jul9 July 17:35
        
        There were a lot of gay men there (solo and with partners). I expect that’s reflective of the HfP readership in general.
      - Will says:
        
        9 Jul9 July 22:43
        
        Turning up solo and playing a game of meet the room at a HfP gathering is probably one of the warmest receptions and some of the most interesting people you’ll ever bump into.
      - VinZ says:
        
        10 Jul10 July 12:14
        
        I should make an effort and come to the next time!
G says:

9 Jul9 July 10:56

Great event. I think it’s unfair to blame the BC reps for their IT failures; they were there to sell the product to new customers rather than take criticism of their initially rocky launch.

I’m going to be ineligible for a BC sign up bonus until Jan 2023. Based on the current trajectory, I hope the new year sign up bonus is again an increase in the initial one 😉 – 75,000 anyone?

On an unrelated note: Amex Platinum gave me 50,000 rewards points just by threatening to cancel the card – worth looking into if someone currently has a platinum.
- ChrisC says:
  
  9 Jul9 July 16:22
  
  Wherever and whenever you are representing a company / organisation at an event you are always going to get complaints and comments about other parts of the organisation. You should be willing to take details and pass the query onto someone in the more appropriate parts of organisation to look into.
  
  If Barclays had been monitoring HfP threads about their products they would have been well aware of the complaints about IT and other issues and should have been prepared.
  
  And given how many HfP readers already seem to have Barclay cards there would actually be very few people at the party to try and “sell” them too. And those people – because they are HfP readers – would have been aware of the IT and other issues and raised them as well!
Will says:

9 Jul9 July 11:44

Great evening and a testimony to how good a job Rob has done on this for the last 10 years that so many people turn out to attend.

Met some very interesting characters.

The rock star of the loyalty points world, good title that 🙂
Grant H says:

9 Jul9 July 11:54

It was a super event, really well organised!

Thanks for all the effort the team have put in to make this happen.
AJA says:

9 Jul9 July 12:12

Sounds like a great evening and congrats to the raffle winners. I was unable to even apply as the timing of when the tickets went on sale was unfortunately not convenient for me and I mistakenly thought i might have had an opportunity later in the day.

Given how quickly this event sold out can I suggest that if there is a limit on numbers, that people who didn’t get a chance to go this time are given priority at the next event?. Not sure how that would work in practice but perhaps do like the forthcoming airline chat event where everyone applies and then names are randomly drawn out of the pool of applicants?

Or charge £20 and hire a bigger venue?
- Rob says:
  
  9 Jul9 July 12:17
  
  We’re not going beyond 500!
  
  £10 is unsustainable though.
  
  Raffling tickets is not possible due to the admin involved. We can cap it to 2 per booking but only a handful of people took 4 – it would have freed up 10 tickets max.
Lady London says:

9 Jul9 July 14:21

…And not enough ladies.

Loved Rchard’s suit in the piccies. (Malaysian Airlines). Such an immaculate fitting jacket.
- Mutley says:
  
  9 Jul9 July 15:50
  
  Agreed, Not enough ladies there. I am pictured though!
RoundTheWorld says:

9 Jul9 July 14:27

The grand prize winner looks like an older brother of Rhys, are they related??
- WaynedP says:
  
  9 Jul9 July 16:10
  
  No, For probity, it was declared somewhere that no immediate family members of HfP staff were eligible to enter the raffle draw. Might have been verbally on the night, can’t recall.
  - Rob says:
    
    9 Jul9 July 17:25
    
    Full rules were in the email you got via Eventbrite prior to the event. We let trade guests and contractors enter, but not our immediate families who were present.
- Rhys says:
  
  11 Jul11 July 08:36
  
  I don’t have an older brother, and my younger brother looks nothing like me!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

What happened at the Head for Points 10th Birthday Party?

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