Catch up on our flight and hotel reviews from 2022

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• Nick says:

  1 Jan1 January 06:55

  Happy New Year Rob & Rhys, and many thanks for another great year of HfP!

  Here’s hoping that we’ll progress further to ‘normality’ again (whatever that was!) in 2023!

  • DaveJ says:

    1 Jan1 January 12:20

    New normal!

    • Nick says:

      1 Jan1 January 12:57

      Yup, the new normal! I agree Dave, but, basically, in terms of overseas business travel, usually involving several flights, and a tight itinerary, especially to the USA for us, it’s still largely pointless, because any flight cancellation and/or airport/airline strike issues would scupper the whole trip.

      We won’t even bother considering a business trip now, that would have been absolutely ‘normal’, prior to Covid, unless, at least, most of these issues are resolved, by the airports and airlines.

      I’ve been doing this for over 40 years now, and it’s still a crap shoot, at best, since Covid!

• Derek Scott says:

  1 Jan1 January 07:32

  Would love to see you review Two Fairmonts….St Andrew’s and Vancouver Airport (the latter as it’s regularly reported as in the top 3/5 of Airport Hotels worldwide).

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 09:26

    At St Andrews as I type but no intention to review as it’s a family holiday. Not hugely impressed – it is effectively a cavernous new build conference hotel with zero charm although staff are great. If you’ve ever been to Hilton T4 at Heathrow you’ll be familiar with the scale of the (probably) 100 metre high lobby and dining area – it’s not exactly cosy!

    Simply too many issues, eg crazily undersized pool (in a dark basement) for 200+ rooms and only a handful of loungers despite space for at least double. The problems are unsolvable because they were built in with the original design.

    Turnberry is far better for the ‘glass of whisky on a sofa by a roaring fire’ experience. Upsides are impressive sea views and decent pricing – the massive suite we’re in is just £360 tomorrow night. Of course I doubt you’d be allowed to build roaring fires into new build hotels ….

    Seems to have pricing issues, I agree. The only reason we attended the NYE gala last night was that we’d booked B&B and then a few weeks ago they slashed the price AND threw in the NYE gala dinner free of charge, so we rebooked.

    Gleneagles obviously beats both – unless you want to be on the coast – but I accept that this now has crazy pricing and is designed around people who live in West London with zero Scottishness. We had a piper bringing in New Year last night, I would expect Gleneagles to have flown up a London club DJ who would personally have known most of the guests.

    To be fair it is working OK for us because I used Accor suite upgrades, I also cashed in my $100 of F&B credit, I will get triple points back via the recent promo and – obviously more importantly – its a part of Scotland we don’t know so we’re seeing new places during the day. I can’t see us returning but, at the same time, if you get a good price then there is no reason NOT to stay here unless you specifically want the ‘whisky by the fire’ experience.

  • Numpty says:

    1 Jan1 January 10:08

    The Fairmont St Andrews is often a deal on itison, never a good sign. Fairmont Vancouver is justifiably one of the best airport hotels,, rooms have great runway views (which makes the jet lag more passable), and an excellent breakfast which is heavy on blueberries and maple syrup!

• Richie says:

  1 Jan1 January 23:28

  Many thanks for all of these reviews, some very interesting information provided.
  I do want to stay at the Park Hyatt Vienna and fly Finnair’s A350 with new interiors.

• Londonsteve says:

  2 Jan2 January 00:41

  Happy New Year to Rob, Rhys and Sinead! Thanks for all your work in 2022.

• ianM says:

  2 Jan2 January 13:19

  Fairmont St Andrews available around £175 B&B including two rounds of golf, hard to beat.
  Very impressive spacious hotel with outstanding views.

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:36

    It’s not that impressive at present. There isn’t even a formal restaurant at the moment – you eat in the bar or the sub-Pizza Express Italian. Housekeeping sporadic – room may or may not be done, same with turndown, depending on day. Agree it is decent value vs alternatives though.

• BJ says:

  3 Jan3 January 10:31

  Any plans to add to the series on seat maps with other airlines (notably VS, AY and QR) and their aircraft? I found these for BA very useful and have selected seats based on Rhys’ recommendations as the usual suspects for such information are very unreliable.

• FRASER says:

  3 Jan3 January 12:45

  Thanks for all your help in 2022. Suggestion for 2023 – tips on finding Avios Oneworld redemptions for non-BA flights. I.e. are there any other better methods than searching daily across various dates and locations on BA.com? Seatspy is great, but only for BA flights. I’ve just tried awardnexus to set up for alerts for Oneworld BA seats, but some technical issues. Example would be finding 1st class Cathay Pacific redemptions for example, or Qatar (non-double points fares) without searching BA and hoping something pops up…

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