ENDS MIDNIGHT MONDAY: Win Apple AirPods with HfP and Qatar Duty Free

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• PB says:

  5 Mar5 March 05:19

  Hi Rob. I’m in Bangkok at the moment having flown here with Qatar Airways. It seems a little unfair that I can’t enter the competition. 🙁

  • DaveJ says:

    5 Mar5 March 06:15

    Vpn

    • Jan M says:

      5 Mar5 March 07:01

      Maybe not practical in Thailand but I’m traveling in Germany and still have free roaming. So I just turned off the WiFi on my phone, and voilà it thinks I’m in the UK.

    • Blenz101 says:

      5 Mar5 March 07:59

      Annoying VPN is also blocked. No entry for readers in the UAE 😞

    • PB says:

      5 Mar5 March 11:42

      Cheers Dave. Trying to find a free VPN is a bit of a challenge. I went with TunnelBear, but it appears that Gleam is not stupid. I got this…
      The location (IP Address) you are using is from a data center. To prevent fraud, Gleam blocks entry from these locations. This is usually the result of using a VPN to access our site.

  • Nigerian Prince says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:16

    You are not missing much, 8am Sunday already 2k entries, for 2 airpods…

• Paul says:

  5 Mar5 March 05:29

  A travel site which blocks entry to a
  competition to people who are actually travelling!

  It may be the law of the land but it’s very silly!

  I appreciate the purchase was effectively a gift from QR to promote the service offered, but at 63,000 Avios it’s hardly value unless you are very Avios rich or you get them for free.

  At 1p it means you paid over £600 for something worth £179 but this lack of value when using Avios in this way to shop, is not mentioned in the article.

  • Andrew J says:

    5 Mar5 March 06:41

    But like any advert, negative points aren’t highlighted.

  • Thywillbedone says:

    5 Mar5 March 06:43

    Not quite that simple. Sometimes you get entrants from countries where there is a low chance of the item actually reaching the intended recipient. Easier to restrict the geography.

    Source: have run similar competitions and learned the hard way

  • BJ says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:12

    The original article on using avios at Doha duty free did address vue of redeeming avios in this way.

  • Chas says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:49

    ‘At 1p it means you paid over £600 for something worth £179”

    Except he bought two pairs, so it’s spend £600 for things worth £358. Still terrible value for those of us in the know, but as BJ mentions, the original article highlighted various reasons why being able to spend your Avios (from the flight you’ve not yet taken…) is a positive development.

  • Rob says:

    5 Mar5 March 09:11

    £360

  • Neil says:

    6 Mar6 March 17:39

    It seems that Rob has taught you too well 😉

• danimal says:

  5 Mar5 March 06:08

  So you spent 63,663 and got £179 of value and you didn’t think to mention what a poor return this was.

  • James says:

    5 Mar5 March 06:18

    63,663 is only the equivalent of 3.5 amex referrals which Rob can achieve from his website viewership of 1,000s (or even better if they agree on better rates than 18k)

    • danimal says:

      5 Mar5 March 06:26

      I’m not sure what your point is. As the article says Rob was gifted the Avios by Qatar so cost him nothing. The strapline of this website is “Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points” which this clearly doesn’t do.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge HfP fan, it’s my go-to site for all things travel/points, I just think this article doesn’t reflect the ethos of the site and should be clearer that it’s an advert for Qatar.

      • The Savage Squirrel says:

        5 Mar5 March 09:13

        @danimal, all the write-ups on the Qatar duty free option have mentioned that it is not maximum value and that it won’t be attractive to 99.9% of regular readers of this site and other points enthusiasts.
        It’s important to remember that we are a small and unusual subset of the general population. It may actually be VERY good value for the non-collecting non-UK infrequent traveller who is travelling Qatar one-time only. That’s because the likely alternative is a small number of orphaned miles forgotten about and expiring unused at a value of zero…

        • danimal says:

          5 Mar5 March 11:05

          But it wasn’t mentioned in this article is my point, and HfP regularly uses Nectar as a base for valuing Avios which make Qatar duty-free a bad deal. I think they could have been a bit more up-front that this is a promotion/advert for Qatar and not a standard HfP article. I’m not sure how HfP can write objectively about airlines and points AND promote the same airlines and their points.

          Full disclosure – I have entered the competition and will gladly take the AirPods if I win.

        • Rob says:

          5 Mar5 March 11:21

          I really don’t know what planet you are living on.

          You are saying that we should refuse to take money from the companies we write about on objectivity grounds, even though they are the only companies who actually want to advertise to this audience. You then expect, somehow, that we magic up the substantial sum of money required to pay 3 people full time salaries and run an office.

    • Andrew J says:

      5 Mar5 March 06:40

      I don’t think Rob gets paid in points for referring people to Amex!

      • James says:

        5 Mar5 March 07:30

        Even better. Would love to see the ratio of referrals to GBP. I just compared what the amount of avios would be if one of us commoners were to do the same trx

      • BJ says:

        5 Mar5 March 07:35

        ISTR Rob stating that he and other HFP staff have the same 90k amex referral limit as everybody else.

        • Andrew J says:

          5 Mar5 March 08:06

          For their personal referrals, yes, but not HFP as a business.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          5 Mar5 March 10:07

          The “business” is just their collective limits plus friends and family

          He’s said the business gets no additional limit for points referrals but ofcourse cash would be different but I don’t believe as lucrative

        • Rob says:

          5 Mar5 March 10:17

          Correct.

          Although no-one seems to have noticed that we don’t proactively offer referrals anywhere on the site these days, except in a couple of card reviews. Those who still email to ask for one get one from the team or a family member.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    5 Mar5 March 06:38

    63663 was the cost of two sets of AirPods so £358 not £179.

    • Jan M says:

      5 Mar5 March 07:05

      Good point. I imagine that the earnings rate might depend on the shop or item too.

      It’s probably an especially good scheme for those who don’t collect Avios. They can get rid off their points in transit…

  • BJ says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:32

    The article is about a competition, not about value of avios which was addressed in an earlier article quite transparently. Besides, value reported above was based on the notional 1ppa value which, quite frankly, readers often have to perform mental gymnastics to convince themselves of. More accurately they can be valued at £440ish based on Nectar conversion
    (which could then be used to purchase at argos with change) so it is still poor value but that is besides the point. This is a competition, if you win them they cost you nothing curtesy of HFP and Qatar Airways.

  • Rob says:

    5 Mar5 March 09:11

    £360

• T says:

  5 Mar5 March 06:57

  Good luck to all who enter the competition!!!!

• Gordon says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:50

  Worth a punt, If won I’d eBay them, As I have the pro version and the sound quality base and noise cancellation is second to none, Worth the premium price IMO.

  • Andrew J says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:07

    Agreed, I wouldn’t be downgrading to the standard version either.

• roberto says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:55

  4HU

  • Mike Hunt says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:58

    Beat me to it !

  • Peter K says:

    5 Mar5 March 09:25

    😂

  • Jordan D says:

    5 Mar5 March 11:23

    Came to check if anyone else was going to do the old school nod. *doffs cap*

• Harry T says:

  5 Mar5 March 08:22

  Oh, they shortened the stem on the third Gen AirPods so you can pretend you have the Pro 😂

• DL says:

  5 Mar5 March 08:36

  Sheesh looking at some of the responses, two sayings come to mind:

  This is why we can’t have nice things

  or

  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:54

    Every competition @Rob runs gets the same negative comments about the non UK bit.

    Some of his competitions are ineligible even if you’re in Northern Ireland because of the separate laws they have there. So sometimes it’s not even the whole of the UK that’s allowed to enter.

    I’m also away at the moment. I’ll enter when I get back on Monday if I remember.

    • Rob says:

      5 Mar5 March 09:07

      NI changed the law last year so we can now accept entries

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        5 Mar5 March 09:41

        Nice to know there was cross community support on the ability to enter HfP competitions!

        • Bagoly says:

          5 Mar5 March 10:39

          Was that cross-community support, or cross-community apathy?
          i.e. Did it go through at Stormont, or did Westminster “impose” it?

    • Kevin C says:

      5 Mar5 March 09:14

      Fun fact, the laws about purchase necessary competitions in Northern Ireland were updated last year to make them much more like the rest of the UK. Details are on the ASA website.

      Thanks for running the competition!

  • dougzz99 says:

    5 Mar5 March 10:54

    Absolutely. If I ran a site like this I’d hunt down the entries of every negative comment and delete them. People can be such tossers, you only have to look at me to confirm that.

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