Club Eurostar will get a new top tier in October

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• AL says:

  30 Aug30 August 05:49

  Rochdale is currently served by a couple of Premier Inns and a Travelodge. By car, it’s only half an hour or so to the Northern Quarter end of the city centre, which has recently ended up with loads more chain hotels, including a Hampton, a Crowne Plaza and, I think, some form of Marriott offering (although I may be misremembering the latter).

  A hotel of Hampton quality is probably suitable to the Rochdale area, to compete with the existing offerings. The whole area between Manchester and Leeds is sparse in terms of hotels, and Rochdale isn’t a bad mid-point, with enough draw itself to fill rooms.

  • Nick says:

    30 Aug30 August 10:00

    I was thinking similar, and it’s not a bad base to explore the beautiful Calder Valley, particularly if arriving by train. May go check it out.

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    30 Aug30 August 10:08

    The AC in the Northern Quarter is the Marriott you were thinking of

    • AL says:

      30 Aug30 August 12:23

      That’s the badger. Thanks @Blair Waldorf Salad!

  • Panda Mick says:

    30 Aug30 August 18:18

    There’s an excellent tapas place opposite an excellent gin bar seconds from where the Hampton will be. It’s along Butts Ave, this quirky little alley.

    The Wetherspoons is surprisingly nice seconds from here too.

    As for other hotels, The Norton Grange (an Accor) has been my go to.

    But, as others have said, Rochdale is a great starting spot for the Pennines.

  • Roy says:

    31 Aug31 August 00:22

    Rochdale is on the metro these days too, of course, although it’s a pretty slow journey into Manchester.

    As a former Rochdalian, I’d say that the town had become pretty run down over the last few decades, although the regeneration of the town centre looks pretty good these days

• Alastair says:

  30 Aug30 August 07:50

  Eurostar win a point for probably the most uninformative update email ever sent.

  • Will says:

    30 Aug30 August 08:06

    I thought the same. Most pointless FAQ’s I’ve ever seen

    • GJS says:

      30 Aug30 August 08:20

      Same! Eurostar is my preferred Amex redemption route at the moment and I was concerned that paying with points was about to be ‘enhanced’. Guess we could still see a change in the points required.

      • Stanley says:

        30 Aug30 August 17:28

        Does this mean that the amount of points required for a redemption will stay the same as well? Ie 500 or 750

        • Rob says:

          30 Aug30 August 17:30

          Not necessarily.

          There will be a new table, if only because all of the Thalys routes will be available for redemption too. I guess it will also be possible to redeem, say, London to Berlin with a connection to Thalys.

        • Roy says:

          30 Aug30 August 23:55

          I think the switch from 1 point per pound to 1 point per euro is highly likely to result in at least a modest devaluation, as otherwise the scheme will become more generous, assuming points balances aren’t adjusted.

          I say “highly likely” rather than certain as they’re going to have to do some work to merge existing Club Eurostar points balances and existing My Thalys World balances into a new balance, and there may well be conversion factors involved in the process…. The devil is in the details, and untill we see the new redemption chart and know how the new Club Eurostar balance will be calculated, there’s little more we can say.

          One thing I do find positive is that the new T&C’s make a distinction between “London routes” – i.e. traditional Eurostar routes – and “non-London routes” – i.e. ex-Thalys routes. My impression has always been that My Thalys world is significantly less generous than Club Eurostar, and my fear was that meant the merged programme would be reduced to the lowest common denominator – but I’m now fairly hopeful that they don’t intend to do that

          Time will tell ..

        • Roy says:

          31 Aug31 August 00:02

          By way of example, Anytime rewards will remain on London routes, but will not be available on non-London routes. So rather than making one programme more generous in this respect or the other less generous, they are maintaining the status quo.

          So, I’m cautiously optimistic that we will see, at worst, a fairly modest devaluation. But that may just be wishful thinking…

  • The real Swiss Tony says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:28

    I think there’s significantly more detail in that update than Lufthansa provided on PPB (their OnBusiness equivalent) a few months back. That included some kind of conversion ratio for old to new points – which they decided it was better simply not to disclose.

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  30 Aug30 August 07:58

  Norse doomed. You only need to hack people off once with these cancellations and you’ve lost their confidence.

  It is just a real pain rearranging/cancelling hotels, connecting flights, excursions etc etc.

  Writing this from NZ, after four days in Sydney and on my way to Tahiti after Air Tahiti Nui cancelled my TYO-PPT flight months and months ago. By then, of course, the only points flights left were this long route – only possible with the new 241 from the regions.

  (And yes, by then it was too late to cancel cruise etc, so we were fully committed)

  • Chris W says:

    30 Aug30 August 08:39

    I wonder why Norse are tinkling with their schedule like this. Lack of seats sold, or operational issues?

    • Rob says:

      30 Aug30 August 09:10

      Former, almost certainly.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:32

    They won’t be hacking many people off if there are barely any people on the flights they cancel…

  • Andrew says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:37

    I’d still like to see them fly from Edinburgh.

    If Virgin can charge £1500 for an economy return to Orlando outside the school holidays, and Delta £1400 to Atlanta. There must be demand for more transatlantics from EDI or (shudder) GLA? Maybe twice a week to MCO, LAS, and LAX?

    • Chris W says:

      30 Aug30 August 10:59

      Splitting operations and bases across multiple UK airports is easier said than done.

• PeteM says:

  30 Aug30 August 08:24

  Worth noting:

  Carte Blanche members may bring one guest during the week (Monday to Friday) and up to four guests at weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) into Eurostar Lounges and through the Business Premier priority lane.

  Étoile members may bring two guests during the week (Monday to Friday) and up to four guests at weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) into Eurostar Lounges and through the Business Premier priority lane.

• yorkieflyer says:

  30 Aug30 August 08:42

  Not d see sure Rochdale will attract Rob’s fabled London high roller readership?

  • NorthernLass says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:14

    Will it attract them away from the equally glamorous Blackburn Hampton though?!

    • AL says:

      30 Aug30 August 12:25

      Hah – once described to me as “Outer Blackpool”, given the lack of chains there!

    • RussellH says:

      30 Aug30 August 21:07

      Blackburn Hampton was OK when we stayed there. Only wanted a different overnight point between old and new homes though.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    30 Aug30 August 10:41

    Looking at the pics as long as the soundproofing is good it looks like a very nice hotel.

  • Chris W says:

    30 Aug30 August 11:05

    I imagine the in-room kettles will have a high RRP.

• yorkieflyer says:

  30 Aug30 August 09:08

  Email from Accor offering 1000 points for a booking but with no qualifying t and c s !

  • Lady London says:

    30 Aug30 August 12:19

    Be careful.

    After a few years not staying in Accor a while back, out of the blue they sent an email offering me 2,000 points for a stay. No other conditions other than a generous expiry date to do it by.

    I’d been contemplating going back to Accor for a stay anyway but there was no particular reason to. But of course the 2,000 points offer swung it and I gave them a stay.

    Accor did not credit the points. When I chased up Accor flatly refused even though I still had their email addressed personally to me with the offer and had done the stay.

    Accor’s excuse was that this offer was for members in Belgium only even though they’d sent it to my yahoo.co.uk email address. At the time my account language was set to French (long story) and it’s possible that was how the offer was sent to me, if the excuse was true.

    Sleazy despicable cheating Accor didn’t get another stay from me for more years, for that.

    I am still trying to understand French culture.

    Rob likes their events and went to Roland Garros but I will never trust Accor.

    • Pb says:

      30 Aug30 August 12:31

      Snap .

    • apbj says:

      30 Aug30 August 12:55

      Very, very typical Accor unfortunately.

      There’s currently an offer of 1,000 bonus points per stay. Nowhere on the promotional email, nor the registration page, nor the promotion landing page, does it mention that a two-night stay is required; it’s half way down the second set of T&Cs, at the end of a paragraph about something else.

      Lived and worked in France for a while and the intention is never to rip off the customer but the outcome is almost always exactly that because nothing can ever get put right. There’s no concept of redress.

• The real Swiss Tony says:

  30 Aug30 August 09:26

  “The sage of Norse Atlantic’s new Caribbean flights continues.”

  I expect this will continue for some thyme yet….

  • Brian says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:31

    I was wondering who this wise person on the flights would be…

  • No longer Entitled says:

    30 Aug30 August 09:37

    Presumably once your have burned through all your ineffectual, straight out of university, management consultants you start outsourcing to a Sage. It’s not the last throw of the dice, but when they appoint a Wizard, the writing is on the wall.

  • conspicuous-capybara says:

    30 Aug30 August 10:11

    Who knows, they may turn over a new bay leaf.

  • Rizz says:

    30 Aug30 August 11:41

    😂😂😂

• TGLoyalty says:

  30 Aug30 August 10:44

  Hotel Indigo is probably the best regional chain hotel brand in the U.K. right now

  Coventry opening in Feb 2024 pics look like it’ll be a high standard and parking only £8 a night in the brand new car park in the train station a few mins walk away.

  • AL says:

    30 Aug30 August 12:26

    I actually think IHG should make a pass for Malmaison and bundle them in to Hotel Indigo.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      30 Aug30 August 23:50

      100% but as ihg is asset light would need a partner.

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