Introducing ‘The NinetyThird by Qatar Airways’ private club at The O2 – accessible with Avios

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• Tariq says:

  25 Jan25 January 05:01

  Presumably if you pay £18k (or win the QR bid), you get an arena seat equivalent to the ones outside the other Encore suites?

  • Rob says:

    25 Jan25 January 06:59

    Yes

• zapato1060 says:

  25 Jan25 January 06:26

  Retracts before the start of the show? I would have thought the niche of it was to get a closer look at performers? so essentially its a pre-show audience viewer?

  • Andy says:

    25 Jan25 January 07:17

    Does seem a bit pointless!

  • N says:

    25 Jan25 January 07:20

    Much like the Hilton bed, it’s so you can make content for your socials, and not much more.

    • Tariq says:

      25 Jan25 January 08:07

      With a background of a half empty audience and nobody on stage, even more pointless than the bed TBH!

• BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

  25 Jan25 January 07:16

  As mentioned in the article when extended it restricts the view from other seats

  • Meike Hokkenbaals says:

    25 Jan25 January 08:22

    That’s what she said! 😂

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    25 Jan25 January 11:15

    Well then it wasn’t a very good idea was it!

    • Rob says:

      25 Jan25 January 12:04

      It’s clearly a very good idea as all the photos you will see of it prove!

• Can2 says:

  25 Jan25 January 07:16

  No Rob, some of us are very interested in monster wheels because we have 5-6 year old boys who play monster wheels at home every day!
  I’ll bid now

  • Can2 says:

    25 Jan25 January 07:17

    * monster trucks, of course. Too early to even think about these 🙂

  • zapato1060 says:

    25 Jan25 January 08:26

    Was about to purchase a few tickets for family of young kids with a Groupon special and did not in the end as many negative reviews. Many “waste of money” and only worth it for ‘halftime motorbikes show’.

    • Can2 says:

      25 Jan25 January 09:38

      my 5.5yo would still love it. But I won’t bid too high as I cannot even stomach the idea honestly.

• Malcolm says:

  25 Jan25 January 07:35

  I’m grouchy this morning. Feels like more and more places are offering various tiers of VIP and VVIP stuff and just allows them to charge more for, what ultimately is a mediocre product. This just feels like one of those things. Quick photo on “insta” – look at me, look at me… etc. A fool and their money are easily parted.

  Having said that, Monster Trucks sounds great so I’m off to bid!

  • The real Swiss Tony says:

    25 Jan25 January 09:55

    I think you’re bang on the money, but when demand outstrips supply and a certain small cohort/demographic are left with massive cash surpluses for a number of reasons, it would surely be foolish not to try and come up with mechanics to tap into the available funds.

    My gut feeling is that inter-generational wealth transfer will ensure there’s quite a long tail on this, too.

    • Rob says:

      25 Jan25 January 10:29

      The truth is that many things are too cheap given the number of people in the UK with vast amounts of disposable income.

      I have a little game I sometimes play where I try to find categories where there is a gap for a premium / designer version, for eg toothpaste. Many companies sell £25 bottles of shower gel but the luxury toothpaste market seems underserved.

      Arguably HfP is part of this – and a blog like HfPs mate Tom Cahalan’s (https://dorsiatravel.com/blog/) sits well above us. The travel agency run by his wife won’t touch anything under $2,500 per night and I know it is astoundingly profitable, unsurpringly given that a $100k booking would generate $10k commission and can be processed very quickly.

      • ken says:

        25 Jan25 January 10:50

        Never underestimate the stupidity of people with too much money to spend…

        However, people don’t tend to but own brand toothpaste either & for a long time even ALDI just sold a major branded one.

        People will buy branded painkillers at at least 5 times the price of generics – perhaps because they are a distress purchase or people want exactly what they have used before

        • Chrisasaurus says:

          25 Jan25 January 11:18

          There’s science behind the painkillers.
          While analgesics are of course chemical, the impact on how we judge or quantify discomfort is partly psychological and there’s an element of placebo effect involved.

          In blind tests, branded Neurofen was shown to be more effective then generic Ibuprofen despite both actually being generic inside the packaging.

        • Rob says:

          25 Jan25 January 12:14

          Why is it stupidity? What else are you meant to do with the money? It’s actually market failure when you don’t provide products that people would happily buy.

          On your logic, dropping dead with a pile of money in the bank is smart, which it clearly isn’t.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          25 Jan25 January 13:51

          “On your logic, dropping dead with a pile of money in the bank is smart, which it clearly isn’t.”

          That logic only goes so far. If you could demonstrate some genuine benefit to the £25 toothpaste (and yes that could be either health benefit (exceptionally unlikely) or user-experience product enjoyment ( I accept more likely – at least for those into luxury branding)) then fair enough. If there isn’t a benefit then it’s considerably more stupid buying it than dropping dead with money in the bank – at least with the 2nd option you can will it to do something useful or your heirs can benefit. In that case the purchase of the expensive branded goods is no more sensible than setting fire to you cash in a wheelbarrow in the garden, just so you don’t drop dead with it.

          Conversely there’s a group for whom, even though they have plenty of money and could easily afford the product they don’t get it because the knowledge that someone else is absolutely rinsing them for a sucker by making them pay massively over the odds will detract from the experience and make it LESS enjoyable than the standard version even though the packaging/branding/experience around it may be more luxurious. (similarly: even though £6 is trivial and I like Kitkats, I don’t eat £6 Kitkats from hotel minibars for exactly that reason.). Let’s call that the value-based Warren Buffet world view.

          We all probably flip-flop between those categories based on product and circumstances and our individual preferences and perceptions.

        • Rob says:

          25 Jan25 January 14:16

          You were almost certainly disproportionately overpaid when you made the money, so disproportionately overpaying when spending it just rinses it through 🙂

        • Also says:

          25 Jan25 January 14:28

          “What else are you meant to do with the money?”

          Something philanthropic would be nice *shrug*

      • Malcolm says:

        25 Jan25 January 12:36

        Glad I started a bit of chat. Fascinating about that travel agent. There is some incredible wealth out there.

        And you are all right about plugging gaps in the market – if someone is willing to part with their cash why not. I’ve a mate who would pay extra if you simply slapped “VIP” on the front of anything. Rope off an area of the local bar and charge extra for the privilege of sitting there and he’s in.

        My other point I suppose with all this VIP stuff is does it push prices up for all? We’ve seen the price of events sky rocket recently, with various different packages pushing the prices up higher so ultimately the “man on the street” can no longer afford it.

        Offering more VIP lowers the overall value – e.g. increasing lounge access at airports has debased the product.

        So you now get VVIP lounges and these become more expensive etc etc.

        Ramblings over.

      • Tariq says:

        25 Jan25 January 13:14

        The $10k doesn’t pay for the transactional costs though, it pays for the acquisition cost of the high value customer and the costs of accumulating the experience and expertise required to handle that type of booking/customer.

        • Rob says:

          25 Jan25 January 13:20

          They don’t have any acquisition costs except for the Tom’s blog on his own personal travel, which is often the only Google review on many of these private island resorts!

          His wife used to work at the Connaught so being nice to these people is 2nd nature to her – possible less so for Tom but I assume he’s kept locked away somewhere 🙂

      • HampshireHog says:

        25 Jan25 January 14:55

        Oh dear Rob and I thought you were a paid up Yorkshire man?

• Aston100 says:

  25 Jan25 January 07:37

  Hey don’t knock monster trucks!
  I went to the Ben 10 version of that a few years ago and was impressed by the acrobatics.

• Michael C says:

  25 Jan25 January 07:56

  And when the next big artist becomes the 93rd to have played 5 nights…?!

  • Erico1875 says:

    25 Jan25 January 08:03

    Kevin Bridges regularly sells out 2O+ nights at the Hydro in Glasgow.
    I can’t think of any other worldwide artist who could do this

    • Nick says:

      25 Jan25 January 08:36

      Taylor Swift?

    • ianM says:

      25 Jan25 January 08:51

      Fleetwood Mac
      Pink Floyd
      Bruce Springsteen….the list goes on.

      Who’s Kevin Bridges btw?

      • zapato1060 says:

        25 Jan25 January 11:00

        A bridge in Ireland.

  • LittleNick says:

    25 Jan25 January 08:32

    Well the Killers are playing at the o2 in July, and they’re playing for 5 nights I think, whether they have done that before I don’t know

• Meike Hokkenbaals says:

  25 Jan25 January 08:26

  I’m imagining a ton of exhaust fumes in the arena from those Monster Munch Trucks. It’s a no from me!

  • A says:

    25 Jan25 January 15:11

    No worse than peoples farts from a packed floor GA concert

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