New hotels: Hotel Indigo London Clerkenwell, JW Marriott Crete, Luxembourg Marriott

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• Matt says:

  16 Jun16 June 04:47

  JW Marriott Crete can be booked significantly cheaper through Secret Escapes. It’s currently around £1900 for 5 nights in a deluxe room in August.

  You won’t get any points on the room rate, but should get it on additional spend. Status recognition and upgrades are always hit or miss with new hotels, even when booking directly.

  • ginlover says:

    16 Jun16 June 10:20

    Booked for next week using Luxury Escapes with the Amex deal as a Junior Suite was only £2500 Half Board for 5 nights – 70% cheaper than direct! Emailed them asking if they could match or have a more creative solution for booking direct as a Gold member but they couldn’t offer anything! Still looking forward to staying!

    • Ginlover says:

      28 Jun28 June 17:27

      Well our stay was delightful – the resort is absolutely stunning, the food amazing (we ate in all the restaurants) and the staff are very friendly. Being their second week sure there were a few hiccups but all dealt with quickly. Highly recommend and only 30 mins from Chania (15 mins from the airport)

• Nick says:

  16 Jun16 June 05:31

  The Hotel Indigo Clerkenwell is just a little out of way for me, but I have enjoyed pleasant stays at the Leicester Square & Tower Hill Indigo’s, which, with their own ‘quirks’, have been a breath of fresh air from the usual bigger hotels we stay at. I don’t know if it’s the case with Clerkenwell property, but I’ve especially enjoyed having a full English, all of which is freshly cooked to order, at both, which really makes a difference.

  • 1nfrequent says:

    16 Jun16 June 09:47

    The Tower Hill Indigo is a good place to stay. Not a great building from the outside but inside the rooms are a decent size and have some character to them. Staff are excellent as well – very friendly and helpful. The rates are often better than the nearby Curio and even the Doubletree and Novotel that are about 5 minutes walk away.

    • Ruralite says:

      16 Jun16 June 10:55

      My OH tried to Indigo Tower Hill a couple of weeks ago, booking the cheapest room as it was basically a crash for one night whilst meeting old work friends, & as a Plat. Amb. was upgraded on arrival to a premium room on a high floor without asking. Not much of a view but he said the room was comfortable & staff very friendly.

      • Nick says:

        16 Jun16 June 17:04

        Indeed! The front office staff, especially, are exceptionally welcoming and helpful.

• Robert says:

  16 Jun16 June 05:50

  OT does anyone know a good effective route for lodging complaints with BA for failing duty of care? Shambles yesterday in LHR, assistance pax put up in Ibis Budget on Bath Road! Trying for our onward connection today and no one helpful so far at T5 or on the phone, thanks.

  • JDB says:

    16 Jun16 June 06:53

    There’s a standard online route.

    https://www.britishairways.com/travel/feedbackclaims/public/en_gb/select

    BA hasn’t failed in its Article 9 ‘right to care’ obligations until it doesn’t pay a legitimate claim. As with most airlines, even for assistance pax, you usually need to make arrangements yourself and these costs are generally on a pay now, claim later basis so you need to use the above link and attach all the relevant receipts. It’s probably best to keep the narrative extremely brief if you want prompt payment.

    • Robert says:

      16 Jun16 June 07:17

      Thanks JDB, they said it was 7 flights disrupted yesterday, and that’s all it’s taken for complete chaos here at T5, getting zero acknowledgement from BA management, it’s my first time experiencing the complete and utter failure of this airline and it is pretty bad, management has completely gone to the wall by the look of it.

      • MKCol says:

        16 Jun16 June 17:58

        Why would you need acknowledgement from management?

  • SamG says:

    16 Jun16 June 09:02

    Next time make your own arrangements if possible. BA are very reasonable about paying up and vs say EasyJet do not appear to have any issue with you making your own arrangements vs using theirs

    • Craig says:

      16 Jun16 June 09:11

      I agree, in my experience BA have been swift in reimbursement of disruption “costs”.
      For instance: return flight to UK was cancelled last Sunday (8 June), I booked (and paid for) own overnight hotel, BA rebooked on return flight next day (last Monday 9 June).

      Claim made upon getting home (9 June), email received from BA on 11 June confirming “eligible claims” made, and remittance received from BA this morning.

      Perhaps not reflective of everybody’s experience of course, (maybe I have been fortunate with disruption and such claims historically!) but 7-days from submitting a claim to receiving cash is pretty good IMHO.

    • Robert says:

      16 Jun16 June 09:37

      They said up to £200/pax can be claimed, so we’ve don’t that bit, now it’s just seeing about getting the actual refund for the flights for being over 12 hours delayed at final destination. Frustrating end to the holiday, says a lot when the kindest most helpful person was a nice lady at Pret who gave us some freebies!

      • Robert says:

        16 Jun16 June 09:49

        For anyone who done the status match to Royal Jordanian Gold Sparrow, it never allowed me lounge access at T5 this morning. None of the staff I showed it to had heard of it, so more of a red herring!
        Time for me to find a new carrier, think I must be one of the last deserters.

        • Peggerz says:

          16 Jun16 June 11:33

          Re RJ Golden Sparrow, I am surprised at this. I continue to be BA blue, but my RJ status has got me access to lounges at EDI several times, LHR T5 several times, ICN, DOH and VCE amongst others. My first time at EDI my BA ff number was attached to the booking so it took 30 seconds to sort/confirm. Subsequently my RJ ff number has been on bookings and all was well. I suspect this was your issue that they didn’t want or hadn’t time to confirm for you at T5?

        • Lumma says:

          16 Jun16 June 11:47

          Surely you could just show them the membership card in the RJ app which shows the Oneworld Sapphire logo? The apple wallet version doesn’t show this however.

          The only place I had an issue with it was the lounge in Salzburg where the receptionist hadn’t heard of it but still let me in

      • JDB says:

        16 Jun16 June 10:15

        @Robert – the £200 figure is an arbitrary one, not any sort of statutory cap.

        It’s not a refund you are looking for, but rather compensation, if the reason for the delay was within BA’s control. You use the same link as above although in the new system, you should really make the claims together as you may not now be able to make a second claim for the same PNR.

        • Robert says:

          16 Jun16 June 11:38

          Thanks, I’ll try and make another new claim, had no response to my earlier claim, expected with this type of automated system there would be an email acknowledging receipt of it. Miss the good old days of picking up the phone and speaking to a human!
          You’ve done well @Craig to get such a quick return of your costs, I find that works when I’ve needed it before too, on this occasion I would just like to get a refund for the expensive flights/disruption.
          I find it strange that wing all these fancy computer systems they can’t tell when arriving pax are coming and to hold a flight for say 10-15 mins beyond the current 40 minute maximum connection time. I’m sure at LCY I’ve done shorter connections, obviously smaller terminal though.

        • Robert says:

          16 Jun16 June 11:40

          *meant to say compensation, keep saying refund, will be sure to ask for compensation in my claim thanks.

  • Lumma says:

    16 Jun16 June 11:54

    What’s the problem with an Ibis Budget? They tend to be in better condition than the regular Ibis hotels in my experience

    • Robert says:

      16 Jun16 June 13:21

      Ibis Budget in itself wasn’t the problem, it was getting the assistance pax to and from it, after the inbound flight CSD told me he’d messaged flight connections and told they would be put in the Sofitel. Standing in queues for shuttle buses that didn’t show up, no seats etc. Just seemed like a poorly ran operation.
      Regarding the RJ gold sparrow I was showing them the card with the logo and they all just appeared baffled saying no we don’t accept it here, that was a ‘Customer Experience Lead’ member of staff. Guess I’ve just been unlucky that it didn’t work for me today and glad to hear it does generally work for others. Normally I would try and regain status but after all the talk of how challenging that’s become I think I’ll find another airline to use.

• Craig says:

  16 Jun16 June 06:11

  Luxembourg Marriott Hotel Alfa is the first *Marriott* in Luxembourg, but it is not the only Marriott property in Luxembourg per say.

  There’s a Moxy at Luxembourg Airport.

  The Alfa though looks great, really well located and it sounds like it has plenty of character, I’m looking forward to the launch review.

  • Pat says:

    16 Jun16 June 10:04

    DoubleTree is of course, a usual Hilton dump

  • Grammarly says:

    17 Jun17 June 18:54

    *per se

• JohnM says:

  16 Jun16 June 07:54

  Luxembourg is an often overlooked destination for a few days city break – nice place to wander around, good restaurants and free public transport. Easy to get to from LCY with Luxair too.

• Mike says:

  16 Jun16 June 11:50

  The JW Marriott Resort & Spa looks to be in the middle of nowhere. Marathi is 27 minutes drive from Chania, so not “near”. Chania is beautiful but the peninsula that this hotel is on is very unexciting and does not represent Crete, which is a beautiful island. We have visited Crete some 35 times, mostly in Elounda or Agios Nicholas, in each case in Five Star Deluxe Hotel’s with Spas and within walking distance of one or other town centre. The best tourist sites of Knossos, Lassathi and Spinalonga are easily accessible from these two towns.

• MF176 says:

  16 Jun16 June 14:18

  Talking of new Marriott’s, I noticed that Billesley Manor near Stratford upon Avon is now live as a Tribute Portfolio. Haven’t seen it mentioned in these pages previously, apologies if it has.

  • Rob says:

    16 Jun16 June 14:30

    As it happens, Katie was down there reviewing it last week (unlikely to be published this week though) AND we will offering a stay in the raffle at the HfP party on Thursday!

• reverendmark says:

  16 Jun16 June 14:23

  I’ve stayed in a couple of Indigos (Lower East Side, Bath) and they’ve been pretty decent. Atlanta midtown… didn’t fit the brand at all IMHO and I won’t be repeating that experience.

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