Chat thread – Thursday 17th July

[Rob]

This is today’s chat thread.

If you have specific questions about Avios, hotels or credit cards, please ask them in the appropriate forum and not here. This thread is a good place to post interesting deals you have spotted or your general thoughts on travel and all things miles and points. Thank you for contributing.

[Gordon]

Up early, as I’m the Uber driver taking my daughter and her friends to STN for an early flight, other news, SEN partially opened, four U2 flights landed yesterday and it’s scheduled to be fully open today.

[binotsen]

Good Morning from The Apurva Kempinski, Nusa Dua, Bali.
We arrived here yesterday and are staying for 5 nights in a 2 bedroom Sriwijaya villa.
Similar to our last hotel (Tanah Gajah near Ubud), we booked through Luxury Escapes and the rate was equivalent to Expedia or direct booking but includes 4 massages and either lunch or dinner at a choice of 4 restaurants, albeit on a limited menu. The hotel is absolutely massive and takes between 7-8 mins to walk from reception to the beach at the very far end of the hotel.
We were initially given a villa right next to the construction ongoing on vacant land next to the hotel but after a polite complaint at the check-in desk, we were moved to the other side of the hotel where there is no audible noise. Dinner last night was excellent in terms of quality of food but slow in terms of service.
The one surprising thing about Bali is that it isn’t anything like as warm as I expected it would be, in particular the swimming pools do feel chilly when first entering.
There isn’t much to do locally so we have booked a day tour to Uluwatu for tomorrow via Bali holiday secrets which I learnt about on this forum. So far we have also used them for transfer between hotels and the driver they arranged was excellent.