MIM

Having 'earned' all these PC points, I guess I ought to think about spending some of them and taking Mrs MIM away for a weekend.

I obviously want to get the best value so I guess I'll be looking for HIs.

The problem I have is that, being a multi-national brand, these hotels can hardly be described as having character - they are designed to keep business people dry and fed, during the tedious hours away from their families. In addition, in my experience, their locations are often designed more for links to the motorway, than for being close to anywhere you'd want to stay on your own time.

As an illustration, we went away a couple of weekends ago, and stayed in a fantastic pub just south of the Lake District. However, this was the first pub I'd found on the interweb that I'd managed to get a vacancy at, having called 5 or six others previously. In my desperation, I'd suggested the HI in Carlisle (apparently a nice enough historic city, and handy for the Lakes). But my ability to 'sell' this idea to the wife was curtailed by one look at the drab images on the website, and the fact that it appeared to be on an industrial estate miles out of town.

Fellow forumistas, I throw down a challenge...

Name the HI (or any other IC) property in the UK which offers the best balance of non-anonymous surroundings/decor, and proximity to somewhere you would want to be for a weekend - i.e. where would you go if you were spending your own money, not your firm's?

tristan727

Maybe it's down to opinion...I personally wouldn't dream of taking the missus for a weekend break to a UK HI, unless specifically had to be in a town they were located in. Best value therefore in my opinion is;

a) sign upto Ambassador for £55, believe you can get a 3k BA mile bonus for this, details of which are in a thread somewhere below.

b) Book a 3 night stay at the IC London as such;
Friday night- Pay for it
Saturday - Weekend voucher supplied with Ambassador
Sunday night - use 30k points.for redemption night.

If Saturday night is cheaper by cash than Friday, then use the points for friday, pay Saturday & voucher for Sunday.

If you managed to do all this by March 25th I think - you could well get back about 15k in points too with the bonuses, as the Saturday night should count as a stay, even though free.

So...at the end of it all you would have had a 3 night stay at the IC in an upgraded Superior or Deluxe Room worth approx £600, (based on pre-pay rates & VAT) with free welcome gifts & a free pay movie every night if you wanted, for say £150 + 15k(net) points, and in terms of potential RA status, you would have earned quite a few tier or status points towards it.

Oh, and 225 BA miles for paying for the room with a BA Amex Prem Plus - that's the one thing I hate about redemption flights/hotels - you don't earn anything!

Anthony27

tristan727 can you provide a link to this offer, i can't find the post.

Thanks,

Anthony

tristan727

www.priorityclub.com/ba gives you 1500 bonus miles for your first stay actually, no idea what code is, if there is one currently for ambassador sign-up - possibly not. But these give you 3000 airmiles anyways;

3,000 SkyMiles (exp. 12/31/05)
http://www.priorityclub.com/delta

or

3,000 Mileage Plus miles (exp. 12/31/05)
http://www.priorityclub.com/united

MIM

So there are no HI's with any redeeming features...?

For what it's worth, I'd be inclined to go with tristan727's itinerary, but given the number of ICs in the UK (and the fact that we'll have a baby in tow, so don't want to be flying too far for a while) the choice isn't exactly great.

Raffles

The Holiday Inn Mayfair gets, amazingly, five stars on tripadvisor.com from almost everyone who has stayed at it.

Now, this hotel is on the block and may not be a HI for much longer, but may be worth a visit. It is opposite the Ritz, so bring a jacket and tie and you can top in for a drink (Sunday lunch is also excellent value for money, but not very baby friendly).

The Royal Academy is 2 minutes down the road, it is possibly a whole 60 seconds from the hotel to Green Park (the park, not the tube - although that is also 60 seconds away) and the theatres are walkable.

PS. The Ambassador / BA promo expired on 31 December.

tristan727

Have you actually stayed their though RJB? I popped in once for a drink to escape from Mrs.Tristan727's shopping spree & the bar reminded me of a Wetherspoon with the matching clientele & barstaff, but a normal UK Holiday Inn pub in terms of bland decor & exorbitant prices. I was quite pleased to leave in the end.

Even if the rest of the hotel is great, why would anyone redeem 25k for an HI, when an actual 5-star IC is around the corner for just 5k more?

tristan727

Leave aside 25k redemption ones, in areas like London & I believe now Edinburgh - there aren't many which don't conform to the standard, dated feel of those I've frequented for work, or in transit from airports - however just been looking now, try the Farnborough one, looks a bit difft & they are offering Executive & Deluxe rooms for the 15k.

Raffles

There is still the InterCon in Edinburgh, as well, if you want, although the reviews on tripadvisor are not good ('worn out' is the much-used phrase). The IC London reviews are generally positive.

How about a Crowne Plaza somewhere? The central Manchester one was dreadful but that has gone. Marlow (very good reviews) and Cambridge (mixed) jump out from the list as being pleasant places to visit.

MIM

Good call from RJB to use tripadvisor.

Glad I didn't opt for the HI Carlisle!

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR...a_England.html

tristan727

And yet they rate it #10 out of 19 hotels in Carlisle!

LondonTravel

HI Farnborough is disgusting also... Seems that Trip Advisor agrees with me.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserR...e_England.html


But nothing could ever be as bad as the Hilton Leeds Garforth.

tristan727

& yet they gave me, for a single standard-room rate, a generously-sized, open-plan suite when I was there as a lowly Ambassador - all the welcome goodies too, nice bar as well. No need for restaurant, being right in the middle of Edinburgh. In fact the restaurant we went out to, there was a software company-do going on as well, and they paid for our meal to compensate for the noise, saved £80.

MIM

Looking at the HI reviews on Tripadvisor, it does make you wonder why we bother with PC….

Couldn’t be any thing to do with the points, could it?

Anyway, my main priority is to use my Ambassador free-night voucher before it runs out in October. I’ve been trying to strike a balance between somewhere cheap to get to, but also not stupid money for the paid-for night. Not proving to be an easy task e.g. IC Malta £69 per night, but expensive flights, IC Cologne cheap flights with Hapag-Lloyd but £300 per night….

I think I’ll probably go for the IC London – we normally stay with my mum when we’re down, so it’ll be nice to do the tourist thing.

On a slightly tangential subject, what is the standard practise for hotels in terms of providing cots for babies? (Fatherhood is about to crash and I’m finding myself asking loads of daft questions). Obviously I don’t want to pay out for an extra bed, but will hotels generally have cots which they can put into the room, or will we need to cart a travel cot with us?

saint_em

Apologies for bumping such an old thread, but the title question is exactly the same as my query!

Looking to use the 2 for 1 deal to stay somewhere over New Year. Ideally we'd like somewhere roughly between Exeter and Stoke-on-Trent, but that is quite a flexible area. The HI Bromsgrove and HI Solihull are coming up as pretty cheap, any comments on either of those? A little further afield the HI Swindon and HI Aylesbury are even cheaper, and the one in the middle of Leicester isn't too bad either. They aren't exactly on the way home, but it's not too far out of the way.

Any thoughts much appreciated (posted on UK branch too).