Black Friday deals: Avios-earning Finnair flights plus Opodo, Virgin, Uber, Radisson and more

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• Doug M says:

  27 Nov27 November 07:31

  One if my few issues with hotels com is this. They’ll spam you mercilessly. I know you can turn it off, but then you miss real gems. The problem is that 90%+ of their special offers and secret prices are rubbish. Glad it worked for you, but mostly it’s just an incessant stream of dross.

  • Shoestring says:

    27 Nov27 November 07:58

    they’re sending all their emails to an unused email address – but the secret prices were on the ordinary hotels.com search, just needed to log in

  • Rob says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:47

    Agreed. Although, when we reviewed the Atrium at Heathrow, their secret price was lower than booking direct.

  • Anna says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:08

    +1 – I have never, ever, found a hotel where I wanted to stay at “50% off”, despite what feels like near-daily emails promising me this!

  • Dave says:

    28 Nov28 November 01:03

    One issue I had with hotels.com is when they specifically told me my £1700 hotel bill in Whistler would be charged on arrival, when in fact it was processed 45 days prior. Due to various reasons did not have sufficient credit on the card used at that time and because I was in Italy having fun times and ignored my email for a few days, resulted in booking being cancelled and loss of deposit. Thankfully Canadians are a friendly bunch and the people at their end reinstated my booking at no cost apart from some very expensive panicky phone calls. Hotels.com did not help at all and we were very lucky as there was barely any accommodation left with it being peak ski season!

• TripRep says:

  27 Nov27 November 07:32

  Thanks for the hotel offers, keep’em coming, desperately trying to find a “bargain” for Lucerne next summer, pricey place and devoid of Hiltons

• Dave says:

  27 Nov27 November 07:59

  Most of these black friday deals are a total scam, not worth the headline imho

  • Rob says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:42

    That’s why a lot are shoved to the bottom and Finnair is on top.

    • BJ says:

      27 Nov27 November 09:01

      Even Finnair is not particularly exciting, fare are only about £100 cheaper than typical business fares from the region most of the year. Dinnair themselves used to beat these fares regularly but since they hot their a350s their low fares seem to have disappeared.

  • Shoestring says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:43

    depends what your expectations are – if you think you’re going to get some crazy low price that is heavily loss-making for the provider – well, you might, eg my £4 top end 4 litre engine oils down from £50! 🙂 – but mostly you’re more realistically looking to get the lowest *feasible* price the product has ever been in the last year if you want a real bargain

    for physical goods you can check it against camelcamelcamel (Amazon price tracker, ie typically 1 year price monitor) as sooner or later in the year, as at some stage Amazon sells most things, the cheapest or matching cheapest elsewhere

    for hotels & flights, less easy – but you can have benchmarks against BF last year – or against what you know to be a giveaway pricepoint

    • Harry T says:

      27 Nov27 November 08:56

      The iPhone deals look pretty good though! Especially Vodafone contracts for the new ones on Mobiles.co.uk. I just bought an iPhone with 60gb of data a month for the same price over 24 months as just buying the handset.

      • BJ says:

        27 Nov27 November 09:04

        There are no good iPhone deals, never have been and never will be.

        • Shoestring says:

          27 Nov27 November 09:46

          got a free iPhone 6S the other day – my wife’s co replaces them every couple of years & normally you have to pay a nominal sum to get them for personal use – but the IT guy said she’d knackered it so much she could have it for free! then promptly told us which new touchscreen to buy on Amazon & kindly fitted it for her

        • Yorkieflyer says:

          27 Nov27 November 10:28

          Argos outlet sim free recon IPhone 5 has proved a good deal for me

  • Andrew says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:00

    It all depends if you are “clever” about them or not.

    Nobody pays full price for an electric toothbrush or razor at the best of times, likewise only the most desperate pay rack rate for a hotel. Rushing in to buy because it’s a “deal” is hopeless.

    My employer’s Corporate Perks site has a one day 20% fundsreturn across the Microsoft site (drops to 8% once fully utilised). The Asus laptop I’ve just ordered was already keenly priced at £999 as part of the BF deal (alleged £1,499 full price).

    So £999, Funds return of £199.

    £100 off a £400 spend at Microsoft on Amex (as well as £5 off £50 at Esso) this morning.

    Lovely new Laptop, with pretty decent graphics card for £700.

    Not bad.

• The Original David says:

  27 Nov27 November 08:05

  I think the biggest story here is that he allegedy paid £10k for a LHR-MIA J return. I’m not surprised he doesn’t want to be named, how embarrassing!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:15

    Business traveller so imagine he booked last min and not over weekend but still can find fares for half that price on lots of carriers.

    Personally I would have booked the cheapest Sensible connecting flight and negotiated a day Ilo or something as I would feel right costing £5-6k more even if it saved 4 hours in each direction.

• Charlieface says:

  27 Nov27 November 08:05

  And try Hertz Australia

  • roberto says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:49

    The issue I had with doing it through Hertz Oz is that if you have an accident and need to claim you would have stated on the rental form that you live down under. Surely that would invalidate the policy?

    • Sandgrounder says:

      27 Nov27 November 10:16

      You don’t need to state you are resident down under. You can enter your residency on the payment page, after the rental is priced up. Or just sign in if you have a profile. It can be cheaper, but it seems to throw in milage limits sometimes as well. These can be avoided with the right CDP though.

      • Rob says:

        27 Nov27 November 10:44

        No address required to book.

      • Charlieface says:

        27 Nov27 November 14:31

        The payment page has a residency default of Australia even if you’re logged in, but you can change it.
        One time I did it recently the branch manager told me off. He said it was only for Australian residents. I challenged him and he said he’d give it this time but not next. The next time I did it he called me the morning of pickup and said he had no cars and I’d have to go to the airport (extra 30 minutes travel), he claimed the airport branch wouldn’t send him out a car. The manager there obviously denied that and felt sorry for me, so upgraded me from an Intermediate to Volvo V90!

• Spurs Debs says:

  27 Nov27 November 08:08

  I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Hilton’s flash 50% of sale.
  I saved £500 on my suite at Conrad Tokyo.
  Need to book and pay up front by 29/11

  50% Off For 72 Hours Only
  Save across Japan, South Korea, and Guam

  • Gill says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:36

    Thanks for this. Spotted your comments last night and picked up a very reasonably priced stay at Hilton Shinjuku.

  • Rob says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:41

    Coming!

    • BJ says:

      27 Nov27 November 09:06

      The UK and Europe variant? 🙂

  • Sandra says:

    27 Nov27 November 10:36

    Has anyone booked a prepaid rate with Hilton and had the £50 Amex credit ? T & Cs say only hotel checkout spend counts but I know some hotels do put payments through their own checkout system.

    • Jason says:

      27 Nov27 November 11:33

      Yes works fine

      • Sandra says:

        27 Nov27 November 17:15

        Thanks Jason. I will give it a go then.

• Green Plastic says:

  27 Nov27 November 08:20

  OT – have an Amex 241 that’s expiring in Dec and looking to use it in next couple of weeks on Club Europe on a short city break. Will have wife and 1 year old in tow. Any suggestions on a baby-friendly destination (airport close to the city, etc) greatly received! Many thanks in advance

  • Peter K says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:28

    Edinburgh is nice.

  • Anna says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:00

    Obviously your first priority is availability, however IME European airports tend to be fairly far out of city centres. I always pre-book a car transfer nowadays as this makes for a much less stressful experience than using public transport to find your hotel in a strange city – I’ve never felt it wasn’t worth the money. From memory though, I think Geneva, Nice and Barcelona are fairly close to their respective airports.

  • JonL says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:03

    You might want to consider German Christmas markets.

    • Anthony says:

      27 Nov27 November 16:29

      Recommend the one in Florence. Adds another good reason to visit this lovely city in December when the crowds are missing.

  • Green Plastic says:

    27 Nov27 November 09:31

    Thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions

  • Andrew says:

    27 Nov27 November 12:05

    Copenhagen was really fab for us as a family when our children were 3 and under 1. Airport to city is easy on the Metro or train, Christmassy stuff was up and Tivoli was great, too (fun even if you just walk around).

  • Harry T says:

    27 Nov27 November 13:53

    With the disclaimer that I don’t have children, have you thought about Amsterdam? Easy and cheap train ride from the airport into the city centre. Easy to walk around too and plenty of activities, both indoor and outdoor.

  • Scallder says:

    27 Nov27 November 14:44

    We did Amsterdam when our daughter was just over 1 (and can get train in from airport so no need for a car seat etc) and was lovely

    • Genghis says:

      27 Nov27 November 17:22

      +1 for Amsterdam. We went for 4 nights in Sep with our then 6 month old. V easy. Restaurants v accommodating.

      • Harry T says:

        27 Nov27 November 18:54

        @Genghis – any general good tips for Amsterdam? Going for my birthday weekend in January. Staying at Pulitzer through Amex FHR.

        • Genghis says:

          27 Nov27 November 21:57

          Depends what you’re into. Amsterdam is not a cold weather place though. Max for Indonesian food. Water en brood good brunch. Boaty for a boat rental but it’ll be freezing.

        • Genghis says:

          27 Nov27 November 22:07

          The poffertjes from a stall about a third of the way down Albert Cuypmarket from the west.

        • Harry T says:

          27 Nov27 November 22:43

          Thank you.

  • David D says:

    27 Nov27 November 16:50

    Düsseldorf is good. Airport connected to the city centre by train in 10 minutes. Not expensive with good hotels, the Hilton tends to be well priced and just a few stops from the centre on the u-bahn and plenty of things to do for kids. Plus, this time of year you can look around the Christmas Markets as well.

• Shoestring says:

  27 Nov27 November 08:21

  [You can “hold your fare” for £25 and it gives you a couple of days to decide. When doing this you just click the flight, reserve it and you’re done. Allows you to undercut everyone else flailing to put in their passport details etc.]

  • Shoestring says:

    27 Nov27 November 08:28

    [Some tips, you need to be as fast as possible, make sure you are on the site before 10am, spam refreshing, you don’t have time to check dates, just grab the first week or two you see… I went for the fare hold for an extra £25, you probably need to do this if you want a chance at getting the deal as this speeds up the process a lot.]

    • Shoestring says:

      27 Nov27 November 08:29

      [I managed to snag this also via the hold fare. I didn't realise they don't deduct the £25 from the final price - which is annoying. Still a pretty good deal.]

      • Spaghetti Town says:

        27 Nov27 November 09:00

        I booked the £400 deal to New Zealand 2 years ago. Had to pick the only dates I could see but later ended up cancelling within the 24 hour grace period.

      • Shoestring says:

        27 Nov27 November 09:18

        well don’t get carried away this time, anyone! it’s a good price but not spectacular, you can get Virgin return Economy flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco for £250/ £260 at the moment (Skyscanner with code VCLOUD£15 – various dates Jan-May )

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