Dubai: Grosvenor House direct for £350 or OTA for £260, with half board?

[Colin MacKinnon]

Hi,

Looking at Grosvenor House in Dubai at the end of the month. Online travel agency gives price of c£260 a night, half board, cancel free three days in advance.

GH direct gives room only for almost £100 a night more, cancellation up to 24hrs in advance.

Dubai, of course, wants a negative PCR 24 hours in advance, so no time to cancel GH if positive!

Anyone know how responsive GH would be to a polite email asking about such a price difference? Might pay the rack rate if it meant a significant upgrade to a club room? Only Bonvoy Gold through Amex.

Thanks.

[Rob]

Surely you can use some of the price difference to buy some covid insurance?

[TGLoyalty]

Since when does Dubai need a PCR within 24 hours from the U.K. was 48 hrs last time it was updated.

Depending on when you’re going there’s a good chance it’ll be relaxed to 72hrs again. Probably a good chance of further relaxation too.

Tried Contacting the hotel directly to see what they’ll do?

[Colin MacKinnon]

Rob Burgess wrote:

Surely you can use some of the price difference to buy some covid insurance?

Still sorting out insurance claim for last trip – when 11 out of 12 at Xmas lunch went down! I was escaped, but suppose that leaves me vulnerable to infection still!

Now have flight credits from United, Delta and Southwest.

Problem was, I felt confident in early November about Xmas and then Omicron came along.

Now bitten, I am twice shy.

And still uncertain about Amex Plat insurance – today’s job checking that out.

• This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .

[NorthernLass]

Hi Colin, have you asked Emyr to price this up? He might have a decent rate which would you would be able to cancel up to the day before. He booked GH for us once – one of the many cancelled 2021 trips! Did you look at booking via the Marriott website as well, they sometimes have good package rates?

[yorkshireRich]

Hi Colin, having just got back from GH and sitting in the club lounge all evening sipping complimentary cocktails, I bumped into not one but two people who view this website regularly. We were all in agreement, that it was absolutely fantastic.

I did actually book it through BA holidays for the tier points and a few other perks, but I emailed the hotel before arriving, and they were extremely efficient. I would 100% advise you to email them, as I believe the lounge is the real highlight of the hotel here.

I know they do the dine around, but the GH and Le royal Meridien have that many restaurants, that we were only staying just over a week, and couldn’t fit them all in.

Let us all know what they come back with.

Finally, the pcr at the minute is 48 hours before departure, but the good news is that it appears for now that they have stopped testing uk arrivals once at the airport.