Viva Las Vegas

"Upto" 40% off hotels at Expedia

• Book by 16th May.

• Stay until 25th December (some exceptions)

• Blackout periods may apply and a minimum hotel stay may be required

Hotel Jungle Tips

• Combine the trip to Vegas with a visit to the Grand Canyon
• The Vegas convention schedule has a major effect on hotel prices and availability.
• Expedia offers flight+hotel deals or check Virgin Atlantic
  

Location of Hilton Sa Torre Mallorca

Map showing location of Llucmajor on Mallorca where Hilton have a new 90 room hotel called the Hilton Sa Torre Mallorca. The hotel will open in June 2008.


View Larger Map

Hilton Sa Torre Mallorca Official Page
Hilton Sa Torre Mallorca Review

Cashback when you book hotels

Would you like cashback with your hotel, Madam ?

Selection of current offers
6% cashback at Hotelopia
6% cashback at Ramada Jarvis
3% cashback at Best Western
2.5% cashback at Hilton
2% cashback at Marriot
2% cashback at Travelodge
£5 cashback at hotels.com


How it works

Some hotel companies offer rewards to websites for referring people to them. Cashback sites like Rpoints share this with their users

What's the catch

Well you don't pay anymore for the bookings, but you do have to wait a couple of months for the cashback to be available to you, and you do have to reach a minimum cashback balance before you can redeem your points.

E111 - European Health Insurance Card

The European Health Insurance Card has replaced Form E111

If you are a UK resident, you are entitled to medical treatment that becomes necessary when temporarily visiting any European Union (EU) country, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland. Only treatment provided under the state scheme is covered, and will be at a reduced cost or sometimes free. To obtain treatment you will need to take a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) with you.

The EHIC has replaced the E111 form, which is now invalid. The new card is free. Application details, and full coverage details are available from:

http://www.ehic.org.uk

The EHIC and holiday insurance are complementary and you should consider having both. Some insurance companies require you to have an EHIC and some companies will waive the excess charge if an EHIC has been used.

Top Ten Hotel Websites

The Top Ten most visited websites for 2007 in the accommodation / destinations category have been released :

1 www.laterooms.co.uk
2 www.travelodge.co.uk
3 www.tripadvisor.co.uk
4 www.ichotelsgroup.com
5 www.activehotels.com
6 www.superbreak.com
7 www.information-britain.co.uk
8 www.premierinn.com
9 www.hotels.co.uk
10 www.hotelclub.com

£1 room in London

Hoxton Hotel in Shoreditch, London has done a great job of "doing a Ryanair" and getting plenty of free publicity in exchange for its £1 room sales.

The next sale is the 11th April at 12pm ( UK Time).
They will have 1,000 bedrooms up for grabs on their own website: 500 at £1 and 500 at £29, for dates between the 1st May – 31st July 2008.

Warning : During the last sale in January, they sold all 1,000 rooms within 29 minutes and had over 300,000 people trying to book so you'll need to be quick.

Hotel Jungle Tips:
Use their html page not the flash page

Do a dummy booking first to check if they have a room and so you are familiar with the booking process

Make sure you have a few back-up dates and you know exactly when you can and can't visit the big smoke.

Here is the Hoxton Hotel guide to their £1 sale

Good Luck - Remember, it's a Jungle out there.

What annoys you most about hotel websites

Following on from this article about annoying airline websites,
we would like to know what our readers find annoying about hotel websites or more generally the hotel booking experience. Please jump in and use the comments form at the bottom of this post to leave your thoughts.

Video below for a bit of inspiration!

Here's a few comments to get us started. We will add your comments as they come in.

• You look for more information on a hotel by going to various other websites but find they all offer the same 2 generic small, generic photos.

• You look on a hotel review site but all you can find is one over enthusiastic review which must be from the owner and one from a Peruvian shepherd complaining that the hotel didn't have the Peru V Chile match on in the bar.

• You do a hotel price comparison search for a specific hotel and find all the prices are suspiciously similar.

• Hotel websites offering prices on large banners but you can't find them when you click the links.

• Lack of information about suitability of hotel for elderly / infirm.

• pop-up boxes

• "Over choice" of room types without adequate explanation of difference

• Having to register as a "member" just to do a booking
  

Review : Radisson SAS Oslo Plaza

Overview of Radisson SAS Oslo Plaza

Having stayed at quite a few Radisson SAS hotels I had high expectations and this one came a little under with the minor disappointment of the cot we had asked for not being in the room when we arrived late with a tired baby. The hotel overall (superb) is better than the room itself (good).

Room

Lovely bed, it was a twin bed not a double which disappointed my partner somewhat.
We were on the sixth floor of 34 and that seemed pretty high.
No flat screen TV but a normal one which is about the only thing "lacking" compared to other highly rated hotels. The other thing to note was that is one of these highly air conditioned rooms, can't remember if the window could open or not.
We had a no smoking room and that was lucky as we hadn't considered that or requested it so I would recommend you do that if you book.

General hotel amenities

Lifts were fast and never queues which can sometimes be a problem in these tall hotels. Good hotel for business thanks to the free wireless broadband.
Sauna is rather special - 34th floor with a window out to nice views to the bay / fjord.
There is also a long, slim pool adequate for doing a few lengths and 4 exercise machines.
One tip would be to seek out the glass elevator on the side of the hotel and go up to or down from the top floor, great views and a bit of a thrill going all that way.
The lobby / lounge is very nice, very comfortable furniture.
Check in / Check out was fast and easy but one disappointment was that the requested baby cot was not in the room so I had to dial down for them to bring it up. The front desk staff were kind enough to sort out the heating of some baby milk though so overall they were OK.

Food & Beverages

The scores I have given are only for the breakfast as we didn't have lunch or dinner here.
Massive choice including lots of organic produce.
A Norwegian speciality is the brown goats cheese. The mackerel was also nice!
I love breakfast buffets and they are especially useful in Oslo as it's not cheap so you can really fill up at Breakfast time

Location and surroundings

Could hardly be better for connection from airport bus or train. Very close to both.
Short walk to main shopping areas and port but not the nicest situation as a bit of a concrete jungle.
Noise was not a problem with it being such a tall hotel.

Funny hotel signs

Bit of fun from Expedia below....
It's their collection of humorous English translated hotel signs found across the World.
Love the lounge music.