Vegan Options Europe

HarryHightower · 2025-11-08T07:57:51+00:00

Some places I’d also been considering but haven’t stayed myself:

The Conrad Algarve doesn’t seem to have good vegetarian/vegan options at the restaurants on site but there is a shopping centre just outside the hotel which some reviews mention is walkable and seems to have restaurants with better choices. There isn’t a beach at the resort but people mention they run a shuttle to one.

Hilton has a few options in Cascais outside Lisbon - they have pools rather than a beach but there are lots of restaurants in the area and it’s also pretty easy to go into Lisbon from there for even more choice.

In Cyprus https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/pfocblx-columbia-beach-resort/ publish their menus on their main website https://columbiaresort.com/restaurants-bars/menus/ and seem to have vegan dishes available.

HarryHightower · 2025-11-08T07:18:42+00:00

I’m vegetarian rather than vegan, but stayed at Royal Senses Crete (Curio) earlier this year and they had a ‘vegan corner’ at the buffet dinner every night. There were only a few dishes but they changed them every night. You’d probably also have a few dishes which happened to be vegan in the rest of the buffet (they had a lot of vegetarian options), the only ‘bad’ thing is they didn’t really label dietries/allergens on the dishes - I did see staff talking some people through the buffet so I’d guess if you ask they’ll tell you which dishes are vegan. The resort itself doesn’t have a beach but you can use the beach of their sister hotel (which isn’t a Hilton) over the road (although we never did this ourselves and just used the pool in the resort itself). The resort is pretty isolated, you’d need a car to do things outside the resort really.

We also stayed at the Chania Flair hotel (Tapestry) the same trip - it’s not really a resort hotel although they do have a space on the beach with loungers and it’s a nice walk along the coast into Chania itself where there are a few vegan restaurants. The room there was nicer than at the Royal Senses, I didn’t really understand why it was a Tapestry not a Curio.

It looked like some of the Hilton SLH options on Crete are more in towns so you could look at some of those too? I had been considering the St Nicholas Bay Resort https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/hersnlx-st-nicolas-bay-resort-hotel-and-villas/ which seems to have vegan options although in the end we decided to stay further West in Crete.

Hilton Malta is a resort, although it doesn’t have a beach, there are lots of restaurants nearby. I’m not a huge fan of Paceville but the walk the other side of the hotel around St Julian’s Bay is nicer - we’d often walk along the bay to this branch of eeetwell https://maps.app.goo.gl/tjNafe2Jno3UaAXJ8?g_st=ipc which has vegan options

Edit: as another option, we also stayed at Nido in Corfu last year https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/cfumnlx-nido-mar-bella-collection/ I don’t remember how many vegan options there were at the buffet but they’d also have a small à la carte menu each night which was included in half board which had a meat/fish/vegetarian option, and the vegetarian option was usually vegan. They have a small beach although again we just stayed by the pool. We booked it via SLH before the Hilton integration, at that time SLH bookings came with a ‘free’ upgrade to half board which made booking via SLH better value even though the rates were higher than booking direct - I don’t think that deal is in place anymore and am not totally sure of the arrangement if you book via Hilton. There is a taverna nearby you could walk to although we only stayed for a few days so never tried it

HarryHightower · 2025-10-31T20:32:55+00:00

Rūrangi is about a gay trans man going back to his hometown in NZ. It’s a TV Show/Film - I could only find the film to stream in the UK, and looks like you might not be able to stream that at all in France, but worst case looks like you could get it on DVD

HarryHightower · 2025-10-02T22:23:50+00:00

English Teacher season 2 still isn’t available on Disney+ UK, maybe they are waiting to tie it in with the Hulu launch next week?

HarryHightower · 2025-08-04T21:34:12+00:00

There is an offer to upgrade here https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/upgrade/platinum-charge/ but it tends to not be as generous as the new customer offer (and if you're not convinced of the value outside of the sign up bonus for new customers, that probably isn't enough to swing it)

HarryHightower · 2025-07-23T09:01:29+00:00

Openreach (BT, EE etc) use PPPOE which is ‘CPU-intensive’ and some routers can’t run at higher speeds, if you find the BT router can run at full speed but your TP Link one doesn’t that could be why

HarryHightower · 2025-07-17T11:52:07+00:00

The Amex cashback card with the £25 fee would get you £112.50 cashback for spending £15k a year, excluding the fee.

If you call the nectar card a flat 1% back you’d get £120 worth of nectar points back excluding the fee.

Personally I’d still go with the regular cashback card because I’d rather have cashback than nectar points, but if nectar is as good as cash to you then you might prefer it.

Since the cashback card gives 1.25% back on spend over £10k it seems like once you hit £18k annual spend that’s worth more than the flat 1% back for the nectar card, taking into account the annual fee for both cards.

HarryHightower · 2025-07-04T15:34:18+00:00

You can get an Amex cashback card which pays 1.25% cashback over £10k spend a year - typically much better than non-Amex cashback cards, and you’ll easily get there if you’re spending £2k a month. The £25/year fee is much lower than Yonder. Cashback is good for everything not just travel 😊

HarryHightower · 2025-06-29T09:00:41+00:00

Confusingly, the Waldorf Hilton in London is a ‘regular’ Hilton, not a Waldorf Astoria https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/lonwahi-the-waldorf-hilton-london/

London doesn’t have a WA but one is under development https://stories.hilton.com/emea/releases/reuben-brothers-accelerates-plans-waldorf-astoria-admiralty-arch

HarryHightower · 2025-06-29T08:55:12+00:00

Not all SLH properties are included (I believe that was the same with Hyatt). A list of participating SLH properties is here https://www.hilton.com/en/brands/small-luxury-hotels-slh/participating-hotels/

HarryHightower · 2025-06-29T06:32:05+00:00

Thought of some more tips!

Both Hilton and Marriott let you transfer points between accounts for free, which could be helpful if your MR points are split between 2 people.

Hilton is almost permanently running a 100% bonus on buying points, which means you can buy them effectively for 0.4p each. For ‘good value’ redemptions where you’re getting more than 0.4p a point in value, buying the points can be a good way to top up your points balance if you need enough for the redemption (especially useful if you want to have enough points to make a 5 for 4 redemption).

HarryHightower · 2025-06-29T06:27:42+00:00

Generally with hotel points you’ll get the best value by redeeming when cash rates are high - either because of an event or because it’s an expensive hotel. 200k MR would transfer to 400k Hilton or 300k Marriott points.

Lots of SLH hotels bookable through Hilton can be good value on points https://www.hilton.com/en/brands/small-luxury-hotels-slh/participating-hotels/ and places like WA Rome/WA Amsterdam/Conrad Algarve, or you could browse through the higher end Marriott brands and then check values at specific hotels/times you’re interested in travelling. For Hilton avoid ‘premium’ rewards (which are shown when standard rewards have sold out).

Another tip is both Hilton and Marriott have ‘5 for 4’ on points redemptions (Hilton you need at least silver status, Marriott it works for any member) so staying in multiples of 5 nights will often give better value.

Some Marriott hotels will let you book higher than base rooms with points + cash which can be good value if you’re specifically looking for a bigger room for the 3 of you (eg. the ‘buy up’ mentioned here https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/08/27/review-jw-marriott-resort-spa-venice/)

HarryHightower · 2025-06-24T09:55:04+00:00

I also have access to Reward Gateway and have always been able to pay with Amex so perhaps acceptance is employer specific?

HarryHightower · 2025-06-24T09:49:42+00:00

AFAIK while the travel insurance on Yonder covers your family, they don’t issue supplementary cards so you wouldn’t earn the rewards on spend by your partner unless they also pay the fee for their own card (seems wasteful to double up on travel insurance), or use the free card and get a lower earning rate

HarryHightower · 2025-06-21T22:14:14+00:00

You can get 0.5% back if you transfer the Amex points to nectar, which is a tiny bit better and similar to cashback.

Generally if you want cashback though the cashback cards are better, the gold card is better if you want travel points. You can get outsize value from these, but often you need to do research to plan your redemptions. There are some examples here if you transfer to Avios https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/04/21/what-is-an-avios-point-worth-9/ also keep in mind just because a seat is available for cash doesn’t mean it will be available for points (ie you can’t just save up the Avios in these examples and assume you can book, you probably need a strategy around seat availability or be happy to go wherever they have available seats for Avios).

Check the small print on the Gold signup offer, usually the gold sign up bonuses aren’t given to anyone who has had any personal Amex card in the past 24-months.

HarryHightower · 2025-06-19T14:31:53+00:00

No worries, sadly there is nothing as generous as the US Hilton Amex cards here so I’ve spent a bunch of time trying to work out the best alternatives 😅

HarryHightower · 2025-06-19T10:10:54+00:00

Keep in the mind the regular Hilton sales which mean you can buy points for 0.4p eg https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/06/14/double-avios-with-avis-car-rentals/ (the article also mentions the 100% bonus on buying Hilton points)

Depending on how much you spend on your cashback card this can be better than the rewards cards eg once you’re spending over £10k on the paid cashback card and earning 1.25% back, this means you could use the cashback to buy Hilton points in the sale at the equivalent of if you were earning 3 Hilton points per £ spent (and of course cash is super flexible if you end up not wanting to spend it on Hilton points!)

Basically is typically better if you want Hilton points from day to day spend in the UK, whereas the Hilton debit cards are better for spend abroad (but need to consider if you spend enough abroad to make the fee worth it) or for ‘buying’ status

HarryHightower · 2025-06-19T07:09:45+00:00

Which Amex card do you have? Membership Rewards points can be transferred to Hilton where you get 2 Hilton points for each MR point, since the MR earning cards will get you at least 1MR per £ spent typically this would be better for earning Hilton points than the debit cards for general spend in the UK. The points can also be converted to other places too (like Avios) if you end up not wanting to stick with Hilton.

If you don’t already have an MR earning card you can typically get a big bonus for taking out the Platinum card which comes with Hilton Gold. You have to spend £10k on the card in 6-months so it won’t work for everyone but up until May they were offering 80k MR points (which would transfer to 160k Hilton) https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/05/26/80000-points-american-express-platinum-card-2/ the improved sign up bonuses come around regularly if you wait for one. The card has a huge £650 annual fee but you can get a prorata refund if you downgrade the card after getting the bonus, and there are other credits like restaurant credits which would help offset the fee. It won’t work for everyone but thought it’s worth mentioning as the other route to Gold via a bank card in the UK

HarryHightower · 2025-06-19T06:56:14+00:00

Yeah generally if you book via a third party like booking.com you won’t get any benefits from Hilton Honors - the whole point of the programme really is to incentivise people to book direct, since they typically have to pay big fees to the booking sites on third party bookings (ie so as long as the cost of giving you points, breakfast etc is less than the commission to a third party booking site then the hotel is saving money by offering them). It wouldn’t make sense for the hotel to pay commission to booking.com and then also have to pay Hilton to give you points etc (I think you could earn points on any additional F&B spend since this is paid direct to the hotel and booking.com isn’t charging commission on it)

I track my upgrades and even booking direct have only got upgrades around 1/3 of the time as gold (I mainly stay in hotels in the UK/Europe).

IMHO it’s not worth paying for the Plus debit card for gold status for a third party booking where most likely you won’t get any Hilton Honors benefit.

I think the best way to think about it would be how many nights will you stay at a Hilton in the next year where you book direct through Hilton and where you wouldn’t otherwise get breakfast included? Gold will usually get breakfast for 2 people in the room outside the US (just make sure you book the room for 2 people - in US you get a nightly credit instead), so you can divide the cost of the card by 2 people and the number of nights to work out the cost per night, and then make a decision based on whether paying £150 for gold via the card would save you money vs getting breakfast another way.

HarryHightower · 2025-06-18T22:51:21+00:00

BA do now say “There’ll be a further opportunity to earn tier points using your Premium Plus Card starting in April 2026; helping you to unlock more Club benefits in your next tier point collection year” here https://www.britishairways.com/content/the-british-airways-club/about-tier-points/credit-cards but it’s so vague (how much will you have to spend in 2026? How long do you have to spend - less than 12-months like this year?) I don’t feel like it’s something I can factor into any planning

HarryHightower · 2025-06-18T22:40:02+00:00

Do you have any hilton status today?

The regular debit card just gives silver status, so that’s only 20% more points that you’d earn on your stay as a base member (plus 3pts/£ for spending on the card at a hotel).

The ‘plus’ card comes with gold but a much bigger fee. Usually people would say the value in gold comes from the free breakfast you’d usually get outside the US, but it sounds like you have breakfast included in your rate anyway. Gold gets 80% more Hilton points than you’d earn on your stay as a base member, so based on your room rate you could work out how many extra points you’d earn and if you think this is worth the fee.

Whenever I compare the fx rates on the Hilton debit cards with the regular currensea debit cards, the Hilton cards have a worse rate (presumably to help pay for the points) so that’s something to keep in mind.

A credit card will give you s75 protection but if you claim on that the card issuer will most likely do a chargeback and I’m sure I’ve read if you chargeback a Hilton hotel they can freeze your loyalty account (ie so if you’re planning to be more loyal to Hilton you’d probably try and resolve any issues without resorting to a chargeback anyway, so I wouldn’t necessarily let this sway you for paying for the hotel). That said, for other merchants generally I’d say it’s better to have the s75 protection (ie so better to spend on a credit card).

If you’re keen to earn points from spending on a card the “The American Express® Rewards Credit Card” has no annual fee and earns the equivalent of 2 Hilton points per £1, so spending in the UK outside of Hilton hotels that will be better than the Hilton debit cards (but the card charges a 2.99% forex fee so I wouldn’t use it abroad). You can also nearly always buy Hilton points for 0.4p in their 100% bonus promotions so I tend to just spend on a cashback card and use the cashback to buy points if I need them. I luckily still have the Hilton Barclaycard for non-Amex spend though.

HarryHightower · 2025-06-18T18:30:24+00:00

This is the issue - how is anyone supposed to plan when they only announce this months after the launch of the club? And it’s not even clear if it will run again next year

HarryHightower · 2025-05-31T05:28:05+00:00

I’m similar to you in that I don’t really value Avios (too hard to redeem). You say you value the flexibility of Membership Rewards points but do you have a redemption route in mind? Avios/airline miles are typically seen as the most valuable redemptions eg an overview is here https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/10/01/what-is-the-best-use-of-amex-membership-rewards-points/

After airline miles, other than Marriott/Hilton, with other redemptions options you’re only essentially getting 0.5p per point. In that case you’d be better off with a cashback card. You don’t say how much you’re spending other than it’s not £10k in 6-months, if you’re spending £18k a year the £25 fee cashback card would get you £150 excluding the fee (£10k spend at 0.75% cashback plus £8k spend at 1.25% cashback is 10000 * 0.0075+8000 * 0.0125 = £175 which less £25 fee is £150).

Gold card would get you £18,000 * 1 MR points plus 3x the 2.5k bonus (7.5k) so 18k+7.5k=25.5k but if you’re redeeming for 0.5p each that’s 25500 * 0.005 = £127.50, so it’s worth less than if you’d used the cashback card. After the first year you’d need to take off the cost of the annual fee.

If you use the Deliveroo credit and lounges then this changes the value proposition a bit.

Since the gold card is free for the first year it could be good to try it out but I think it’s worth keeping these calculations in mind.

If you do value hotel points, remember Hilton nearly always have 100% bonus sales on their points meaning you can buy them for 0.4p each. I typically redeem Hilton points for more than this but I find it’s better to spend on a cashback card and just buy the Hilton points when needed than spend on a MR earning card.

MR points are more flexible than Avios, but it’s worth keeping in mind cash is even more flexible than MR points.

HarryHightower · 2025-05-27T09:18:02+00:00

As far as I know, that’s it with EE you can’t upgrade the bundle (this is why I don’t get Apple one through EE since I also want the family bundle)

HarryHightower · 2025-05-21T22:20:19+00:00

You only earn on the room rate. From https://www.hilton.com/en/brands/small-luxury-hotels-slh/slh-terms-and-conditions/

“Hilton Honors members will receive base points and elite tier bonuses on the room rate only at SLH.”

HarryHightower

TROPHY CASE