Sunday 21^st January, 2018 0000

Sardine quesadillas? Hardly haute cuisine but when you are tired and hungry they are not as disgusting as they sound.

But of course, this is a trip I am organising. When have mine ever gone without a hitch?

No change there this time either.

A couple of days ago I started searching for hotels in Xian. The place I stayed in with Alice is fully booked. Not the best of places but a large suite can be had for a good price, breakfast useless for me but great for Chinese and they did give away lots of nibbles and snacks and also for a fee there was a courtesy car.

So I looked at the Hilton (I am in their loyalty programme, ditto IHG) and of course wanted executive privileges – breakfast included and free drinks in the evening. One look was enough to deter me – even using the friends and family pass, whilst offering a decent rate for a standard room didn't look so advantageous when the fact about 50% has to be put on if you want two breakfasts each morning. Rich man's territory.

I looked at Holiday Inn. Never underrate them, they are great hotels (not Express, they are like EasyHotels). Breakfast and drinks included at half the Hilton price (don't misunderstand, Hilton prices depend on the city they are in) so that was it. Forget the Sofitel (expensive) and although Grand Soluxe looked good, I know what to expect with IHG.

Could I book? Could I hell!

Despite recently receiving a reward statement and new offers by email, I was locked out of my account. I couldn't get online chat and didn't want to ring the USA so I emailed. The problem? I have two accounts. News to me but why was I prevented from accessing either? Why could they not have emailed me ages ago and informed me?

I think what happened was I enrolled and then a hotel I stayed in enrolled me again. I think Hefei did it when I said I would give them my membership number when I went online in the room and they said don't worry we will fix it. Well they actually buggered it.

You cannot book online direct with IHG without logging in or registering for membership for the discount. No log-in available so should I have opened a THIRD account? No thanks! I am still waiting for them to merge the two I already have and allow me back in!

Eventually I managed to phone the hotel in Xian and what a palaver trying to explain despite their suggestions I could not do it online, they needed to help me. Great, I didn't have to prepay as per the site but they came up with a huge price and I educated them as to what the bill would be as per their own company's website. Fine. Can you send a confirmation email? Yes.

Actually no. Despite spelling using the phonetic alphabet when giving my email address, it was “wrong”. Five phone calls and four hours later, I asked them to text me THEIR email address so they could reply to my test message. It was impossible to get the girl (Bella) to use phonetics, every time she gave half of it by way of “reservations@holidayinknigelnapkin@mumblemumbledotindistinct”.

A big problem here when giving email addresses is that they know what the asperand @ is when you say “at” but the moment you say “dot” they write “dot”! Then when you explain you mean full stop they are flummoxed.

Anyway, all booked now. Pretty sure it isn't an executive room but it does have the privileges. Now I am angling for the 200y daily dining allowance as per the email I received yesterday for Chinese New Year. Well it never gave dates! If they say no then time to complain to Merca about the hassle they caused me, the fact Grand Soluxe nearly got the booking and the time, calls and effort I had to expend. The squeaky wheel gets the oil....

The bad news is that Joan is only arriving Thursday evening in Xian at 1834, we will come back here on Saturday early evening and she needs to go back on Monday. One day effectively in Lanzhou. I shall try to persuade her to stay at least one more day here, after 18 months it seems so brief. I won't mind so much if the result is I can lay the guilt on thick and convince her she needs to come with me to England though.....