Yesterday was the day to bag a bargain and I was determined that with imminent kids birthdays, swiftly followed by Christmas, this would be the year I make the most of the Black Friday sales.  I did manage to get a few bits but the problem is I’ve never been someone who naturally attracts, or indeed finds, discounts or offers.  Much to my husband’s dismay, my superpower is exactly the opposite - I have an uncanny ability to choose the most expensive wine or dish on a menu or the only full-price dress in a shop offering 70% off everything.   The best, or worst, example though was the year we decided to take a spontaneous ‘staycation’ while we were living in the UAE. 

Over the summer months, when temperatures make the region so hot that only mad-dogs or Englishmen would consider visiting, most hotels introduce resident-only special offers.  The biggest, glitziest and best-known of them had been on our family bucket list since my husband stayed there once and then shared details of the personal butlers and gold bath-taps.  Because of the heat, like most expat families the children and I usually travelled overseas during the summer holidays, but one year we decided to stay and make the most of the seasonal deals.  Despite it being only 15 minutes from our house, we booked a weekend stay at our bucket-list hotel and arranged an early check-in to maximise the fun.  I’d accidentally double-booked a mums-night on the first evening but decided that, as the hotel we were meeting at was directly opposite the one we were staying in, I’d still go.  When we arrived at the hotel my husband and I were excited to hear that we’d been upgraded to a suite on the club-floor and there was a complimentary drinks party being held at the adult pool that evening – it would be a bit of a rush as it was at the opposite end of the hotel to us but we could go and enjoy some free cocktails together before I met my friends for dinner.  As our children were too small to be left alone we made arrangements with the hotel’s babysitting service; the babysitter would arrive with toys and treats at 6.30pm.  We had an afternoon exploring the beach, pool and hotel with the children then went back to our room to feed them and get ready.  By now room service was the only option that would allow us to make it for the drinks party so we ordered then left the children with the babysitter.  It took 10 minutes to walk from our room to the party, would take another 20 for me to get from there to my mums-night, which left us with just enough time for one free drink.  I then left for dinner while my husband went back to the children and, not wanting to eat out alone, ordered himself food from room service.   The next day after playing in the pool and eating from the pool-bar menu we checked out and had a huge bill shock – in addition to the 7* food and drink prices and room service premium, we’d been charged the very high per hour rate for babysitting, for each of our four children.  Our ‘free drink’ had cost us a small fortune!

A few weeks later when I told a friend about our expensive ‘bargain staycation’ she said she always tried to book a club-floor hotel room because of the lounge.  Apparently our room upgrade had given us access to a club lounge - with unlimited access to FREE drinks (including cocktails) and food.  And we’d walked past it every time we’d gone between our room and the lift!