i've been a bit stressed of late; anxious in the night, a busy mind and over-active brain, and not been sleeping so well. to be honest, i sleep perfectly well over a weekend, but come sunday night, i'm awake all night. literally, all night. for the past couple of mondays, i've been going to work on zero sleep - sounds highly exaggerated, i know, but trust me when i say that successfully managing insomnia is nothing to brag about. i've suffered on-and-off for years, so i know ~how to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, but that ~doesn't mean it's easy - i could do with all the help i could get.
enter avios. currently, i'm subscribed to nectar, tesco club, boots advantage, and superdrug beauty loyalty cards, as well as having at least five other coffee and food-related frequent-customer cards littering my purse. want to know how i benefit from each of these many loyalty schemes? so do i. besides the occasional free coffee or discount voucher through my door, i literally do not know how any of these cards benefits me one iota, and yet i regularly scan or show or collect the stamps like the consumer minion i am.
and yet, according to the points calculator on the avios website, i'm eligible to earn more than 15,000 points in one year, based on my ~current spend. that's the equivalent of two deep tissue massages (7,500 points each), three day-passes to thorpe park or alton towers (4,900 points each), hundreds of afternoon teas (from 2,000 points), unlimited bottles of gin (exaggerated, 6,000 points each), or even a weekend farm break for two (12,000 points), for free, every year, because of money i've already spent. that's... incredible.
in the name of second chances and market research, i put my previous bad experiences with traditional pampering and relaxation techniques to the side, and headed out on sunday to try out one of avios' pamper packages - hoping it would help me take the edge off. with the serenity massage claiming to help with relieving stress, inducing relaxation and counteracting anxiety, i was hoping it would help me overcome my restlessness, and leave me zen-like for the rest of my life. or, day, as it were. start small, yeah.
well, it totally worked. for an hour i lay there while a tiny human woman poured hot lavender oil on me, placed hot stones across my back, and carefully massaged my muscles into a happy, melty mess. an indian head massage alleviated all tension from my temples, and while the rain poured down against the tin roof above us, i'm preeeetty sure i fell asleep right there on the table - amazingly. i headed home that day and signed up ~straight away so i can start collection points myself. if that's the sort of benefit that's available to me, yearly, for free, then yeah... it's a no brainer.
as for now, i'm hoping that with thanks to the serenity session and the long, active weekend, my sleepless nights will be no longer. but you know me, i'm likely to whinge about it here either way.
*thanks to avios for making my pampering dreams come true.*
