'Mr Red Eyes’: Re-Qualifying for *G on TK, SAA, ET in Y (live)
Nov 25, 2016, 4:22 pm
#31
Suspended
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Bregenz, Austria
Programs: AA, BAEC, Alaska, Flying Blue, United, IHG, Hilton
Posts: 2,950
I'm semi-retired now and travel only for leisure, completely on my own dime. There is no way on earth I would stump up for the kind of fares I used to expect companies to fork out for.
Therefore, it's the back of the bus for me all the time. I'll spend the €x,000 I save on good stuff at my destination.
Even on miles, I fly in the cheap seats, and hold over a good tranche of miles for my next trip. I'd rather have five trips in Y, than two in J or one in F.
Nov 26, 2016, 4:00 am
#32
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: SYD
Programs: Too many golds, no plat: OZ*G, AC*G, NZ*G, VA Gold, QF Gold, HH Gold, Bonvoy Gold
Posts: 5,350
Wow, you really are a trooper. I don't mind flying Y shorthaul, or even medium-haul-verging-on-long-haul if it's a daytime flight, but I really do detest redeyes in Y (and I'm happy to say I've managed to avoid them for the best part of a decade now). And yet here you are doing not one (brutally short) one but two in a row?!
You have my respect, sir. And my heartfelt sympathy!
You have my respect, sir. And my heartfelt sympathy!
Nov 29, 2016, 2:38 am
#33
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,235
It's a beautiful new day hey
BA78, B747
Scheduled: 23:00-05:30
Actual: no clue - early ( I was through immigration at T3 by 05:40)
Seat: 14G (world traveller plus, woo hoo!)
Thursday night, the dinner of champions. Bonus points to anyone who knows where this was taken.
I was a BA Silver (= One World Sapphire) for several years, gained solely on Y travel, 35 tier points at a time. We used BA as our regular JNB carrier, using the ‘flight & car’ option to get reasonable prices on Sunday-Friday trips. Until BA changed their earning structure last year, and those cheap tickets typically book into O or Q, and earn only 20 tier points for a 5,620 mile flight LHR-JNB, and meant that I needed to make 15 of those trips a year to keep silver. I don’t do that many, and sometimes BA wasn’t even cheap, so my silver card lapsed back in July. And I’ve barely flown BA since. I know that our spend was only about £20k a year, and judging by how busy the JNB flights always were, I’m sure that they’re not missing us. Until the next downturn, when they’ll move the TP goalposts again and we’ll come back (maybe).
So that prelude was just a way to say that I’m joining the back of the checkin queue this evening, no mobile BPs available ex-ACC. And with never checking bags (except for holiday trips with the family) I seldom have need to join checkin queues, and certainly not ‘general’ checkin queues. I’m more used to my ET experience in JNB when I can wave my *G card, so this will be a shock. Not helped by the fact that my meetings were finished by 2pm, I just had time for shower before getting thrown out of my cheap hotel room, and so I’ve been drinking 625ml bottles of Club since 3pm.
And it’s now 21:00. I’m at the bar in the ‘Wok In’, the little Chinese café in Accra arrivals, and this is the view across the arrivals area.
After meeting someone here for (another) drink, it’s time to go upstairs to departures and check in. Actually there was no queue for checkin, even at the regular economy counter, my timing working well for a change. [For those of you who have images of African airports as being mud huts, here is Kotoka checkin. Admittedly, one of the smarted African airports]
And then onto the plane, a hi-J 747 with the WT+ section sandwiched in between First and Club. I was asleep before pushback, woke up briefly about mid-flight to recline my seat and wrap myself in a blanket (glacial on this flight) and then awake again as people got up to disembark. Utterly unremarkable flight.
But we landed on time, which got me home in time for this:
Scheduled: 23:00-05:30
Actual: no clue - early ( I was through immigration at T3 by 05:40)
Seat: 14G (world traveller plus, woo hoo!)
Thursday night, the dinner of champions. Bonus points to anyone who knows where this was taken.
I was a BA Silver (= One World Sapphire) for several years, gained solely on Y travel, 35 tier points at a time. We used BA as our regular JNB carrier, using the ‘flight & car’ option to get reasonable prices on Sunday-Friday trips. Until BA changed their earning structure last year, and those cheap tickets typically book into O or Q, and earn only 20 tier points for a 5,620 mile flight LHR-JNB, and meant that I needed to make 15 of those trips a year to keep silver. I don’t do that many, and sometimes BA wasn’t even cheap, so my silver card lapsed back in July. And I’ve barely flown BA since. I know that our spend was only about £20k a year, and judging by how busy the JNB flights always were, I’m sure that they’re not missing us. Until the next downturn, when they’ll move the TP goalposts again and we’ll come back (maybe).
So that prelude was just a way to say that I’m joining the back of the checkin queue this evening, no mobile BPs available ex-ACC. And with never checking bags (except for holiday trips with the family) I seldom have need to join checkin queues, and certainly not ‘general’ checkin queues. I’m more used to my ET experience in JNB when I can wave my *G card, so this will be a shock. Not helped by the fact that my meetings were finished by 2pm, I just had time for shower before getting thrown out of my cheap hotel room, and so I’ve been drinking 625ml bottles of Club since 3pm.
And it’s now 21:00. I’m at the bar in the ‘Wok In’, the little Chinese café in Accra arrivals, and this is the view across the arrivals area.
After meeting someone here for (another) drink, it’s time to go upstairs to departures and check in. Actually there was no queue for checkin, even at the regular economy counter, my timing working well for a change. [For those of you who have images of African airports as being mud huts, here is Kotoka checkin. Admittedly, one of the smarted African airports
]And then onto the plane, a hi-J 747 with the WT+ section sandwiched in between First and Club. I was asleep before pushback, woke up briefly about mid-flight to recline my seat and wrap myself in a blanket (glacial on this flight) and then awake again as people got up to disembark. Utterly unremarkable flight.
But we landed on time, which got me home in time for this:
Nov 29, 2016, 2:42 am
#34
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,235
Conclusions/thoughts
First, it was much less bad than I feared/expected. Sure, every morning I felt a bit ropey, but nothing that a shower and a coffee didn’t cure. And the mornings after the flights weren’t really any worse than the mornings after the beds. [possibly due to only getting to bed at 2:30am one night, and drinking 11 bottles of Club the other night!]. The third and fourth overnights I slept almost the whole time.
I did notice that I watched much less on the laptop than a ‘normal’ travel week (=down to JNB on the 11 hour LHR flight and a few internals in SA). I tend to watch a film or two on those flights, and then sleep, but on these much shorter overnights I was just focused on sleeping. In fact, I only watched one film this trip (American Gangster, could have done with losing 30 minutes) and that was in the lounge in IST and yesterday afternoon in my ‘down time’. I’ve pretty much tried to sleep (or at least doze, like the daytime ADD-ACC flight), apart from the CPT return, where I wrote this TR up.
Next, having access to lounges on this sort of intinerary is essential. I had Star access most of the time, but paid to use the arrivals lounge for a shower in JNB. I actually think that showers are more important than beds on this kind of trip, and without Star Gold I would have suffered. [on that note, some of you may be surprised to hear that not all the flights posted to my A3 account in time, and so I have dropped to Silver
… I hope that a quick phone call in ten days will fix that]
I ate terribly last week. I managed 5 meals outside flights and lounges, and one of those was breakfast in the hotel on Wednesday morning (and another was a durum doner in the street in Istanbul]. Combined with drinking too much (not really flying related, I just really like beer) I know that my digestion will rebel when I get home. [it did]
Flights/airlines…. Really in Y, they are all much of a muchness, and more depends on the equipment than the airline. From previous experience, the Do&Co food on TK is slightly better than the norm, but I didn’t have any this trip. I was worried that the TK flights would be really hot (from previous trips) but they were quite pleasant, and ET was really cold. The IST lounge is definitely better than the norm, in terms of facilities and food/drink, but it was ridiculously busy on Monday morning. As well as a 2.5 hour wait for a shower, there was a 10 minute queue for a toilet in the gents. And there was barely a free seat anywhere in the lounge. Sure, it’s a good lounge, but I think that for people to suggest TK itins ‘to experience the lounge’ is the height of crazy.
Worst moment(s): linked to the ‘shower joy’ above, it was probably the realisation that I didn’t have time for a shower on Monday morning, after barely any sleep and before a big meeting. Shaving in the sink and queuing for the toilets in the lounge was a low point. A very close second was when they announced a 90 minute delay to my JNB-CPT leg; the guy I was supposed to meet for a drink at 6pm (and the reason why I’d chosen the 9pm flight in the first place) was delayed on his flight, so called me at 6 to blow me out; I could have been on a 5:30 flight and at my hotel by 8:30, instead of getting there at 2:30 in the morning.
Still...
I requalified for Star Gold.
I (hope that I) had some very productive meetings, which will generate some cash for us and value for clients.
And best of all, no animals were harmed in the making of this trip report.
I did notice that I watched much less on the laptop than a ‘normal’ travel week (=down to JNB on the 11 hour LHR flight and a few internals in SA). I tend to watch a film or two on those flights, and then sleep, but on these much shorter overnights I was just focused on sleeping. In fact, I only watched one film this trip (American Gangster, could have done with losing 30 minutes) and that was in the lounge in IST and yesterday afternoon in my ‘down time’. I’ve pretty much tried to sleep (or at least doze, like the daytime ADD-ACC flight), apart from the CPT return, where I wrote this TR up.
Next, having access to lounges on this sort of intinerary is essential. I had Star access most of the time, but paid to use the arrivals lounge for a shower in JNB. I actually think that showers are more important than beds on this kind of trip, and without Star Gold I would have suffered. [on that note, some of you may be surprised to hear that not all the flights posted to my A3 account in time, and so I have dropped to Silver
… I hope that a quick phone call in ten days will fix that]I ate terribly last week. I managed 5 meals outside flights and lounges, and one of those was breakfast in the hotel on Wednesday morning (and another was a durum doner in the street in Istanbul]. Combined with drinking too much (not really flying related, I just really like beer) I know that my digestion will rebel when I get home. [it did]
Flights/airlines…. Really in Y, they are all much of a muchness, and more depends on the equipment than the airline. From previous experience, the Do&Co food on TK is slightly better than the norm, but I didn’t have any this trip. I was worried that the TK flights would be really hot (from previous trips) but they were quite pleasant, and ET was really cold. The IST lounge is definitely better than the norm, in terms of facilities and food/drink, but it was ridiculously busy on Monday morning. As well as a 2.5 hour wait for a shower, there was a 10 minute queue for a toilet in the gents. And there was barely a free seat anywhere in the lounge. Sure, it’s a good lounge, but I think that for people to suggest TK itins ‘to experience the lounge’ is the height of crazy.
Worst moment(s): linked to the ‘shower joy’ above, it was probably the realisation that I didn’t have time for a shower on Monday morning, after barely any sleep and before a big meeting. Shaving in the sink and queuing for the toilets in the lounge was a low point. A very close second was when they announced a 90 minute delay to my JNB-CPT leg; the guy I was supposed to meet for a drink at 6pm (and the reason why I’d chosen the 9pm flight in the first place) was delayed on his flight, so called me at 6 to blow me out; I could have been on a 5:30 flight and at my hotel by 8:30, instead of getting there at 2:30 in the morning.
Still...
I requalified for Star Gold.
I (hope that I) had some very productive meetings, which will generate some cash for us and value for clients.
And best of all, no animals were harmed in the making of this trip report.
Nov 29, 2016, 9:46 am
#35
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Bregenz, Austria
Programs: AA, BAEC, Alaska, Flying Blue, United, IHG, Hilton
Posts: 2,950
A nice trip report Stewie. It seems like you have a good strategy for managing overnighters in Y.
You're spot on - the lounges make a huge difference. It's the shower more than anything else.
You're spot on - the lounges make a huge difference. It's the shower more than anything else.
Dec 5, 2016, 6:08 pm
#39
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: JNB
Programs: Flying Blue, Miles and Smiles, Hhonors, ICHotels
Posts: 1,307
Yup, been there once or twice. When I looked at the photo I ended up taking a while, but then remembered the place. However, there is Curry House that I have been to more often and for the life of me, I cannot remember the name. 
Suppose one can call it the "Club" effect.
Suppose one can call it the "Club" effect.
Dec 13, 2016, 3:03 am
#40
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,235
My qualification year for Aegean (in common with all the ‘old’ Golds) ends on November 23rd, ie today, and this flight tonight, at 23:35, will push me over the 24k miles for requalification, with 25 minutes to spare. There is some scepticism on the A3 board that this will actually happen automatically, but I have faith in Greek IT
Actually, I'm utterly gobsmacked by this... but in a good way!
Feb 21, 2017, 8:48 am
#41
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,235
... and repeat
Heading back to SA again next month, and because there's people that I want to see in Istanbul, going to do the double-red-eye start to the week again.
Hopefully by getting into the shower queue as soon as I land (around 05:30) I will be able to get one this time... and really, it's just an incredibly efficient route, both in terms of time and money.
Hopefully by getting into the shower queue as soon as I land (around 05:30) I will be able to get one this time... and really, it's just an incredibly efficient route, both in terms of time and money.
Feb 21, 2017, 9:10 am
#42
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Go for it Stewie!
I did a 32-hour double-red-eye in December from IAH to JNB, via a 7-hour layover in Doha. My total time without any kind of sleep, from waking up in Houston to crashing out in Jo'burg was over 48 hours.
It was an absolute [insert chosen expletive] of a run in every possible way, but it cost me virtually nothing and I had three fabulous weeks in SA with all the cash I saved.
I did a 32-hour double-red-eye in December from IAH to JNB, via a 7-hour layover in Doha. My total time without any kind of sleep, from waking up in Houston to crashing out in Jo'burg was over 48 hours.
It was an absolute [insert chosen expletive] of a run in every possible way, but it cost me virtually nothing and I had three fabulous weeks in SA with all the cash I saved.
Feb 23, 2017, 1:05 pm
#43
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: JNB
Programs: Flying Blue, Miles and Smiles, Hhonors, ICHotels
Posts: 1,307
Oh, Cape Town seems fine and safe travels.
Mar 31, 2017, 2:04 am
#44
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,235
Is 3 o/nighters out of 4 worse than 4 out of 6?
Just booking a trip for after Easter, and looks like it will be the 22:15-4:05 killer redeye again, followed by a day of client meetings in Istanbul and then a 0:55-5:10 overnighter, a night in a bed and then the 20:30-06:25 back again (both of those around 7 hours flying time).
Is 3 out of 4 nights on a plane (in economy) better or worse than 4 out of 6?
I'll come back and tell you in three weeks!
Is 3 out of 4 nights on a plane (in economy) better or worse than 4 out of 6?
I'll come back and tell you in three weeks!
Mar 31, 2017, 5:56 am
#45
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Bregenz, Austria
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Effin' 'ell, Stewie, you're a glutton for punishment! Two consecutive overnighters are always murderous. Let us know how it goes.
I'm at it again in this Christmas, btw - booked another Bouncer Special - overnight in Y, SAN-DFW-LHR-ZRH, followed by a night (or more likely an afternoon) of sleep at home in Austria, followed by 20 hours in the car to the English Midlands. Then a few days of eating too much, getting profanely drunk and singing obscene versions of Christmas carols, then BHX-CDG-CPT-PLZ (Y again).
I'm at it again in this Christmas, btw - booked another Bouncer Special - overnight in Y, SAN-DFW-LHR-ZRH, followed by a night (or more likely an afternoon) of sleep at home in Austria, followed by 20 hours in the car to the English Midlands. Then a few days of eating too much, getting profanely drunk and singing obscene versions of Christmas carols, then BHX-CDG-CPT-PLZ (Y again).