BigLar

I Introduction

This is a trip report for our recent "trip of a lifetime". It includes First Class air travel, free hotel stays, car and train trips, and locations from Cornwall in Western England to the French Riviera, and London and Paris in between. It's a combination of bragging (because I'm very glad I could do it), and also encouragement so you can do it, too!

Some background - Up until the year 2000, I had a FF account with USAir and a Diner's Club card. I had about 25K in the USAir account, and the DC account was at zero. Actually, the only reason I got the DC card was because a) they would give me one, and b) they gave me 10,000 free miles.

I started flying for the company in February 2000, and that went on until October 2001. All the flights were on USAir, and the hotel/personal flights were paid on my Diner's Club card. Then, in 2002, I began an assignment in Canada, and I spent about eight months in a Hilton in London, Ont, and no flying. That ended in October 2002, and I then spent a couple of months in Alabama - a couple of Hiltons (Hampton Inns) and a few flights on USAir. I had never taken a flight on British Airways (BA) and had no status with them.

Does any of this sound like I'm some guy who lives in First Class on International Flights and spends his off-hours in exotic hotels? Or does it sound a bit like "Hey! That's about like I live."

At any rate - there I was in the Hilton and looking at my Diner's Club bill in June 2002, when I noticed a blurb about converting DC points to BA miles at twice the usual rate. Now I'm kinda thick, but even I know that two-for-one is a good deal. I had been saving the DC points and not sticking them in any particular airline, just waiting for the right deal. This appeared to be it!

I joined the BA FF club (Executive Club - BAEC) and downloaded their T&C's. Of especial interest was the mileage redemption chart. Let's see ... I want to go US to Europe.

Coach - 40K/60K off-peak/peak
Coach+ - 60K/70K off-peak/peak
Bus - 80K
First - 100K
Concorde - 125K

That last bit astounded me. A round-trip on the Concorde for 125K miles? Apparently it was true. How long have I been ignoring this?

I checked my DC balance - 140,000 points more or less. That's enough for two Coach+ r/t's. I say two because Mrs. BigLar lets me go to, say, Cleveland or St. Louis on my own, but if I go to Europe, she goes too! Your mileage may vary.

So, with at least two coach tix in the bank, I was free to arrange my Europe trip with USAir. I figure I had a couple of years to build up the BA account to the point where I could get a couple of Concorde r/t's. In the meantime, I had to get to Europe this year (2003).

Mrs. BigLar's birthday is Sept. 19, and our wedding anniversary is Sept. 20. September seems like a good time to be is Europe. Where to go? Well, Paris is nice. We'd been to London before, but Paris is so much more romantic, don'cha think? I had set up the trip to Paris before, but we were to leave September 13, 2001. If you remember that time, there wasn't a plane flying in the world. So, we had to put that trip off. This year seemed like the year. Besides. I was plat on US and Diamond with Hilton. Next year I would be down to dirt. Gotta do it in 2003.

About this time (November 2002), I discovered FlyerTalk. Up until then, I had considered myself as a somewhat sophisticated flyer. Hey! I knew enough to ask for an exit row! I got upgraded now and then! I was really "hip" to the airline biz. Well, then I started reading some of the threads. I found out what a novice I really was. These guys started giving me ideas.

In December 2002, I got laid off. It was a "friendly" layoff, and I figured I'd be back at work in a couple of months. This gave me plenty of time to obsess about the trip!

Then Pudding Guy made his famous post about driving a Jaguar and flying to Europe. Even though I had gotten the same notice, it took him to rub my nose in it. So, I set up a Household Account and we all went down to the Jaguar dealer and took a test ride. At 10,000 miles each!

About this time, BAEC made their famous announcement that, effective July 1, 2003, the rules would be "enhanced". Shortly thereafter, BA announced that the Concorde would be retired. These items forced me to radically change my schedule. I looked at my BA FF balance. Let's see ... 140K from DC, 40K from the Jag drive, about 5K from unposted hotel stays I cleared up, ... hmmm. That's ~ 185K. More than enough for two biz class tix. 15K more, and I can score two (gasp) First Class tix! Wow!

Hello, Visa? Do you still have that 10,000 mile bonus? You do? Good! Sign me up.

Hello, Diner's Club? Are you running that BA promo again? You are? Good! I need about 6K more miles.

<sound of clock ticking>

Had to get everything done before July 1, when the rules change. By the middle of June, I had no fingernails left. Then - Hooray! Everything posted! Now to get the tix. Let's see, where do I want to go again?

With all this enforced time off, and the BA schedule in my hand, I had waaay too much time to play around with possible scenarios. I'll skip the dead ends and false starts, but what I finally settled on was:

YYZ-LHR -> LGW-NQY out. NCE-LHR-YYZ return.

Never mind exactly why, it just works out best.

Oh yes - FlyerTalk also made me aware of the value of hotel points. All my time at the Hilton in London and the Hampton Inns made me a Hilton Diamond, with 130,000 or so points. Not enough for a GLONP, but by buying a few K points, enough for 4 nights at the Paris Hilton. Not too shabby.

Ooops! Hilton is changing their program, too. Effective June 1. So, I got my reservations in by then.

See - everything had to be done this year. I had to use the BA tix before the price went up, and I had to stay at the Hilton while I was still a Diamond. So that was it - 2003 was the year.

That's the end of the beginning. Note that there's nothing magical or exotic about it. Just taking advantage of what I had and what I could scrounge. No reason why you can't do the same thing.

So ... on to the report. It is divided into sections:

I - Introduction (this entry)
II - The BA Outbound Segment (the leg from Toronto to Cornwall)
III - Cornwall (Newquay to Tintagel) IV - Tintagel to London
V - To Paris! (The Eurostar and the Hilton - 4 days in the City of Light)
VI - On to France! (Rural France and the Alps - Paris to Sisteron)
VII - The Riviera! (The Route Napoleon to the Sea and back to Nice)
VIII - The BA Experience Back - NCE-LHR-YYZ (We go home!)
IX - Lessons Learned and Random Musings

Enjoy

[This message has been edited by BigLar (edited Nov 28, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by BigLar (edited Nov 28, 2003).]