Hi All,
So over the weekend after my weather rearranged return from LHR last Wednesday I now have my sought after Gold Card, yeehah!
It's taken 55 OW flights (I have had quite a few non-OW flights as well) and largely has been achieved through Y Travel with a mix of work and leisure.
Now I know I'm not nearly as entertaining as for example @
bisonrav with his ongoing and entertaining quest for GGL this year, and I'm not as knowledgeable as the renowned C-W-S, Karfa and many others but for any of you who are interested I have attached my routing and time from TP reset to me achieving Gold so you can get a flavour of how much travel a Y flyer needs to do to get it.
I also previously had a comparison with getting OW Emerald with QR as a comparison with BA so have left that in there, mainly because for Y Flyers the perks of Status probably mean a little more than for those who generally travel in J or above anyway since they get the perks included with their tickets. For Ruby and Sapphire there isn't much in it, but Emerald would have taken for me a month and 9 flights less to get the status on QR rather than BA so for those economy flyers who like the status but may struggle, QR may be worth a look (not going into the difficult redemption bookings with QR and poor customer service on the ground with QR of course, this was purely a status point)
What I also have done is double check where a corporate policy for travelling J on flights over 6 hours would have left me, and I'll be honest it made my eyes water. Based on that analysis I would have achieved Gold in only 78 days from TP reset after 16 flights and would currently have a balance of 3835 TP's and with some smarter bookings on a couple of earlier personal trips (TGL, FCO) might have been pushing for the GGL Card rather than struggling to get over the Gold line. I also didn't really travel in December and had a major bereavement in January so I ended up having a 91 day flight gap in this TP year.
All in all it's been a (tiring) blast. I've had an Op-Up with QR DOH-LHR and availed myself of the QSuite (nice!), I've been Op-Upped on both trips to LOS in both directions to WT+ and generally have had very few travel shenanigans (last week aside), some excellent service from BA when required, the odd hunt for missing TP's (DOH-CGK every time argh!!!!).
Overall it's been good, and I am looking forward to breaking my normal no drink while flying rule by having a celebratory glass of something fizzy in GF next time I'm in LHR.
Thanks to all the FTers who have offered me advice as I've gone from being a "regular" leisure traveler to a "seasoned" corporate one. You've given some great advice and I've learned a lot form this site. And for all you regular corporate J Flyers out there, you are lucky.
Next Stop my 2-4-1 redemption in F to East Coast US if I can find availability :-).