I recall doing something similar to this when I first got gold. This is a repeat, just with many more tier points! I am a solid leisure traveller and never get to go anywhere with work. All of this fits in to around 30 days of holiday per year, which includes family holidays - this generally means that trips are shorter than I would ideally like - I am forever wishing I had an extra day pretty much everywhere I go.
I started my year off with a leisurely weekend in Helsinki in early February, a nice place for a stroll and to see some proper weather. I will not lie however, the deciding factor was that it was on sale and gained me 160tp.
My next trip was the following week, long haul with my son to Utah and Arizona for some landscape photography and generally to be wowed by the majesty of the American south west. We flew in and out of Vegas, and experienced mind-numbing cold almost everywhere we went, with the coldest place being the Grand Canyon south rim. The deserts were white rather than orange but it was excellent trip nonetheless once we had got over the initial hurdle of me booking the car a month too early and being faced with a gigantic bill from Avis for a replacement. I had booked it through BA rather than Avis luckily, and so the BA Holidays duty office were absolute heroes at 10pm UK time…. Incidentally our return flight from LAS was delayed overnight by snow, they couldn’t find anybody willing to de-ice a 747 so we had a bizarre night in the Venetian which I was able to claim back without issue. I used a TA GUF2 here having booked in WT+, so a further 280tp taking me to 440.
I had a long weekend in Singapore in March, feeding my love of tropical birds and plants. I visited various nature reserves towards the north of the island, as well as spending a lot of time in the Botanical Garden and the Gardens By The Bay. Wonderful place. I flew WT out and WT+ UuA on the way back for 120 TP: total 560
In April I went on two trips. The first was a regular bucket and spade holiday to Cyprus with the whole family. I left them sleeping in the hotel most mornings and went off photographing birds on Cape Greco, which is at the south-eastern tip of the island. Only 40tp from this one, so up to 600. The second trip involved birding in Texas and New Jersey. The Upper Texas Coast, known as the UTC in birding circles, can be phenomenal in late April as birds fly across the Gulf of Mexico on their northbound migration and collapse, exhausted, at places like High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula. In all other respects this part of Texas is a bit of a dump, but for me it cannot be beaten. On the way back I did a day on Cape May in New Jersey, flying in and out of Philadelphia. This is also a pre-eminent birding destination, particularly in the autumn, so this was more of a recce. The hotel I stayed in had 2 guests and the swimming pool had no water in it. I know how to live! This was a sale fare in CW, routing LHR-DFW-IAH-PHL-LHR, with the transatlantic legs in F. I used a TA to help me use the GUF1, so got 210+40+40+210=500tp for this taking me to 1100.
In May I went birding in Bulgaria for a bank holiday weekend with a friend. Short and sweet, and another 160tp to 1260.
In June I went to Helsinki again, but without snow, and New York. I need to work out Helsinki alternatives as there will come a time when I’ll get fed up with it, but the flight times are great and it frequently comes in at around £250 in CE for 160tp. New York was WT out and WT+ UuA back for 160tp, taking my running total to 1580tp. I hired a car (which was also my hotel) and went birding for two days on Long Island. Out after work on Friday, back in overnight on Sunday and straight back to work, hence the UuA to CW. As you can see there was some fortunate tp crediting here but it ended up making no difference. I also flew to Edinburgh entirely on Avios in June to see family.
July was fun. I went to Montpellier to see a friend for the weekend, ET out and CE in for 50. I also went to Tallinn for a weekend with Mrs S who was singing in a choir tour there. I flew on Finnair via HEL – business out (A330) and economy back (A350), so 80+20+10+20=130tp. Total 1840.
In August I had a family holiday up to Scotland which got me 80tp, and then I did a crazy ex-EU Hawaii run from Stockholm. This is the third time I have done this, and I chose Big Island which had a new suite of endemic birds for me to get into. In two days I managed to see the I'iwi, Apapane and Hawaii Amakihi, (native Honeycreepers), as well the I’o (Hawaiian Hawk) and the O’mao (Hawaiian Thrush). This latter one required a walk across some high-altitude lava fields on Mauna Loa to some remnant old growth forest which is where the remaining Hawaiian endemic birds still cling on. Everywhere else they have been ravaged by disease and habitat pressure, and ultimately replaced by a more competitive global avifauna, such that most birding on Hawaii is akin to visiting a zoo. One moment you will be looking at a European Skylark, next you’ll be hearing a Red-crested Cardinal from South America, followed by a Grey Francolin from India… Hawaii is a premier example of somewhere that humans have completely buggered up. My Thrifty wildcard booking bagged me a red Camaro convertible for the price of a Fiesta and I had a fabulous weekend. Time travelling to time birdwatching was distinctly poor of course, but I have never been disappointed with Hawaii. The route used a nested economy ticket to ARN, and was LHR-ARN-LHR b2b, followed by LHR-JFK-LAX-KOA return, a day at work, and then an overnight in ARN before coming home the next day. I managed to UuA the JFK-LHR leg to F, and in total I got 1005tp. The following weekend we went as a family to Luxembourg to attend a wedding in Belgium. This was bagged as a sale fare for less than £150 and so I ended the month on 2925tp. With 58% of my collection year behind me I was sitting on exactly the same percentage of tier points. Planning.
In September my only travel was a weekend in Boston, booked very cheaply in World Traveller for 40tp well before I really considered having a run at GGL. Poor Planning. This unfortunately coincided with the BA strikes, and so it turned out that my outbound flew but my return was cancelled. I managed to turn this to my advantage as I absolutely had to be back in London for Monday morning and the only way that BA could do that at the point I called was to route me on Aer Lingus via Dublin, with the result that I got 20+70+10, taking me to 3025tp. Nonetheless an overnight BOS-DUB sat next to a complete stranger in Y is not something I am keen to repeat.
In October I went on two trips. Firstly a family holiday to Sicily for a week, which I highly recommend – an incredibly interesting place. Catania (CTA) is a SH+ destination, and some kind of BA holiday deal meant that flying in CE rather than ET made surprisingly little difference. 3185tp. Then immediately afterwards (literally immediately!) I went on possibly my favourite trip of the year – a birding excursion to Taiwan. For those who don’t know, as well as hosting a broad diversity of pan-Asian species, Taiwan is absolutely stuffed full of endemic birds as well. Most guided tour birding holidays spend two weeks doing a circuit of the island to ensure that they see all of these, and charge you £4k for the privilege excluding flights!. I did it myself in four days, and very nearly cleaned up! As a bird-watching destination with great food and incredible scenery I can highly recommend it. I flew on Qatar and Cathay Pacific via Stockholm, Doha and Hong Kong. An aircraft substitution meant I missed out on the fabled Q–suite but the quality was excellent nonetheless. Cathay was good too, long-haul A330s on the short hop to TPE. I made sure to enjoy every lounge, particularly The Pier in HKG. The fare from ARN was one of these rather good ones often mentioned on Flyertalk, and I used a TA to include the TPE segment on the same ticket and then nested a BA CE return to ARN around it. Of all of my ex-EU trips this was the most risky as I returned from CTA with the family to Gatwick landing about 1am, and then had to take a bus to Heathrow for an 8am flight to ARN. Whilst my flight with Qatar did not leave until the evening, a far-reaching problem at Heathrow such as drones could easily have scuppered me, as could an overnight delay from Catania. I considered booking CTA to ARN direct, which does exist on Norwegian, but I didn’t want to abandon the family. In the end I booked (and threw away) a cheap single from LGW-ARN on Norwegian that left at around lunchtime, so had there been a late arrival to Gatwick or an issue at Heathrow I would have had time to catch it and still make the Doha flight in the evening. In the event everything was fine and I had a nice day out in Stockholm (used the left luggage lockers to ditch all my stuff) before travelling onwards to Doha. On the way back I had an overnight in Doha, and was able to benefit from a heavily subsidised plush hotel booked via Discover Qatar for about £20. Rather than book a high-rise monstrosity I went for a converted Souk hotel south of the airport and was able to have a nice walk at dawn the next day. All in all this netted 720tp, taking me to 3905.
In November I went to visit my parents in Scotland again for another 80tp, and then had a long weekend of birding and photography in Florida, taking in the Keys, Everglades and Gulf Coast. This was a cheap WT flight without shiny cards in mind, so I only got 40tp. 4025.
In December I really made up the numbers with a weekend in Istanbul and a weekend in Tirana. Blatantly just for the points, but then again Istanbul is one of the great cities and I had never been to Albania, so some boxes were ticked at least. Another 2 x 160tp to take me to 4345. Then Christmas up in Scotland for 45tp (ET + a POUG) saw me end the calendar year on 4390.
My collection year ends in February, so I had 5 weeks to get 610tp. This was of course all catered for, and I had 720 booked in a single trip to California in J on AA routing LHR-HEL-JFK-SFO-LAX-PHX-JFK-LHR. This was another great fare that had been highlighted on this board at some point in 2019, and whilst I could have squeezed more out of it by returning via HEL again I knew I did not need to. I flew to Helsinki after work on a Wednesday and had yet another morning there before taking a Finnair flight to JFK. This was on an A330 and was really good, my first true AY longhaul. I particularly enjoyed the blueberry Gin and Tonics with Bilberries, and there is something about those Ittala glasses. A rather stressful short connection thanks to a AA scheduling change was made easier by a delay to the transcon, but actually I would have made it with time to spare as I went HBO. I had dinner with some relations in SFO, and the next morning I flew to LAX. This ended up being in economy as my original flight had 7 hour delay which frankly would have ruined my holiday, but I got on the next one leaving. I had an excellent two days birding around LA, San Diego, the Salton Sea and Palm Springs before returning to London via PHX and JFK. For the first time ever I took a transatlantic day flight; there was nothing wrong with it but I won’t do so again. I am usually so shattered after my “holidays” that I sleep the whole way back overnight, go to work all day, and then go to bed at a normal time and thus am back on the right time zone very quickly. On the day flight I struggled to stay awake despite having slept in the recliner from Phoenix, and then of course I couldn’t sleep when I got home to London in the evening. Lesson learned. On the plus side it was G-BYGC in BOAC livery, and I am a minor aviation geek…. My outbounds posted very quickly, albeit that I only got 20 for the changed SFO-LAX flight. After 4 days nothing had posted on the inbound so I called BA who sorted it out within 24 hours. 5090tp!
Stats:
70 sectors (47 BA, 10 AA, 6 AY, 4 QR, 2 CX , EI 1)
133k miles (91k BA, 17k AA, 14k QR, 8k AY, 3k EI, 1k CX)
£2.59 per TP
So was it worth it? There were only a couple of times where I questioned my sanity. These were on my fourth morning in Helsinki, and when I went to Tirana the weekend after I went to Istanbul. That was too much. Oh, and on that 3am bus from Gatwick to Heathrow when all I really wanted was to be at home. Other than that it did not feel like too much travelling, but then again what is “normal” has been somewhat lost over the last few years. I don’t know yet is the answer, and for a variety of reasons I actually want to travel less this year. But I have 2 x 2-4-1, a GUF2, 2 x GUF1, a mountain of avios and now 2 of these famed “joker” things, and so if I manage to use that little lot then I may well feel that I travelled too much in 2020. Let’s see what happens. Anyhow, see you in the CCR I suppose.
S