Originally Posted by The Geek

In normal times Mrs Geek & I are lucky enough to get away once a month on average flying mostly J LH and Y SH. { About half of that with friends / family. }

Quite accidentally fell into the status game in late 2018 when the BA bargain AMS - BKK flights came up. We were already utilising Priority Pass at this point, and already had a bargain MH J fare booked to Sydney the following month. I somehow found BAEC and the penny dropped that those Sydney flights alone netted us enough tier points for Silver. We are very value conscious and Silver is worth £30+ per sector { Gold £40+ } to us and a guest when flying Y, and for the most part turns the airport experience from excruciating pain to a fun part of the holiday. In terms of product / price combination for us it can't be touched by any other omnipresent UK carrier.

So hypothetically I would spend 4 days doing Sofia back to backs every 2 years to maintain silver if the value was there. However with a little strategic planning on destinations & routing we manage it without the pain that some go through here, and that's the fun part of the game. I'm sure by the time I've finished playing it, we will have been to every "value" 80tp destination in Europe for a long weekend at least twice and lose count of the number of times we've gone to the far east via Scnadinavia and Doha.