At Christmas 2017, I resolved to get GGL in 2018, and spent a hugely enjoyable year doing just that.

Times were very different then. You could make a reservation with a reasonable expectation of flying it. You were allowed into airports even without a mask. Lounges were open everywhere. It was all enormous fun and in retrospect very privileged to be able to bounce around the airports of the world without a worry in the world apart from the consequences of beasts from the East or the effects on the digestive system of altitude and over-rich food.

Anyway as I enjoyed doing this last time, I've decided to do a sequel, which will be about the trials and tribulations of requalifying against the backdrop of a global pandemic. With the 75% threshold I'll need just 2250 TP for requalification, but as 3500 is needed for the full guf collection I'll be heading for 3750 and CCR, all assuming I get the dropped thresholds next year. Actually, anything might happen, including not having to requalify, but we'll all find out together. The TP year starts Feb 9th. It happens to be my 50th year of flying too.

So since the end of the last thread - where I quoted T S Eliot's "The Hollow Men", which seems ever more apt, what has happened?

Well I maintained CCR status in 2019. I wasn't intending to, but a bit of work travel and a the Babybus trip put me over the line, not that it's been particularly useful. Bisonrav Jr has maintained his own silver status for more than half his existence now, and is very proud of it. He's a bit of an avgeek in his own right: he's flown to Barra beach, taken the Dragon Rapide for a tour of London, and is planning B17G (it has to be the G variant) and B29 flights for next year.

His head has been turned however: he enjoys the "Horrid Henry" series of books; in "Horrid Henry Up Up and Away", the set-up is that the eponymous anti-hero has heard of the delights of lie down beds on flights, and, looking forward to that, is surprised and shocked to be removed from his selected suite brusquely and sent back to a middle seat in row 89. On hearing this, Bisonrav Jr threw up his hands in absolute horror and refused to listen to the rest of the story, pulling the sheets over his head and hyperventilating quietly to himself, softly crooning "the Muffin Man as a comfort. I'm not sure whether it was the idea of being seated in row 89 that disturbed him, or the idea of someone not entitled to J sitting in the wrong seat, we never did quite establish that. It may have been both.

2020 started very well, with a family holiday in F to Singapore and Malaysia, followed by a quick day return in Y to Malaga and a trip to Tirana for the first TPs of the year. I followed that with a triple run AUH to CGK, just as Coronavirus was really cutting in. On the final run home, it seemed like the world was slamming its gates behind me, with borders being closed almost immediately afterwards, it was a very surreal sequence, not least because of the fatigue of the return trip. And curious little vignettes, like arriving in Jakarta to find the airport being scrubbed and sanitised intensively, and later finding out that that was being done only because the President was making a speech there.

And that was pretty much what happened. On landing I was fully expecting to get to Tirana again the following weekend, but within a couple of days it was obvious that wasn't going to happen, and that I was going to be staying at home rather than going to work for a while, though I wasn't expecting quite the duration of restrictions we had. I had 2150 or so TPs banked, plenty booked for the second half of the year, and assumed I'd carry on when the fuss was over in the early summer.

So began the process which probably most of us are now used to, of cancellations, FTVs here and there, attempts at getting refunds (all now successful except for Royal Jordanian who have yet to bother), and postponements. One thing I was really looking forward to was a hyper low cost tour of Poland and the Baltics in late March, but that was cancelled. There was a trip to Hong Kong which was a family holiday which was first pushed back and then cancelled. A trip to Seattle to visit Boeing and fly Seaplanes on the lake. And so on, it was all very dispiriting. I must say that BA despite the problems early on did deal with things pretty well, the FTV scheme is pretty good. And Hilton also did very well, particularly on allowing cancellation of non-refundable bookings, including via single night voucher issues, of which more next June, should we get there with plans intact.

But status was retained anyway, my voucher validity was extended, so I didn't really need to do any flying. As it became possible to book things again, I did set up some excursions; Milan in July on Wizz (Wizz are my new favourite airline). A 3 night BA break in Corfu at the end of the School Holidays, revisiting my old childhood haunts and the warmth of the Med. I couldn't resist a return to Dublin on Ryanair for a tenner. And I set up a re-run of my Poland and the Baltics trip for November 21st, with a very varied mix of airlines - Wizz, Lot, Air Baltic, Norwegian, and aircraft. Every flight in that was changed at least once and often twice during the Summer, until this week when it finally became impossible again. I'm still a bit in denial about that and have yet to cancel about three different permutations of Hiltons I'd set up using the free cancellation offer against different contingencies.

Mostly however, I used the time during the period between lockdowns for other things, and in particular flight experiences on older types. I did the Lufthansa JU52 in 2018, but that was a victim of Lufthansa cutbacks and will never fly again. I felt that it was probably best not to wait to fly on other vintage types, and there were also some great offers around for Avios and discounts with Red Letter Days, Into the Blue, et al via the various e-stores or targeted email offers (25-30% sometimes, or equivalent Avios). The Dragon Rapide flight had been booked since early in the year, well before Covid, and was repeatedly the victim of weather delays before Bisonrav Jr and myself took to the skies in it, one slightly chilly October morning at Duxford. And as a hint, should you ever try this flight - and you should, it's a wonderfully elegant way to take in the sights of London - take a 5 year old with you, because you'll be given the front seats to help with the centre of gravity. He was also able to see his (at the time) favourite aircraft, the B17G (has to be G), before being rather smitten by the B29 in the USAAF hangar. Great day out.

And then I took an hour in a Tiger Moth,actually tentatively flying it for a little bit, as a precursor and training mission to a Spitfire flight booked for November 20th at Lee on Solent, which has now presumably gone the way of all flesh until next year. This used the Amex 20% off Red Letter Days to get a discount - usually the Spitfire flights don't earn avios and don't qualify for voucher reductions, so I was all over this offer. We have a helicopter trip over Portsmouth ordered too. I shall be doing more of this sort of thing next year if all goes well.

In between times I worked out just about my entire flying history since 1971, including quite a large number of tail numbers and flight details. It's amazing what you can figure out when you really concentrate, and I'm still discovering things - helped somewhat by a rapprochement with my hitherto rather hostile ex-wife who very helpfully looked up dates in her diary. That was an unexpected and rather nice side-effect of the world being turned upside down.

But anyway, what does next year look like? Well almost all BA. In January I'm going to try to get the points I need to get a GUF2 this TP year via Sofia. At the start of the TP year I have a sequence of trips to Bucharest for points using sale fares, sandwiching a family trip to Singapore in Easter. I have a JAL fare to Toyko in March which is exceedingly unlikely to happen now, and a couple of trips to the US. It's unlikely all these will stick, but I'll recount what happens in this thread.

But of all the trips, the one I'm keenest to do is May 10th, when if the Covid Gods allow I'll be retracing my first flight exactly 50 years to the day previously. 10th May 1971 it was a Dan Air Comet 4B from Gatwick into the old terminal at Corfu; this time an EasyJet A320 into the new terminal, and staying at the same hotel, the Messonghi Beach. I really hope that one happens, I'd happily dump all the rest for that.