When I finished my last trip report, I noted that I am contemplating if and how should I approach frequent flyer status in the near future. In the intervening six months, not much has changed – quite the opposite in fact – more of the same, but more intense.

I have said back then that my business travel has mostly dried up, and it has completely died in the meantime. It’s rapidly approaching a year since I was last out on business, and no change in sight (even the job listings I am looking at for a possible change are super scarce with travel-heavy positions). On the personal travel front, I have done a couple of trips (even started writing a TR for one, but nothing of note happened and the moment had passed, so into the bin it went), but am taking a conscious decision to get my spending under control, and travel budget is one of those things that looms bigly. Especially with the prices of flights from Amsterdam lately. Long gone are the days of a weekend away for a 120 euro ticket and an 80 euro hotel night. These days I’d have to budget twice as much. At least.

One trip that I had in mind was to go to Slovakia at the end of spring. Now, for a long time, the typical price of advance-purchase outside of peak periods like Christmas hovered just above 200 EUR, mostly regardless if I was looking at OK, OS or LO. Now we are looking at 400 if not more all summer, only in the fall do the prices come closer to 350. The only silver lining is, it makes buying the business class, which can be had for under 600 pretty much any time I’d like, look like a better deal.

I’ve started looking at options from other airports in vicinity, but couldn’t find good deals anywhere. Where it was somewhat cheaper, the need to account for onward travel at one or both ends pushed the calculus back to “too much”.
At the end of the day, I found what I thought was a decent option from DUS. Leaving to VIE and continuing overland via a stop in Bratislava, the return timings were not great. But then I tried about returning to Amsterdam. Austrian would not allow this double-sided openjaw construction, but it suggested I combine two one ways, the second one all the way from KSC to AMS with LO with a stop in WAW.

That gave me an idea to force a reprice with a cheap return from anywhere where it would be cheap. That worked, and I ended up with a DUS-VIE/PSA-FRA-QDU. And because the difference between Eco Light and Eco Classic on the outbound was or less the same as Eco Light to Business, I treated myself to a J flight. The return, aforementioned KSC-WAW-AMS, seeing as LO does not remove elite benefits from Economy Saver, I took it in the basic fare.

Getting from The Hague to DUS is relatively simple – there’s an ICE every two hours leaving Amsterdam, which I can join in Utrecht. Timing is not great, I should arrive at the (not in-terminal, the other one) DUS airport station just over 2 hours before my departure. Taking an earlier train would mean both an early morning and a 4 hour wait, so I will have to trust DB not to make me more than an hour late on this 2-hour itinerary. 1st class, because there was only a small difference. At the other end, a bus to Bratislava, a hotel there so I can meet some friends, and next day an Express train to Kosice. Certainly will take me longer than I flew all the way, or at least to BUD, but I will make use of the stopover at least.

What I will do with the stump PSA-FRA-QDU, I am not yet sure. There’s a DUS-FLR flight with Eurowings that I might take, and make the best of it as I have not been to the area yet. But the hotel prices are not exactly making me excited to travel. Still, I should make a decision soon.

For now, it’s about an hour until first train of the day leaves. Hopefully I don’t get Deutsche Bahned, I don’t have a Plan B in my pocket.