Originally Posted by
fishgooink
Right, I've now made three out of my four bookings with TK.
I had the following requirements to work around:
- Leave East Asia not earlier than 22nd July
- Land in the UK not later than 9th August, ideally having completed most of the challenge by then
- Fly back towards East Asia in September, ideally with some flexibility regarding dates
- All long haul in business class (which, as it turns out, includes all of my flying with TK, as well as one or two of my positioning flights)
- Get to Elite Plus, or at least within touching distance of it
[snip]
Okay, I'm pretty much all booked now. TK flights all in J, others in Y unless stated. Award flight prices are total cost (i.e. including the cost of the points).
Reposition to Ho Chi Minh (Scoot) - ~£50
Ho Chi Minh to Dubai - £786
Reposition to Cairo (EgyptAir) - £139 through Lifemiles
Cairo to Denver return [promo fare - fingers crossed!] - £1150
Cairo to Heathrow (BA - home for a couple of days!) - ~£140 through On Business
Heathrow to Dublin (Aer Lingus) - £70 with Avios
Dublin to Bogota return - £1598
Dublin to Heathrow (Aer Lingus) - £54 with avios
Break for a few weeks!
Heathrow to Cairo (BA) - £180 with Avios
Cairo to Johannesburg (EgyptAir) to Durban (South African) in J - £350 with Lifemiles
Durban to Melbourne - £1255
Onward travel TBC - likely an award fare in J to Hong Kong or Singapore ~£500, and then another £80 to get back to my East Asia base.
Cost of flights (£) = 4789 TK, 6350 total
Distance travelled (miles) = 51862 TK, ~20k others (50% in J, 50% in Y)
Status points = 79678 (assuming no status match)
It was tempting to do Sydney instead of Melbourne if only to get to just over 80k (80015) status points, but Melbourne looks more my scene; plus it's not a bad position to be in, being able to choose when to pay $70 to start my Elite Plus membership period.
I was also thinking about a TK upgrade for Melbourne to Singapore, but by then I'm sure I'll want a break from flying TK.
Can anyone beat Heathrow to Durban (5903 miles in a straight line) for "longest positioning flight"?!