Hi everyone, thanks for all the itinerary inspirations.
After doing the SAS promo, I've decided to do this one too (and even the JetBlue one for 350k pts, too. I have enough trips already planned that I can do half organically!)
I really do love these challenges! 😅
I want to enjoy it a bit more this time. So I'll do the Turkish promo in 2 separate trips, even if it's more expensive. About 4 weeks starting in late July and 2 weeks in early October.
Still hesitating between being my usual cheap self and booking it all in economy or biting the bullet for slightly higher one-way prices for the 3 long-haul TK flights and redeeming points for J on the returns back to IST.
Originally Posted by
fishgooink
Actually, this reminds me of a mini-anecdote:
I flew DPS-SIN-SGN to tick off KLM (first leg) and VN (second leg). I felt like my wife would prefer a direct flight, so I booked her one taking off at the same time as my flight to SIN.
I was a bit surprised not to hear from her while I was connecting, but I didn't think much of it.
It turns out that her pilot had aborted landing due to the weather, but it was a last-second decision from the pilot causing the plane to suddenly climb steeply and multiple passengers to throw up. The plane then flew for 20 minutes without passengers being given any info as to why they hadn't landed, which sounds pretty scary. It was only then announced that they were diverting to PQC due to the weather, where they sat on the runway for an hour. When the passengers requested water they were informed it was available for the normal price.
She eventually landed at SGN about ten minutes before I did. I'll admit to being a bit disappointed at her subsequent lack of gratitude to me for finding her the direct flight.
That's funny.
On my own SAS itinerary, I flew DPS-SIN-SGN on Scoot (my only positioning flight of the whole trip; I wanted to go back to Bali rather than Jakarta for my Garuda flight).
Anyway, we also circled SGN many times and then diverted to PNH. My anecdote is that my friend was waiting for me in SGN and tracking my flight number, and the app said "Landed" without mentioning I had landed in a completely different country; a somewhat relevant detail.
I was worried the crew would time out, as this was in the evening and my Vietnam Airlines flight was early the next morning, but we fueled up and flew right back, thankfully.
My NKG-ICN flight was also delayed by nearly 24 hours due to the record snowstorm in Korea, so definitely good to have a buffer if you can.
My OTP-AMM flight was canceled completely too, but to my surprise, it was very effortless to get TAROM to rebook me with an IST-AMM flight on TK ironically. I was even booked in J on the TAROM flight to IST... on an ATR, so quite basic. In fact, I didn't even get the one benefit you think is a given: deplaning first (door is at the back). Oh well.
Still, overall pretty fun trip.
Hope the Turkish challenge goes as smoothly.