Having read and enjoyed others’ Trip Reports for a decade or so, I finally have a trip I thought worthy of documenting here. Or trips, really, as over the next six months Mrs tomppa29 and I will be using a oneworld Explorer ticket, plus a few additional Avios flights, to give us three separate holidays and qualify us for Finnair Plus Platinum along the way.

I’ve long been interested in the possibilities offered by a Round The World ticket, and have spent many a happy hour parsing the oneworld Explorer rules sheet, typically followed by some extremely frustrating hours attempting to construct and price itineraries on the oneworld site. I was particularly taken by the example given in the excellent oneworld Explorer user guide showing how one RTW ticket to create several holidays. But several holidays a year may seem OTT, the authors wrote. Heaven forfend.

Then came Christmas 2024 and the announcement of British Airways’ changes to their Executive Club. We had held Executive Club Gold status for several years, and whilst we may have helped matters along with the occasional Abu Dhabi to Jakarta jaunt or double tier point holiday, we certainly directed a fair whack of our personal travel budget to BA. But alas, BA decided that it was time that we saw other people. Richer and quite possibly better looking people, in their case. C’est la vie.

I was, I confess, a little lost. The opportunity to play the field myself was at first rather exciting. But a rather uncomfortable jaunt with Ethiopian showed me that the status-less world can be cruel and hard. I began to miss the structure of a loyalty programme.
Then, over the summer, Mother tomppa29 asked how Matt of the eponymous Planet was getting on following the Executive Club changes (she had found his original video on those changes helpful in explaining why we were quite so miffed, and had been rather worried about what he would do next). That prompted me to watch Matt’s Planet’s very helpful video on the Finnair Plus scheme, and his even more helpful video explaining how a RTW ticket could efficiently earn Finnair Plus status. Cogs began to whirr. Negotiations were entered into with Mrs Tomppa29. And lo, a plan began to form.