Concerto

I have done before, and drove the full length of the Ma-10 road stopping for 2 nights in Port de Sóller (I was there when MH370 went missing). The cyclists are a major menace on that road, as they come whizzing down from behind faster than I can drive and on the uphills oncoming drivers overtake blindly. Had a few near misses along the way. Then I stayed in Pollenca, followed by going to an isolated finca near Inca which was marvelous. But Mallorca is not cheap if you’re driving around like that.

To get back on topic, I have one more installment in my quest for the FB Gold card to report, coming up.

AlicorporateUK

@Concerto - keep us posted as ever, your experience-sharing is gripping indeed and I like the excursion into the places you've been visiting for that purpose Writing this as I've just made it to work (next time I hear somebody/my Mrs complaining about traffic in Warsaw... ) here in our Santiago offices and thinking that it's nearly the end of the working day up in Europe (that's not a good mindset to get the week off to a good start, is it ).

G

Concerto

With my last two AF flights, namely MAD-CDG-GVA, I achieved 30 segments and my account has already been updated to reflect gold status. Even the UX flights credited quite quickly, so I'm home and dry.

And now the OT stuff, just to conclude. The flight was at 15h20 and I had wanted to have lunch in Madrid before leaving, but lunch in Spain is simply not served before 13h00, period. That would be too late to comfortably make it out to the airport in time for the flight. It was going to be a hungry day and I would go straight into rehearsal on arrival at GVA. However, I hit on the idea of taking metro 5 out to Canillejas, where the No. 200 bus goes straight to the airport T2 in about 10 minutes (longer during rush hour). This was an inspired choice, because moseying down the back streets around Canillejas I hit on a very small, apparently family run, restaurant/bar that served me an amazing multicourse 'menu del dia'. with drinks for a total of EUR11. With the bus, I was indeed at the airport T2 in 10 minutes and through security in plenty of time.

There's always a story to tell (what would travel be if there wasn't one?) and this flight started badly with 40 minutes delay. I made a final toilet visit and managed to bang my forehead against the coat hanger when bending to pick up my small rucksack. Once I'd stopped the bleeding, returned to the priority boarding line (a great Silver benefit) and boarded the flight, the caring purser noticed me and offered me a disinfectant wipe and a bandage. The kindness of my fellow passengers showed no limits, with the young American in the aisle offering me a skin coloured micropore plaster and the older Vietnamese French gentleman in the middle seat carefully placing the plaster on my forehead! Otherwise, the full flight was pleasant enough with a service of small muffins and drinks, just the same as you would get on the Paris to London flight. We arrived quite late at a very rainy CDG, making my connection very tight.

Boarding the final CDG-GVA flight just as the gate was closing, I came face to face with the same purser from the CDG-MAD flight two weeks earlier. Trips like this are always that bit nicer when you get to know the people working for the company. I was simply grateful that the flight took off on time and we arrived early into Geneva. That way, without checked luggage, I shot out of the airport and made it on time to my rehearsal. Oddly, the food service was somewhat better than that on the previous, longer flight. A vegetarian wrap with cream cheese was served along with reasonably ok white wine.

So, remember to be careful when you are jetlagged or tired (or being a plonker in Palma) and slow your movements down. It's amazingly easy to do a dumb thing like what I did before boarding that flight.

Total cost of this trip on AF G-class, which was the inbound of a round trip ticket (BSL-CDG-MAD-CDG-GVA): EUR128. Now, this could be quite interesting for future XP runs because that would yield 20XP for just EUR32 per segment and 5XP, quite a good price in my opinion.

Fabo.sk

That's very good indeed. My limit for "good value" XP run is about 10€ per XP as it seems so far, so getting under 7 does sound good.

Also good hearing about your experiences with the lunch and all. I definitely plan to visit Spain this year so this might come in handy. There seems to be a good number of A330 flights on weekends on AMS-MAD into June. Or maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch a 787 flight. There's one in end of April, but that's not a good date. Seems to be a one on June 22nd, soo... Not that good a value per XP (best I could get is about 13€) but still...
Another funny thing is, on some combinations of AMS-MAD-BCN, business is actually cheaper in at least one direction than non-light economy.

glennhaak

On tuesday the 24th of April (and many other days in May/June) you can fly AMS-CDG-BCN-CDG-AMS in business which will yield 60XP for around €400, not even €7 per XP.

Apparently since I do not have sufficient posts yet I cannot post the url here, but you guys know how to find it

Fabo.sk

I'm not surprised by that Air Europa routing ties in to my other interest though, which is chasing widebodies in Europe. Especially in business class, it makes it more worthwhile.

f0zzyNUE

4 segment AZ European business class fares are now down to 322€ (MUC-FCO-MAD-FCO-MUC) -> 60XP

Concerto

Jolly good deal, that. No GDS charge on AZ if you book via an OTA either!

I wanted to reply to Fabio.sk above that even the posh places will serve you a reasonable Menu del Dia at lunchtime in Madrid. Some bargains to be had there at good tables.

I haven’t got around to checking my FB account yet. I sure hope I have got Gold for two years...

Solevita

Great price! If only AZ were bookable from GOT

AlicorporateUK

Back in the days, you would have at least been able to fly from ARN (and on a MD80!), which was solidly in the ample (back then) AZ network from MXP Still, you could get a positioning flight to MUC and go for a nice mileage run.

G

Concerto

Having checked my account now, it's difficult to say but it states I have 210 XPs. So I would assume that this is good for qualifying for Gold for 2019 anyway. It just says I need to collect 300 XPs for Platinum, which I won't bother doing! Even if it somehow doesn't work out that I keep Gold through 2019, I don't regret the mileage runs one little bit!

Solevita

Where did you find these prices, was there a short lived discount at the weekend? Cheapest I can find is €350...

Solevita

You could try and fine-tune your flights over the next 9 months such that you gather the extra 90 XPs for Plat close to the end of the year. That way you would have Gold till almost the end of this year, upgrade to Plat before 2019, have Plat till the end-ish of 2019 (+ 3months?) then have a soft landing for another 12 months of Gold.

f0zzyNUE

I did not check the fare conditions and offer timeframe - just browsed kayak.de and found these ticket prices in spring and summer. 350€ is still a good price.

Concerto

You know, I must have somehow read this all wrong or in too much of a hurry, because I am so busy at the moment. But I thought I had to collect 300 XPs in the remainder of 2018 now, not the difference of 300 and 210. I will have to reread it and study my account again. You know, even for us so called experts, it's not easy to read and understand correctly this. And I am fuming about the unreal surreal mess over at TopBonus, the ex FFP of airberlin (they have just confiscated all out remaining miles as part of their insolvency proceedings).