Mountlodge

Only time I've ever flown the 717 was island hopping in Hawaii on HA

Ditto: Did HNL-KON-HNL back in 2016. Was in Business Class as well. The experience was nothing to write home about and still to this day I've never known such a fast taxi-ing to the runway (I seriously thought after pushback we were going straight for take-off!). Being inter island though the views were amazing.

ML

bisonrav

And with a further three Spanish flights, there I was, home. Or at least after a taxi ride home - because my work trips ended up at LHR and started at LGW I invoked the work taxi rule, even if I was, strictly speaking, returning 24 hours or so after the last work segment. So I used the usual firm I use, and the driver this time was Mario, who's a great guy, and turns out to be Romanian. So I picked his brains a bit about Bucharest (which I now know to be a very different place to Budapest) and I'm considering a proper holiday in OTP, without even going to Phoenix.

Conclusions about Iberia in J? Well it's very similar to BA in a lot of ways, but I don't think quite as good for the catering. There was no central seat divider and the world didn't come to the end, even if the couple in row 1 of the first flight occupied 1A and 1B rather than their allocated 1A and 1C. I considered a tut or two, but decided I was a guest in their country and their premium seating arrangements are really an affair for them. The Spanish are very good indeed at enforcing priority boarding by the way. Call me Mr National Stereotyper if you like, but I really wasn't expecting that.

Big recommendation for the Melia Barajas, lovely hotel and I'd have liked to have spent more time there. Not very impressed with the Dali lounge, very limited food selection and crowded - the lounge in the Air Shuttle section of the terminal in Barcelona was enjoyable - not much food but a selection of sausage and cold cuts plus some fabulous chocolate milk. Life isn't all about LPGS.

teledude

Don't try mixing the chocolate milk with fizz....it doesn't end well as a few here will testify when I tried it...don't ask why

bisonrav

Is it not basically Bailey's?

MrMutton

bisonrav

Leaving the chocolate fizz to one side - bringing to mind as it does an unfortunate occasional side effect of trips to tropical parts - I've been doing a few bookings for a family trip to Malaysia in September. We're on the ex-AMS fare via BKK, with a CX leg I'm very much looking forward to, with the LHR legs being the first and only CW I'll have done this year, but the bookings today are for general travelling around. We're constrained because of flight timings to take an Air Asia to get to Sarawak, where I couldn't resist grabbing row 1 for a tenner each. They sting you for extras and fees in classic LCC manner, though generally the additional fees are fairly low. I like Air Asia, generally it's well organised and efficient.

The trip is timed around a family wedding in Sibu, and I'm trying to find ways to tactfully explain to my incredulous Chinese in-laws that despite the flight from Kuching to Sibu on Air Asia being much more comfortable (on an A320 I think) and a third of the price, I'd actually rather try the ATR72. Not for the TPs - it's MASWings and doesn't qualify - but just to try it out during this flying year. I'm not hopeful I'll be allowed to do any village hopping in the Twin Otters, sadly. The in-laws have been following my progress this year via Facebook and I think it's fair to say my wife has been getting more than her usual share of parental concern and enquiries about just why it is that I'm doing about 7 flights on any given weekend.

One irritation today though was that having transferred Nectar points to Expedia after qualifying for the Amex bonus, I found I can't spend them on flights, just packages. Vexing.

bisonrav

No flights now for nearly a week. But I have managed to slip in a J booking on MH for the family holiday in September for KCH to SIN, there are some excellent fares available and it seemed rude not to take one. I'm hoping to sample the famous satay, though to be honest it'll be going some to beat the coffee shops around Kuching.

Today was the day of the interview for global entry too. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the whole experience has a vaguely Kafkaesque feel (the trial rather than the cockroach bit). You're sent into an essentially empty visa processing building, told to go upstairs and sit down in a cavernous and empty floor, and then nothing else. The small gaggle of interviewees seemed to agree by unspoken accord to be processed in order of arrival, which was handy for me as I was extremely early. Every now and again, at not particularly fixed intervals, one of two doors would open, and someone would leave, before a tannoy asked the next interviewee to enter.

Eventually my turn came, and I was confronted with a small room containing a heavy screen with a post office style tray to pass passports through. A very nice but rather muffled Irish woman on the other side of the screen asked me a few questions about who I worked for, why I visited the US, how often I went to such and such a place, and then gave a lot of useful advice about how to use AA bookings to get TSA precheck because BA didn't participate, and how to use the machines in immigration before sternly exclaiming: "IT'S JUST FOR YOU, YOU KNOW THAT?" with the kind of steely look in the eye you don't argue with. I agreed, gave my fingerprints, and left, fully approved.

Regrettably, it will be August before I get to try this out, unless the Isle of Man is somehow annexed by the US government. One can but hope, I'm rather enthused by the idea.

bisonrav

A little joyride today - killing two birds with one RFS. Firstly I wanted to try out the Saab 2000 which is operated out of LCY by Eastern Air (in BA livery) to get another plane type onto my stats for the year. And I also wanted to try LCY itself, having not flown from there for years. So I booked myself a redemption to the Isle of Man for a not quite but almost B2B.

A very early start to ensure I had some slack in the travel saw me on a train at 5.30am, and I got to LCY about 730 for the 850 flight, so really plenty of time. It was rammed presumably because of the bank holiday weekend, but fairly quick and efficient. It does seem to have changed a lot - I seem to recall some sort of circular hall with rather nice restaurants on the upper level, but it's now a rather cramped railway station style thing with shopping opportunities squeezed in in the departure area, so a lot more generic airport than I remember. But nice views of the runway, and plenty of power outlets. The untold story of this year is the search for power outlets, as my phone battery isn't what it once was.

Bus to the flight, one FA on the plane and the usual rather superior small plane experience, in that the seats were leather and comfy, reasonable personal space (helped that I had an exit row seat), and a meal/snack service. On the outbound it was quite a reasonable small breakfast of ham, cheese and croissant, on the way back a drink and bag of crisps, but it's better than nothing.

The venerable Saab had seen more touch ups than is quite dignified, the BA paintjob was caked on some of the external surfaces in the manner a diva a couple of decades past her declining years applies the mascara. But what struck me for a turboprop was how quiet it was. And some lovely views on a very clear day in London - the way back was a great trip along the Thames estuary to London, really enjoyed that. Isle of Man was nothing much - I mentally categorised it as "Jersey North" - and although I had a wander round the building inside and out, I headed for the lounge rather than attempt to go anywhere else. Decent lounge actually, not oversupplied with food but enough to survive.

So a nice flying day out. 0TP, obviously, but fun to do. Next week is a work trip to Vilnius on the AY A350 (to HEL) and we're back to earning again.

oxtailsoup

mmxbreaks

I may also gun for GGL this year. I'll have 3500 by new year's day with four months remaining, not accounting for unknown work travel between now and then...

bisonrav

It doesn't seem like all that much when you're actually doing it. In fact the summer is pretty quiet up to the PHX do, I thought it best to leave some space for work travel, though now I'm not aiming for free silver status from business travel I'm finding myself being less proactive about setting trips up. One other work related thing that's come up is that I'm doing some stand duty at the Farnborough Air Show exhibition in July, looking forward to that.

I just booked what will probably be the last flights of the calendar year, a quick weekend day trip to Geneva in December with the family to do a Christmas market. Stupidly cheap tickets those, the £50 returns. I'm being offered a POUG for £89 per direction, though not taking it.

bisonrav

So after rather a lot of essentially uneventful trips (beast from the East notwithstanding), things were due a correction. And by God, did I get one of those yesterday. On a fairly routine customer visit to Lithuania.

All started going awry on the Saturday when my car windscreen was cracked to the point of undriveability. Mentally patting myself on the back (it's much more difficult to do physically, I tend to need someone to help) for having the forethought to book parking with cancellation insurance, I cancelled it and booked myself onto National Express. This being a short haul, rules are that you can't take a taxi.

Tuesday dawned bright and fresh, lovely Spring day, and apart from some heavy traffic on the M25 all went well. Despite having a lot of kit in my carry-on, I got through an almost empty fast track security quickly and headed to CX First, where I had a very pleasant breakfast, and having taken a little tub of marmite from the Isle of Man lounge, I was able to finish the breakfast in great and delicious style without having to sully myself with an entry to the BA lounge. I took my second Cathay Delight to one of the chairs by the windows and settled in to do some emails.

At this point I noted a slight delay to the outbound flight, a Finnair A350. But thought nothing of it. I received a pro-active re-routing via Tallinn to Vilnius, getting in about 3 hours late, and started hoping for an EC261 bonus.

A little later the Finnair delay was extended. This gave about 25 minutes from schedule landing time to get to the Tallinn flight. Tight, but as the actual LHR->HEL time is shorter than the advertised one, and because I guessed they knew where we were and that we were coming, and because the flight wasn't heavily loaded, I figured that they'd hold it slightly. It's a 20 minute flight.

Very nice experience on a fairly new (2 years old) A350 in a good economy seat (second row of economy with no seat in front), and tried the Finnair BoB offer. Which isn't as good as BA, frankly. We duly arrived on the stand, and there seemed enough time to sprint to the gate.

And then the door didn't open for ages. And while waiting, numerous other passengers also on the Talliinn flight pushed past in a panic, taking essentially no prisoners. I was sure that they'd hold the plane given about half the passengers seemed to be on the incoming flight, So we de-planed, and made rapid progress down the Helsinki terminal, meeting on the way some Finnair staff who handed out new boarding passes and itineraries.

Helsinki is an easy airport to transfer in usually, but the incoming and outcoming gates were about as far apart as they can be. The floor is shiny and slippy and it's hard work moving at speed with a wheely bag full of demo kit. But we made it to gate 21A pretty quickly, only to find the gate had closed 1 minute previously. While catching our breath and panting, we were advised to go back to gate 31 where we would find a transfer desk. So back we went half way to the original gate, joined the priority line, and waited for an agent.

The agent wasn't what you would call hurried. She was chatting to a woman with a baby and friend, and taking a long time to issue and then explain whatever new boarding passes these people needed. It took twenty minutes. During this time, most of the passengers from LHR turned up and queued in the non-priority lane, which was being dealt with by a more efficient agent (slightly more efficient) who was booking them onto the next day's flight to Vilnius.

Eventually we got a turn and explained that we had to get there the same day if at all possible as we had a critical client meeting. The agent ummed and arred and clucked and told us that "no, that won't work" a few times, before finally settling on a three flight itinerary to Tallinn then Riga then Vilnius. "But, " she explained earnestly, "there are risks, you know?". She was still explaining the risks when we realised we had 12 minutes to get to the gate, grabbed the boarding passes from her, and headed back this time to 19A. Those extra two gates are sole destroying when you're hot, sweaty and tired and have been running up and down Helsinki airport for a while.

Anyway, the hop to Tallinn went off fine, and I was pleased to be in an ATR72 as I'm sort of collecting turboprop types now. A Norra flight, and as a bonus picked up an extra 15 TPs on top of the previous MMB total.

We got in next to the desk for the flight we had previously been booked on to Vilnius, which the desk agent had told us we wouldn't make on a rebooking and had ripped up our BP for. On asking if we could be allowed on, we were told no without going to the check in desk. At which point we consulted, remembered that there was a chance this flight would get us in within three hours of the original timing which on the face of things would seem a bad result, decided to accept the re-routing, and went for a beer.

The remainder of the evening passed in a bit of a blur of planes, but the next one was an Air Baltic Dash-8 - another turboprop for the collection - followed by an Air Baltic 737. While waiting to board that there seemed to be virtually no-one on it, so I reassigned myself from a middle seat to an aisle. And then an endless chain of humanity straggled on, completely filling the plane. A very nice and none overhangingly slim girl sat in my original seat without checking her pass, then eventually the owner of my seat turned up - it turned out that my colleague was in the wrong row completely, the girl should have been in the window seat, I should have been in the middle, and this big bloke should have had the aisle. But he just smiled shrugged and sat in the row in front, actually in a middle seat though he had the aisle booked. That man is a saint. So it ended up a reasonable flight. Four flights in total in the day and a respectable 7 hours late.

We got to the hotel about midnight, and essentially crashed straight out. So it wasn't until the morning when we met a German colleague who explained that if anything his day had been worse than ours. His hire care had got stuck in reverse gear, and he was forced to drive backwards around the streets of Vilnius to the bewilderment and sometime fury of the locals to find a place to stop and call for assistance. It somehow made our experience easier to tolerate.

Tomorrow the return. Has got to be easier, just the two flights and a possible visit to Finnair Premium. Seems a hell of a lot of trouble to go to for 60 TP total. Onwards and upwards, wish me luck.

bisonrav

Fair to say I like Vilnius. What a wonderful city it is, absolutely lovely architecture, nice cafes and restaurants, and for this trip at least lovely weather. A couple of client visits and a four flight marathon is a small price to pay for a nice evening out. Which culminate in a hot chocolate which turned out to be pure hot chocolate, which seems like a wonderful idea until ten minutes later when you have chocolate hallucinations.

And for once a sensible schedule for the return flights. VNO to HEL around 11, so plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast before the 10 minute Uber to the airport from the old town. Vilnius has a pleasant but not outstanding lounge, bacon flavour crisps, and a lot of bottled water and fizzy drinks, a couple of which unaccountably found their way into my bag for the flights. Very good Norra flight, good crew, and an E190 this time. I managed 6 flights and 6 different plane types this trip. Even better, we arrived at gate 28, right next to the passport gates, so it was really a very leisurely stroll to the Premium lounge, which is probably in my top five. Nice smoked fish soup, cooked smoked salmon appetisers, and slider style burgers (not as good as GF though).

And on the home leg I even got a proper gold greeting. The purser squatted down conspiratorially, greeted me by name (holding the computer printout carefully behind her back lest I thought she was using it as a crib sheet, heaven forfend!) and offered me my choice of free newspaper. And then explained that I was welcome to any drink from the BoB free of charge, "even..", and she winked, "the champagne!".

It would have been rude to refuse, so ten minutes later when the BoB reached me, I explained to the FA that the purser had offered me a free drink. Of course the purser hadn't bothered to explain, so there were a few confused moments, she asked to see my card then said it was Gold not Sapphire, offered me a blueberry juice, and then (following, I regret to admit, a minor DYKWIA moment) was persuaded to go and ask the purser. She came back very apologetic and handed me a mini bottle of champagne which pretty much knocked me out for the remainder of the flight.

And that was more or less it, were it not for a curious incident at the central bus station. Usually with National Express, if you're early for a coach they let you on the next one with space onboard, which is all of them pretty much. But this driver was a bit of a jobsworth, and looked carefully at my pass and told me I'd have to get the one I had booked, about two hours later. I was just about to launch into a bit of a rant at him when he picked up my bag, stowed it away, and told me he'd take me anyway. Never had anything like that before.

Next trip in two weeks, an overnighter to an exhibition in Parma.

flyer200

@bisonrav would some of this have been possible / easier just doing cash upgrades on your work trips albeit less fun?

bisonrav

I've done a bit of that - not possible on this particular work trip because it was Finnair based so wouldn't have made any difference to the TPs. Also a cash upgrade of a WT+ long haul direct flight generally isn't drastically good value compared with a multihop QR trip for example, or the PHX fare. I've taken a couple of cash upgrades for short haul work trips coming up to Bologna and Nice, though I'm massively overshooting the target as things currently stand. Gives me a bit of wriggle room. The current total by the end of the calendar year is 5710 if everything booked is travelled, plus probably one or two LH work trips.