I’ve been a member of the BAEC for 19 years. This time last year I had 4,000 lifetime tier points (yes bisonrav that was over 18 years not 18 weeks!) and I’d made the dizzy highlights of silver twice and had been bronze 4 or 5 times.

Last October to mark a major birthday I got a great deal and flew F to AUH going from 0 to 500 tier points in one go (I’m EDI based). Then, earlier this year I found Flyer Talk and thanks to the collective wisdom of this community latched on to some excellent value ex-INV flights booking the summer holiday from INV to ORD (me in F and Mrs R.O.U.S and 2 x r.o.u.s in CW).

Having gained 1,000 TPs in two trips and enjoyed F flights on 789, 380 and 747 aircraft you can probably see where this is going.

At the moment my travel is exclusively for leisure so silver status is useful for booking seats, fast track and lounge access. Gold is totally pointless but I’ve enjoyed the flying and wanted to see what a TP run was like.

So I headed to PDX. To prove that I’m not a true TP runner I committed 3 major sins. Firstly I flew EDI-LHR-JFK-LAX-PDX-ORD-LHR-EDI for 580 TPs as opposed to maximising at 720. Secondly, rather than going there for a few hours I went for a long weekend and spent 21 hours in NY on the way and 20 hours in Chicago on the way back at no extra flight cost and finally I checked a bag (hangs head in shame).

This made no financial sense but I really enjoyed it and got, amongst other things, to try out 64K on the 747 UD, Flagship lounges at JFK, LAX and ORD, AA1 (not quite the same as BA1), the AA 788 in 5C (to avoid the “motion over the ocean”) etc.

So I’ll be gold until the end of Nov 19 and then silver for another year. Much more effective to get the 465 TPs for 2 years of benefits than being silver for one year and having to get 600 TPs next year to maintain!?

As you’d expect, Mrs R.O.U.S is much more sensible. She was on 525 TP after the ORD trip so a weekend in London with her in CE (and me in the exit row in Y) got her to 605 TP with 3 days to spare.

Now I need to stay away from the TP run thread or at least wait until mid-October next year (or the year after) to get TPs early in the membership year to effectively get two years of benefits in one hit.

Thank you all (I think).

Welcome to FlyerTalk @R.O.U.S. and to the wonderful world of the binge frequent flyer. It’s good to see you here. Now that you’ve broken your duck I hope to see more of you within the forum especially so as you feed your hunger for travel.

Welcome aboard ^

Castelnau ..... ??

You’re not exactly risking much there

Not a bet I’m willing to take particularly as I’m not a fan of champagne.

Of course FT has also swayed me on this front. On my first F trip I declined champagne as I always would. However, I’d seen so many posts on LPGS and was naturally curious so when I was in the CCR this summer I had a small glass with lunch and then another on boarding prior to switching to some red.

I was unable to repeat on the return leg as they only had Castlenau!

This forum really should come with a health warning not only am I hooked on the TP run thread but you’re also changing my drinking habits.