Flying Yazata

Just throwing in a backup idea for the organising committee, in case there's a need for SEA spare ideas, besides ALK and BA:

https://www.museumofflight.org/Plan-...with-the-Queen

Four persons for $747 and I suspect a proper group would get an even better price. Not precisely cheap, but it's after all a 747-100 with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, except those aren't served on board (damn, I will never experience the upper deck lounge of the 100 series). Just a thought that crossed my mind.

ISTFlyer

Suggestion recorded. Thank you.

estrangeiro8

Fantastic job ISTFlyer and Nephoi for organising this, and the incredible hard work put in by you as well as support and advice from other FTers. I've just submitted my responses to the poll - this looks like it will be an epic do!

ISTFlyer

Dear folks,

It’s already two months since we opened this thread and now is the time for the organizing committee to evaluate results and shape the DO’s. Thus, the poll is now closed.

The organizing committee has completed the analysis of the poll and the plans/dates/itineraries would be throughly planned depending on the poll responses.

• We would organize 2 DO’s in the summer and the third DO would be postponed to Fall 2022. Los Angeles and Seattle/Everett DO’s would be handled in the summer while the Bay Area DO would be done in the fall. These are the top three destinations in the poll. Seattle/Everett DO remains as the main DO.
• Based on feedback, there wouldn’t be any B2B DO as planned earlier. Each DO would at least have a blank week between them.
• Based on feedback, the scenic routing via Helsinki is re-considered for the eastbound legs. However, the main DO wouldn’t be affected from this change. ( obviously you will have the opportunity to book a detour over HEL on the inbound leg on the main DO but you might be split from the remainder of the crowd in North America and miss a DO event based on the schedule )

Now, the next step is that we would be opening a second poll for small clarification details and shaping the small details regarding the first two DO’s so that we could make a better scheduling. We have also received some negative feedback about the high TWA Hotel pricing and we would still ask whether you would like or not like to stay at the TWA Hotel during a westbound layover. All price options of suggested itineraries are posted. For DO 2, the Los Angeles DO, we are looking for feedback about the structure of the DO and asking which city we should have our return layover at and if you want to do a side trip to another, nearby city (most likely LAS) and have a fun night there or if you want to stay at LA.

The second poll would stay open until 22 August 2021 23:59 ( GMT+3 ) and participation is encouraged but not mandatory. For parts that are not covered in the second poll, the responses in the first poll would be considered.

After evaluating results of the second poll, the organizing committee would be coming up with dates and itineraries.

You could access the second poll here: https://forms.gle/ietKeGYrWTzMa7u16

Also please don’t forget to check if your PM alert options at FlyerTalk is open so just in case we send a PM to you, you could get an e-mail notification and see our message without logging into FlyerTalk. To do this go to My FlyerTalk -> Select “Edit Options” from the menu on the left -> Then click on “Receive Email Notification of New Private Messages” and save changes.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to post something in the thread or send one of us a PM.

Thank you all for your interest and have a wonderful week.
Thanks for your interest. We're hoping that we'll see you there.
You were the last person to fill out the form before we head to the next stage.

Flying Yazata

Okay, I'll have to see which 1-2 DOs I might attend. Right now there's a great probability I'm anyway in SEA around the same time as the SEA DO is planned to go ahead, so I might attend another DO for some actual flying, since I will book my return from SEA shortly.

Not directed at ISTFlyer, but generally speaking:

Don't favour via HEL just because of the non-Schengen AY Platinum Wing lounge. Do not. Period. Only do it for TPs or having a different route for a change.

Honestly speaking it's not worth to route via HEL because of the lounge. The á la carte is only open during office hours (10 or 11 AM/1000 or 1100 to 5 PM/1700, at least before the pandemic), which is something absolutely bonkers - like, erm, especially the late night AY to SIN and BKK don't get any of that. The portion sizes aren't anything great, but you can of course amend the situation with the buffet options. It's not really better than e.g. BA CCR or Galleries First for food. Also, if you compose a DO routing from JFK via HEL back to Europe, be aware of having a somewhat tired A330-300 in the C cabin. I mean, yes, it's not like AA, IB and BA are always top notch in C, but it's not a cabin I'd give accodales for. Also: on the eastbound you will have the downscaled meal service, which isn't pandemic related.

Just some pointers, since I don't wish anyone to have too high expectations and route via HEL without sufficient knowledge and because of that lounge in particular.

If some return routing is via HEL, I'd be happy to assist with anything HEL related. However I personally rather return with e.g. AA via ZRH or MXP. I've been too many times to HEL. Plus I currently have booked so many AY longhauls to/from the US, so any further would be a bit too much for me. I selected LHR out of the two options in the second poll.

The Los Angeles DO is a bit tricky IMO. The idea of a domestic TP run is appealing, but I suspect it will split the group, unless it's a destination with multiple bookable routings, thus being viable in terms of capacity. So e.g. DEN, SLC and BOI may work, but e.g. YUM would be quite the SOL grade option. LA by itself isn't very exciting to me. I suspect we really need some great program for it to be interesting by itself. But I'm open to all great ideas. Overall I'm mainly picky about what itinerary I actually end up booking, plus any additional domestic TP run. If I haven't been to Victorville, CA next spring on one of my trips, a drive there could be interesting.

I personally find any East Coast TATL gateway to be fine in both directions. In the poll I was fine heading directly to SEA or whatever destination. Only a handful don't get me and 1-2 guests any lounge (not counting AA Admirals Club) with some card on the inbound, but out of curiosity I can also do e.g. RDU. If JFK happens to be the inbound TATL gateway on a DO trip I attend, I can choose another hotel or alter my personal routing, if the TWA Hotel quotes some obscure price. So I don't really have any personal affirmative opinion about TWA Hotel for the time being.

As I've previously indicated, I'm personally considering doing the return TATL as a daytime flight from BOS or ORD. Also happy to have others join in. That's in case there's good company and we're all chatty.

Nephoi

i share your thoughts on LA, but the crowd voted. thats how it works. tbh when doing the scenic route, we're arriving Thu night/Friday morning and returning on monday. there will be programme for that two days, including anaheim, the beaches, whatever.... a daytrip TP run obviously has to split up cause of 12/16 First Class seats in an aircraft. but that obviosuly wont be a problem.

ISTFlyer

HEL was most likely asked by others based on the additional 80 Tier Points, not because of the AY Lounge.
If there were other 80TP routes possible, then we would have evaluated those.

As this idea was recently implemented, we are still working on whether we should do a B2B or a full day trip at a city.
There are some manually entered comments such as " I would appreciate making this as much of a TP run as possible " and similar comments.

**********************

Based on a comment that was left on the poll
"On the return, would the schedule allow a night stop in HEL and a connection via LHR to SOF the next day? I don't want to stay one night in HEL AND one night in LHR. Surely there can be some who stay in HEL and some who continue on to LHR."

No, it's either one night in LHR or one night in HEL.
No double overnighting at hotels on the return in Europe.

Flying Yazata

Indeed, which is why I'm following with interest how these DOs will shape up.

I suspect the main difference here is between those who want to maximise the TPs and those who want to have more casual DO program.

I personally don't belong to either camp, since I'm keeping an open mind (e.g. like flying back daytime) and I can always adjust my own itinerary, depending on how the final DO programs turn out and which DO/DOs I can attend. I'm confident that you and Nephoi will finish with good plans for the DOs.

The aforementioned preference in the poll for TP maximisation is fine by me, but it would mean then flying only maximised routings and discard any e.g. JFK CCR considerations (i.e. is there enough pre-boarding hours for LPGS). In that case only e.g. SOF-LHR-HEL-JFK-CLT-LAX should be permitted. And of course one should hope it becomes CLT-SMF-LAX and so forth.

ISTFlyer

Just to let you know SOF-LHR-HEL-xxx is not possible with a Wednesday departure and increases the minimum length of the DO to 10 days as we would need to leave Sofia on a Monday. + With the long overnight layovers in London & Helsinki and additional costs, it's definitely not worth in cash/TP sense.

ISTFlyer

Dear folks, a kind reminder that the second poll ( regarding small details about DO 1 & DO 2 ) is open and we are looking for your suggestions.

Here is the link for that poll.
https://forms.gle/ietKeGYrWTzMa7u16

The poll would close this Sunday so that we could plan accordingly.
T-330 for the first possible DO date is approaching.

Two weeks would be selected from the dates below for DO 1 and DO 2:

13 July - 20 July ( pre-DO event in Sofia: 12 July )
20 July - 27 July ( pre-DO event in Sofia: 19 July )
27 July - 3 August ( pre-DO event in Sofia: 26 July )
10 August - 17 August ( pre-DO event in Sofia: 9 August )
17 August - 24 August ( pre-DO event in Sofia: 16 August )

PGberkshire

Done, thank you

ISTFlyer

A friendly reminder that the planning stage is coming to an end within the next few days and the itinerary would be revealed for the first two DO's.
The second poll is live and would close within the next 24 hours and later on, the organizing committee would be making the final touches on the schedule before we start booking our TP runs in the next few days.

https://forms.gle/ietKeGYrWTzMa7u16

Flying Yazata

Currently it looks like this is the only timing that won't be possible for me, since I will most likely be out of state until Sunday that week. I will be in SEA around the likely return timing of that DO TP run, but I've just arrived there then. The next alternative is also tricky, unless I would stay longer in SEA. So I suspect I'll have to attend the other DO then.

ISTFlyer

Dear folks, our first DO to Seattle/Everett on 13-20 July is now bookable.
Please check your PM box within the next few minutes. ( We are sending information via PM gradually - to avoid any overwhelm ) Based on poll submission date

All information would be available publicly at the thread within the next few days.

ISTFlyer

Dear folks,

Everyone who have filled the polls should have now received a FlyerTalk PM.
If you have filled out the poll and didn't receive information through PM, please indicate that on another PM or ping me an alert on this thread so I could re-send the details to you.

These two usernames on the poll doesn't exist on FlyerTalk so if you are one of these people, send me a PM for more information.