intuition

This is my 10 000 th post on flyertalk, proving nothing more than I've spent far too much time of my life here. I've spent a fair amount of time in the air too, and passing this milestone makes me feel the urge to evaluate just that.
Was all that flying a complete waste of time and money? My internal judges are still out on that one, so I decided to do a write-up of it all and get judged by the community instead.

This is not a trip-report. Possibly a trip report from a large chunk of my life's journey, if you will. However, I'm publishing this in the Finnair fora where I believe it is a better fit, as the framework of the story is the platinum tier.



The long read
This is going to be a long read. I will cover my ten seasons of Finnair platinum status, starting in 2009 up until the present. There is no escaping that writing about such a long period of travelling alone is going to be rather self-centred. I'm going to try to make it as coherent as possible, yet condensed to the major events. But keeping it short will not be possible. Enter this thread at your own discretion

To protect the innocent, names and situations may have been slightly and/or cleverly modified, without destroying the moral of the story. Other than that it is as true to actual events as my recollection allows me. Mostly. As someone wise once said: "never let the truth ruin a good story".

To make it slightly more likely that you, the frequent flyer reader, has the stamina to stick with me to the end, I feel I need to offer some fitting motivational perks. At stake therefore are 8 shorthaul upgrades, 2 longhaul upgrades and a gold card. Contestants might be judged in the following categories:

• Spot the höpö ("this can't be true!")
• "Hey, I know that song!"
• "OK, that's me you are talking about!" (and I am publicly admitting to it)

And indeed, this is if I manage to stick with the task for as long as it takes. I have surprisingly vivid memories of many of the trips. But do I have the ability to turn all these flight memories into entertaining stories? Feel free to motivate me along the long and winding road if you want to see this project through to the end.

FFlash

intuition

Precursory - the early years
Before 2009, I very rarely travelled anywhere. By air even less.
A few moments are worth mentioning though, as they may have laid a foundation in the making of yet another 'idiot' as we call ourselves here on the FT Finnair fora.

In 1992 I flew Braathens to Oslo Fornebu in order to participate in the pan nordic military reservists triathlon. I and the other Swedish contestants were happy amateurs and we got thoroughly beaten by the Finnish reservists, who pretty much all were in the national Olympic team. But the flying was good, and on the return the FA proactively offered brandy for my coffee - "It is sunday after all!", she said and indeed it was a good treat for a broken body and sprit.

In 2001, as a product manager, I was told to fly to NA to market my product portfolio for a possible expansion of our company. The company I worked for was full scale cheapskate, and I flew on the cheapest ticket the gnarly secretary could ever find, which was a crappy KLM connection via AMS. On my first ever TATL trip I was bumped off of the longhaul as the incoming KL commuter flight was slightly delayed, despite me arriving at the gate long before boarding even started. Was reinstated on the flight thanks to some no-shows, but got the crappiest seats ever, like in the middle of 5 a seat bench, or whatever the config was. Bags were left behind in AMS, and for the entire week they were chasing me from hotel to hotel, always arriving the day after I left for a new city. You know, all the good stuff that really reinforced my old mantra: Man, do I hate travelling!

I was travelling with one of the company's founders, and on one trip he did a tactical mistake and showed me his EB gold card. (Remember the cheapskate travel policy? Apparently only valid for top level management, not for founders...). And on one of our TATL flights, after being seated in 58Ö, a flight attendant came and asked if she could bother us with moving to business class.
No full flats back then, and entertainment was portable mini-DV cassette players but never the less vastly better than the back of the bus. I got a glimpse of what Gold card could mean.
In the end, there was no NA expansion and my company travel ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

In 2004, my skills were needed in the northern part of Sweden, and I found myself taking time off from regular work in order to fly weekly across the country to a customer in dire straits. I then remembered the gold card thing and was planning to let the customer pay for one of those "season tickets" SK offered back then; all you can fly domestically for a fixed amount with status guaranteed.
But single-person consultancy for company in dire straits can also end quickly. I made some good money and points though.

In 2005, my EB account warned me about points expiring and I just looked at the award-table and booked whatever would burn them all: CPH-PVG, with outbound in J and homebound in Y.
It was by far the worst time of my life. The 90's charter trip to Turkey, with 2 weeks of 40+ degrees heat, no air-condition and a lusty local bacterial flora keeping me and my 'ring of fire' near a toilet at all times, suddenly seemed like a dream vacation.

The flying to PVG wasn't the problem, but China itself. Getting lost, getting scammed, not knowing how to order food, and finally just refusing to leave my hotel room for the last few days. Splurged my last 2000 RMB on a upgrade on the return and most certainly decided I was done with travelling.


OK, that was about it. Some other domestic flying, like occasional business trip or sneaking off to Stockholm with what I hoped to be a mistress, turned out disappointing and probably did not affect my later travel pattern much.

I think we are now ready to embark on the real journey.

ffay005

Well, I beat you to PVG and China. I queued at Stockmann Crazy Days and managed to get exactly the dates I wanted for flights in July 2004. The direct AY flight cost €445 and got me 9172 LX miles, almost half the price of a European award (20 k).

My hotel cost €32 a night and was called Seventh Heaven. What an exaggeration! But the hotel was okay, not any worse than your basic Sokos hotel in Finland. It was funny witnessing Chinese customers and Chinese receptionists not understanding each other until they took out a pen and paper and started writing, in Chinese of course.

I got scammed, too. The taxi driver gave me a false banknote as change when I went back to the airport. And I would have needed that banknote to pay for the exit tax. Fortunately, a nearby airport shop agreed to change some dollars into yuan so I could pay the tax.

Otherwise, Shanghai was okay and only in 2012 did I realise that it was faaaar more Western than Chonqing, which was anything but. The Bund and the aquarium made an impression on me, the rest of the city not so. I'm still not a China fan, but those two trips have given me memories I could not have gotten anywhere else. Like in Shanghai, when I went to some ordinary folks' eatery, pointed at a random bowl my neighbour was having, and got some strange grey meat. I never found out what it was, and I didn't even want to. I was far more adventurous back then.

Looking forward to hearing more from you! This makes me look back on my early days of travelling. How different it was, and how well I remember everything. Of my recent travels, I don't seem to remember much. I argued with a friend today who claimed that I had been to NYC last September. I thought it was June, because in September I was in BKK. Well, turns out we were both right. I had just forgotten that in September 2018, I was both in BKK and NYC...

on22cz

Höpö! This can't be true because you offer more than AY usually does in any form of gamification.

intuition

^


And Oh, this thread is likely going to be such a mess! Because someone's memories is going to trigger another one's!

Before Shanghai, I heard so much about Chinese massage. So on that trip I tried to get one. But I couldn't locate the renowned institution on town and went to the hotel provided one. 100RMB seemed expensive, but then again, she would come to my room which seemed more convenient.
She apparently knew nothing about massage, just squeezed me randomly. After a while, squeezing came closer to the private area than I was used to. And then.. squeezing of nothing but private area. I was certain police would soon break down the door and arrest us for prostitution and I stopped her.
Only years later did I learn that there is a thing called 'happy ending' and of course one has never been offered to me since.

intuition

Nope, I am more resourceful and generous than AY apparently!
Nice try though, you know how to play the game!

ylefin

These stories, all that will come, deserve to be published for a large audience. Somehow I feel they will be. Just waiting for the next episodes!

intuition

Part one - getting started

In 2008 I was dating a calamity from Stockholm. You can understand already from this attribute it didn't end well, but nevertheless this relationship introduced me to weekly air-commuting with TF on GOT-BMA. Flying wasn't my first choice, but with massive delays every week on the highspeed train, I was practically forced to the air. Regardless the reason, doing such a regular commute I was slowly taught all the virtues of frequent flyer status. Not that I was anywhere near achieving it, but I came to understand it fully. That small yellow lounge I passed every Friday after work looked so cool...

With dating comes extended family and in this case it turned out to be in the ring that influences state and public of the two nations. This was also my first real exposure to Finland and I realised how poorly educated I was on its history. It was fascinating to learn though, as it was so clear to my freshly opened eyes how closely the two nations are linked.

I was also forced to quickly learn how form, discipline and self-control are the mechanisms needed to safely navigate the murky waters of ambitious yet dysfunctional families. In these circles protocol is everything and while I am no stranger to conducting myself properly in official circumstances, this was at an entirely new level for me.

Protocol demanded that we, the calamity and I, spent time on some private islands in the Finnish archipelago in order to be introduced to one branch of the family. I assumed it was in order to be approved for continued relationship, but hey, maybe they were just being nice to me.
I july 2009 the offer/challenge was accepted and I booked the flight ARN-HEL on Finnair. For some reason, which is still beyond me, I decided to sign up for Finnair plus onboard the plane. (Like I said, I was now well aware what status meant, it was just that I knew it was rather unobtainable without massive flying, preferably on company dime.)

At a family dinner, I felt the need to assert myself and for the official thank-you speech after the meal (required by protocol), I chose to recite a rather well-known poet. The poem first seemed to be decently received at the table, when head of family spoke:
-Oh, that's a good one. How is he by the way? We are alumni but haven't spoken for awhile.

From here it was rather downhill and as endearing as you all know I am and despite deploying all my sauna-skills, my introduction to Finnish high society was not really saveable. I'm not going to cover more details, other than saying it quickly became clear to me that more flights to Finland was not forthcoming.

However, out of this brief visit to the upper echelons of society came a luxurious cardboard membership card in the Finnair plus program.




Naturally, the points for this my first ever Finnair flight, never posted to the account. Pointless, single and ready to close this chapter of my life, I put the card in a box and forgot all about Finnair and stupid loyalty programs.

clifford79

"Hey, I know that song!" And it's most definitely not "2007" by the artist "IFPI platinum sales certificate", although the "platinum" keyword certainly does fit in this thread.

I'm looking forward to the next installations of the story!

emulator

OK, thats me you talking about Years ago I joined AY plus for some reason, maybe for perks but dont really know why because I flew so rarely. Years went by and I discovered this forum.Then moved to another city where from I am taking now commuter ATR connection flights and looking to be this summer a Silver and later on Gold.
Back then I didnt even imagine to get this high though. AY should make occasionally some fast track status runs for new members so they can get hooked on earnings and flying. Otherwise the card will be in the shoebox deep in the closet.

Eyrie

I joined around the time the retro-cards were designed as well! I remember getting that card, and even taking a photo of the retro-design coffee cups on board because I thought they looked nice.

Then I think I briefly made Silver-level (an achievement for a poor student!), and once back on the basic I got the white card I still have. It's never of any use so its white colour is slowly turning into yellowish as the plastic (presumably) reacts with air in the box where I keep it. I'm hoping after a few years it'll be yellow enough to pass off as a gold card

I guess my AY+ story was about 1% of what you're writing!

duvin

I call höpö on forgetting stupid loyalty programs

Jainzar

The song was platinum in 2007 (IFPI Sverige).

cistavoda

As good a read as this is, the live version at intuition's mökki DO was better!