Mini Trip Report(s): MR for kids
Feb 8, 2016, 12:28 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2008
Programs: EBG4Life, EBD, 1MM
Posts: 1,397
Mini Trip Report(s): MR for kids
Kids flying up front, kids in the lounge…oh the humanity. Surely this is the beginning of FTers nightmare trip! Nah, let’s be positive and see this as two future FTers, one working towards earning Gold status for the first time and the other renewing Gold for the first time. Without further ado, I bring you a mini-trip report for Mileage Running for Kids.
First let me start with a little background and motivation. This started out as a theoretical experiment and was never intended to be carried out. As posted in the SAS Offers thread, SAS had a Kids Fly Free campaign back in November where children paid only taxes when flying within Europe. This offer turned out to be valid in all booking classes, meaning that round trip, Full Flex Plus tickets (C class) could be purchased for 265 kr (about $31). The T&Cs did not state that the adult had to book in the same booking class, presumably as is not possible to book unaccompanied minors online
.
C class tickets within Europe are not suitable for mileage runs for the adult, but the cheapest Go (economy) tickets were pricing around 850 kr ($100) to various destinations and 1700 kr ($200) in the cheapest Plus. The CPM for the adult was 4cpm when the 25% bonus for EBG was accounted for (2500+2500). My wife was 4200 miles short of EBG, so the mileage run made sense for her. I ended up pulling two with the kids as they needed them to manage A3 Gold. The CPM for the kids was a different matter as I decided to credit their miles to A3. EBG was not possible for the other child, but A3 Gold would be achievable with other flights we had booked. C class on SK earns 200%, so the kids actually earned more miles on A3. In total, they manage 41288 miles on 3 direct turn MRs for $186… a stunning CPM of 0.45.
FT has experienced people buying enormous amounts of pudding for miles, paying to fly Thai farmers around for miles, etc. I don’t feel too out of place on FT, but our rationale was quite simple (even if it is flawed). Simply put, we hate Stockholm weather in January/February. The skies tend to be blue above 30000 feet. These views were a lot better than what we had back home.
Mountains
Lakes
We usually end up doing mundane chores around the house, shopping or lying around reading. The chores and shopping can wait 1 day, and we can just as well read on the plane. In the end I made the kids a deal. They could eat/drink what they wanted, would get Gold and could choose the destination when it comes time to spend the miles that we earned. I would pay for this if they promised to do their homework or do an extra reading assignment on books of my choice. It was a fair enough deal for us all^.
As for the flights, I won’t go into too many details as inter-European Plus is nothing special. Nevertheless, here are a few musings (from a kid’s perspective):
1. The best part of the drive to Arlanda is passing this 747 hostel, oddly enough sharing the same name as my daughter.
747 Hostel
2.Fast Track on a Saturday morning is not fast. The line started just around the corner, so we skipped over to the normal security lanes as things were moving faster. Oddly enough, there is a Kids Track that would have been fastest.
Slow Track
3. Lounge dragons are much nicer to kids than to adults. They also got a kick when my son wouldn’t be steered into the Business lounge, insisting that he could guest his sister into the Gold lounge.
4. They seem to remove the smoothies from the lounge around 9:15. They learned this on the first MR and made me prioritize getting to the lounge before 9:00. We can discuss champagne and alcohol all we want on FT, but the smoothies are what drives the kids.
5. The food on offer in the Gold lounge is just as unappetizing to the kids as it is to us. With that being said, they preferred the oatmeal in the lounge to the Plus meals. Somewhere FlyingMoose is nodding
. My wife argues that the food is good enough and deemed it worthy of a photo.
Plus Meal ex-ARN
Plus Meal ex-AGP
I regretted one part of the deal, which was they could eat/drink what they wanted on board. In the end I forced them to eat something in the lounge and they were nice enough to eat part of the Plus meal on one of the segments. This didn’t stop them from enjoying a chocolate muffin or two, but at least they had some real food.
6. The kids had a good laugh when they noticed that they were bringing the average age of the plane down substantially. One can imagine that flying off season to Spain meant that there was a lot of silver and white hair on board. We were all amazed at the beautiful line that the older Swedes formed. Hats off to them!
7. The kids learned pretty quickly that flying with a lot of older people had a few drawbacks. The first was during pre-boarding. The oldies did not seem to understand what pre-boarding meant and we got a lot of mean looks when forcing our way to the front of the line and then when everyone went past us while boarding. We learned our lesson and opted to board last, even if it took forever to get people on board.
8. The front Plus rows should be avoided on a 737. The extra leg room associated with the bulkhead sounds tempting, until you realize that you are closer to the galley and lav. The average old Swede takes ages in the lav, so there was always a line waiting. Perhaps that is no problem for an adult, but every old person felt the need to compliment the kids on being well behaved and reading/studying. One lady even pinched my daughter’s cheek. I now understand why the kids prefer the window and avoid the aisle seat.
Avoiding the aisle seat
9. After giving up on the bulkhead, the limited leg room of the 737 is not fun on a 4 hour flight, much less a direct turn. Travelling with kids actually gives adults a bit more leg room as one can angle their legs into other free spaces.However, this matters not to a child.
Leg room
Even better when you can stretch out over Pappa:
Even more leg room
10. My kids actually listen to the announcements after boarding. SAS has apparently altered the announcement regarding smoking, which now includes a statement on e-cigarettes not being allowed. The kids caught this difference and asked me what an e-cigarette is, which is not easy to clarify for someone who has no idea about smoking.
11. The lounges in Spain are horrible. We ended up just walking around to stretch our legs. I thought the food in SAS’s lounges was poor, but even worse exists. While they are large and quiet, there was nothing more to say. After being spoiled by the CX lounges in HKG over Christmas, the kids are getting a bit snobbish.
Lounge
12. The expression on the flights staffs’ faces was priceless when we hopped back on. The kids got a kick out of that.
Would we try this again? Perhaps, but likely not more than one. As it turned out we had vouchers that were going to expire, so the financial hit was almost nothing. Even with good flight times and sitting in Plus, 3 direct turn MRs in 3 consecutive weekends were a bit much. The kids were satisfied and managed to finish their math homework for the coming weeks, read several books and finish a presentation for school. To be honest, they were more efficient studying on board than they are at home. With their mother travelling for work during the week, we managed to have quite a bit of fun in the extra free time.
First let me start with a little background and motivation. This started out as a theoretical experiment and was never intended to be carried out. As posted in the SAS Offers thread, SAS had a Kids Fly Free campaign back in November where children paid only taxes when flying within Europe. This offer turned out to be valid in all booking classes, meaning that round trip, Full Flex Plus tickets (C class) could be purchased for 265 kr (about $31). The T&Cs did not state that the adult had to book in the same booking class, presumably as is not possible to book unaccompanied minors online
.C class tickets within Europe are not suitable for mileage runs for the adult, but the cheapest Go (economy) tickets were pricing around 850 kr ($100) to various destinations and 1700 kr ($200) in the cheapest Plus. The CPM for the adult was 4cpm when the 25% bonus for EBG was accounted for (2500+2500). My wife was 4200 miles short of EBG, so the mileage run made sense for her. I ended up pulling two with the kids as they needed them to manage A3 Gold. The CPM for the kids was a different matter as I decided to credit their miles to A3. EBG was not possible for the other child, but A3 Gold would be achievable with other flights we had booked. C class on SK earns 200%, so the kids actually earned more miles on A3. In total, they manage 41288 miles on 3 direct turn MRs for $186… a stunning CPM of 0.45.
FT has experienced people buying enormous amounts of pudding for miles, paying to fly Thai farmers around for miles, etc. I don’t feel too out of place on FT, but our rationale was quite simple (even if it is flawed). Simply put, we hate Stockholm weather in January/February. The skies tend to be blue above 30000 feet. These views were a lot better than what we had back home.
Mountains
Lakes
We usually end up doing mundane chores around the house, shopping or lying around reading. The chores and shopping can wait 1 day, and we can just as well read on the plane. In the end I made the kids a deal. They could eat/drink what they wanted, would get Gold and could choose the destination when it comes time to spend the miles that we earned. I would pay for this if they promised to do their homework or do an extra reading assignment on books of my choice. It was a fair enough deal for us all^.
As for the flights, I won’t go into too many details as inter-European Plus is nothing special. Nevertheless, here are a few musings (from a kid’s perspective):
1. The best part of the drive to Arlanda is passing this 747 hostel, oddly enough sharing the same name as my daughter.
747 Hostel
2.Fast Track on a Saturday morning is not fast. The line started just around the corner, so we skipped over to the normal security lanes as things were moving faster. Oddly enough, there is a Kids Track that would have been fastest.
Slow Track
3. Lounge dragons are much nicer to kids than to adults. They also got a kick when my son wouldn’t be steered into the Business lounge, insisting that he could guest his sister into the Gold lounge.
4. They seem to remove the smoothies from the lounge around 9:15. They learned this on the first MR and made me prioritize getting to the lounge before 9:00. We can discuss champagne and alcohol all we want on FT, but the smoothies are what drives the kids.
5. The food on offer in the Gold lounge is just as unappetizing to the kids as it is to us. With that being said, they preferred the oatmeal in the lounge to the Plus meals. Somewhere FlyingMoose is nodding
. My wife argues that the food is good enough and deemed it worthy of a photo.Plus Meal ex-ARN
Plus Meal ex-AGP
I regretted one part of the deal, which was they could eat/drink what they wanted on board. In the end I forced them to eat something in the lounge and they were nice enough to eat part of the Plus meal on one of the segments. This didn’t stop them from enjoying a chocolate muffin or two, but at least they had some real food.
6. The kids had a good laugh when they noticed that they were bringing the average age of the plane down substantially. One can imagine that flying off season to Spain meant that there was a lot of silver and white hair on board. We were all amazed at the beautiful line that the older Swedes formed. Hats off to them!
7. The kids learned pretty quickly that flying with a lot of older people had a few drawbacks. The first was during pre-boarding. The oldies did not seem to understand what pre-boarding meant and we got a lot of mean looks when forcing our way to the front of the line and then when everyone went past us while boarding. We learned our lesson and opted to board last, even if it took forever to get people on board.
8. The front Plus rows should be avoided on a 737. The extra leg room associated with the bulkhead sounds tempting, until you realize that you are closer to the galley and lav. The average old Swede takes ages in the lav, so there was always a line waiting. Perhaps that is no problem for an adult, but every old person felt the need to compliment the kids on being well behaved and reading/studying. One lady even pinched my daughter’s cheek. I now understand why the kids prefer the window and avoid the aisle seat.
Avoiding the aisle seat
9. After giving up on the bulkhead, the limited leg room of the 737 is not fun on a 4 hour flight, much less a direct turn. Travelling with kids actually gives adults a bit more leg room as one can angle their legs into other free spaces.However, this matters not to a child.
Leg room
Even better when you can stretch out over Pappa:
Even more leg room
10. My kids actually listen to the announcements after boarding. SAS has apparently altered the announcement regarding smoking, which now includes a statement on e-cigarettes not being allowed. The kids caught this difference and asked me what an e-cigarette is, which is not easy to clarify for someone who has no idea about smoking.
11. The lounges in Spain are horrible. We ended up just walking around to stretch our legs. I thought the food in SAS’s lounges was poor, but even worse exists. While they are large and quiet, there was nothing more to say. After being spoiled by the CX lounges in HKG over Christmas, the kids are getting a bit snobbish.
Lounge
12. The expression on the flights staffs’ faces was priceless when we hopped back on. The kids got a kick out of that.
Would we try this again? Perhaps, but likely not more than one. As it turned out we had vouchers that were going to expire, so the financial hit was almost nothing. Even with good flight times and sitting in Plus, 3 direct turn MRs in 3 consecutive weekends were a bit much. The kids were satisfied and managed to finish their math homework for the coming weeks, read several books and finish a presentation for school. To be honest, they were more efficient studying on board than they are at home. With their mother travelling for work during the week, we managed to have quite a bit of fun in the extra free time.
Last edited by livious; Feb 8, 2016 at 12:51 pm
Feb 8, 2016, 12:53 pm
#3
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Posts: 2,825
4. The food on offer in the Gold lounge is just as unappetizing to the kids as it is to us. With that being said, they preferred the oatmeal in the lounge to the Plus meals. Somewhere FlyingMoose is nodding. My wife argues that the food is good enough and deemed it worthy of a photo.
. My wife argues that the food is good enough and deemed it worthy of a photo.
5. The kids had a good laugh when they noticed that they were bringing the average age of the plane down substantially. One
10. The lounges in Spain are horrible. We ended up just walking around to stretch our legs. I thought the food in SAS’s lounges was poor, but even worse exists. While they are large and quiet, there was nothing more to say. After being spoiled by the CX lounges in HKG over Christmas, the kids are getting a bit snobbish.
Feb 8, 2016, 12:59 pm
#4
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Programs: EBG4Life, EBD, 1MM
Posts: 1,397
We had rather young crews, otherwise I would have guessed 7 years.The IB lounges are usually decent, good food also in the air. I avoid flying IB because their seats on intra-Europe Business on the A32X's do not recline though if you don't mind the transfer at TXL or LHR, I'd fly OW to Spain for the improved product, meals and lounges. I've unfortunately never been to the Star Alliance lounges in Spain so I can't compare them.
Thanks
Feb 8, 2016, 1:42 pm
#5
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: ZRH
Programs: A3 Gold, AY Silver
Posts: 458
Great trip report! I am truly envious - apart from being able to convince mrs clifford79 to take our yearly summer vacations in Greece to renew A3*G, I have not had much success getting her on board with MRs.
I love the fact that you named your daughter 747, after the queen of the skies. You are a true FTer!
I'll get my coat...
1. The best part of the drive to Arlanda is passing this 747 hostel, oddly enough sharing the same name as my daughter.
747 Hostel
747 Hostel
I'll get my coat...
Feb 8, 2016, 3:31 pm
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: CPH
Programs: UAMP S, TK M&S E (*G), Marriott LTP, IHG P, SK EBG
Posts: 11,082
Thanks for the TR! Mr. will NEVER let me do this with the kids, he thinks that buying a plane ticket is to buy a journey from A to B, so if we "happen" to go somewhere then we'll calculate if it's worth the $ for the miles. That's the reason why we ended up in Texas during Christmas as we needed the miles to re-qualify for *G.
Definitely surprised by a Swede touching your kids - I can't recall anyone touches my kids here in Sweden or in Denmark. Maybe because my kids are not 100% white
My kids love the cup noodles in the SK lounge - they love cup noodles (something I only give them when we are on the move, never at home). My kids also agree that the SK long haul food is awful (they eat the Y food on TK - ex-IST because they are made by DO&CO).
We have only visited the domestic lounge at ARN, no smoothie
However they have cup noodles so the kids are happy. Lounge dragons at CPH are indifferent about the kids - they always comment that they actually get their G cards themselves (we to guess Mr. in so we need to go through the dragon when he is travelling with us).
I found a lot of lounge dragons assuming me trying to guest my 3 kids into the lounge and usually they put up their face and ready to say that you can only guest 1 in. I'm not surprised because once outside IST lounge there was a Swedish woman (EBG) trying to take her family to IST lounge. She was very angry that they won't let her family in, and argued with the lounge dragon there claiming she could do that in Copenhagen and therefore she could do it in any *A lounge bla bla bla.
Because of this I always have our elite cards ready so we would be granted access right away.
Hope SK wouldn't find out this lovely glitch, we might need some extra trips
Definitely surprised by a Swede touching your kids - I can't recall anyone touches my kids here in Sweden or in Denmark. Maybe because my kids are not 100% white
My kids love the cup noodles in the SK lounge - they love cup noodles (something I only give them when we are on the move, never at home). My kids also agree that the SK long haul food is awful (they eat the Y food on TK - ex-IST because they are made by DO&CO).
We have only visited the domestic lounge at ARN, no smoothie
However they have cup noodles so the kids are happy. Lounge dragons at CPH are indifferent about the kids - they always comment that they actually get their G cards themselves (we to guess Mr. in so we need to go through the dragon when he is travelling with us).I found a lot of lounge dragons assuming me trying to guest my 3 kids into the lounge and usually they put up their face and ready to say that you can only guest 1 in. I'm not surprised because once outside IST lounge there was a Swedish woman (EBG) trying to take her family to IST lounge. She was very angry that they won't let her family in, and argued with the lounge dragon there claiming she could do that in Copenhagen and therefore she could do it in any *A lounge bla bla bla.
Because of this I always have our elite cards ready so we would be granted access right away.
Hope SK wouldn't find out this lovely glitch, we might need some extra trips
Feb 8, 2016, 11:52 pm
#10
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Programs: EBG4Life, EBD, 1MM
Posts: 1,397
.
Feb 8, 2016, 11:56 pm
#11
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Join Date: Jul 2008
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Posts: 1,397
We have only visited the domestic lounge at ARN, no smoothie However they have cup noodles so the kids are happy. Lounge dragons at CPH are indifferent about the kids - they always comment that they actually get their G cards themselves (we to guess Mr. in so we need to go through the dragon when he is travelling with us).
However they have cup noodles so the kids are happy. Lounge dragons at CPH are indifferent about the kids - they always comment that they actually get their G cards themselves (we to guess Mr. in so we need to go through the dragon when he is travelling with us).Smoothie
Oddly enough, my company supplies that paperboard for the can.
The kids are keen to try the noodle cups. Haven't tried them myself, but we will give them a try over Sportlov.
Feb 9, 2016, 1:14 am
#12
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I haven't seen the smoothies in the domesitc lounge, but haven't been there in some time. I have seen them on display at Coop from time to time:
Smoothie
Oddly enough, my company supplies that paperboard for the can.
The kids are keen to try the noodle cups. Haven't tried them myself, but we will give them a try over Sportlov.
Smoothie
Oddly enough, my company supplies that paperboard for the can.
The kids are keen to try the noodle cups. Haven't tried them myself, but we will give them a try over Sportlov.
I don't like the cup noodles at the SK lounge - the only cup noodles I have ever tried is the LH Sen lounge at DUS. They have Nissin - the Japanese brand (those in a plastic cups), IMO they are much better (although not as good as those from Japan).
My kids love ramen (noodles with soup) of any kind as long as it's noodles and soup, especially when they are tired and hungry. It's like their comfort food. This is not a bad thing as it really brings down the cost of our trip to the US, giving them something they really like and save $ at the same time.
The good thing about the cup noodles in the SK lounge is that they have 2 packages of seasoning, one with dried veg and meat in it, the other one is pure seasoning. So the kids can add water and that bag of powder in and get their soup and noodles.
Let me know how your kids like it - Not sure if they like it because they saw me eating it since they were babies or they like the taste. Sportlov is coming, 10 days to go away from this hopeless weather ^
Feb 9, 2016, 1:21 am
#13
Moderator: Lufthansa Miles & More, India based airlines, India, External Miles & Points Resources
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: MUC
Programs: LH SEN
Posts: 48,152
My boys managed to drink all the smoothies loaded on our flights last summer. The point of everything being free in plus was not lost on them. The fact that the finnish crew on the MUC-CPH flight operated by KF spoke a language they can speak also helped
The fact that the finnish crew on the MUC-CPH flight operated by KF spoke a language they can speak also helped
Feb 9, 2016, 4:58 am
#14
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I think my youngest one can do that if it's something he likes. It's nice to hear that they let them get all the smoothies - normally I can imagine is 1 set each.
Feb 9, 2016, 7:17 am
#15
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Join Date: Jul 2008
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SAS was spared by the fact that they ran out of the mango smoothies. The strawberry smoothie was not as popular, so they switched to other drinks. As the kids are fluent in English, they have learned over the years to ask for all sorts of goodies. They are not afraid to interrogate the FAs until they get something sweet!