Excellent

Just managed to upgrade my SIN-FRA on the 2nd of Jan up to First. Now just need to get wait listed for FRA-SIN :-)

Finally, booked.

At the conclusion of various searches, it came down to paying over budget with SQ or dealing with the joys of TG business. So, I gave ITAmatrix a play and they came up with an LH fare which was cheaper than TG, but was all LH/SQ. So I asked Amex to book it for me. Well, they couldn't match it, even with the fare codes, but they got close enough and certainly under the budget, quite considerably under the budget.


So it's off on the 12th of December from Birmingham with my old mates on the Luftwaffe, via the hell-hole at Rhein-Main and thence to Singapore on supposedly a 747-400 (please let it be an 747-800 with new C), then transferring to SQ for some WhaleJet love down to Melbourne, arriving in the small wee hours of the 14th. Then back from Sydney on the 30th of December to Singapore with SQ on the WhaleJet, a couple of days in the Lion City and then back with the Luftwaffe via FRA on the 2nd of January.


Now, just get it all ticketed and settled and then time to get myself on the upgrade list for FRA-SIN and SIN-FRA. I also need to sort out a MEL-BNE and a BNE-SYD and some hotels, Hilton Brisbane for sure, but I'll be thinking about the other ones.

Damn you, Opodo

Whilst waiting for the accursed TG to finally open up Jan 2013 (and for that matter for EK's booking engine to start working). I've been playing with the "travel" sites - opodo, expedia, travelocity etc to see if there's a little bargain out there.

Expedia is useless, they aren't even allowing booking for mid-December yet, never mind for the start of January

The ever useful ITAmatrix (which doesn't allow you to book) is up to the end of December, so there's some hope yet. ITAmatrix also seems to show an interesting LH/SQ/TG/LX combo within budget - although I'm not sure I want to end my trip on the little Fokker.

Travelocity is worse than useless. They return flights, lots of them, every single one of which has an outbound on GayLM to AMS, followed by a flight to Melbourne on China Southern in Economy via CAN (Guangzhou to you). 30+ results, every single one of them with that deeply undesirable flight in the wrong class of service at the start of the trip.

Kayak handles my request well, but offers nothing exciting, well-priced or special, it's mainly OneWorld love with hundreds of permutations and combinations around a BA/QF theme.

Opodo I've had some success with in the past and this time it's got two blinders.

The first is a discounted ticket on SQ, all the way. It's a published fare and it's in First/Suites, it has two segments of Whalejet action and two segments of 77W action. It's got the right times and the right dates. It's also really rather discounted, but it's still £500 over budget. However, it's very, very, very tempting.

The second is a Business Class fare ex-BHX. Again, the dates are right, there's LH all the way to SIN on a Lufty Whalejet (which is possibly eVIPable) , there's SQ onward from SIN, there's a direct TG to BKK (Bangkok) and then there's SK back to BHX via CPH (Copenhagen). The price is outstanding, it's a smidge above 3k. That's excellent value, but, there's a slight downside. There's a 12 hour connection in CPH on the way back. That's a real Debbie Downer. Of course, one could just book the bags through to CPH, collect them and get a cheapy CPH-XXX-BHX and abandon the CPH-BHX.

I'm currently resisting both, but it might be hard. Opodo, you're a bastard, but a nice one.

UPDATE: I've just matched the first one on the SQ website. *Gulp*

Looks like I have to pay for the ticket

After several attempts to get an award ticket through Miles and More for this trip. I'm giving up. M&M's UK service centre isn't very good to be honest, it only operates on European office hours Monday to Friday, is an expensive 0871 number even for us SEN's and requires a few calls to find an agent with Clue.

I never found an agent with full clue, but this mornings was actually willing to search multiple ports and multiple dates. For one tantalising minute, I thought we had it at least in part. There was a first class seat on Thai on the 10th of December, but it proved to be unbookable.

We looked at the business class options as well, but these were equally bad. If I'm going business then I get a bit less flexible on dates and whilst I could get out and I could get back to SIN, there was nothing to get me back from SIN within a reasonable date range.

Mind you, I've been dubious about availability since I found there was not one F award ticket available on LH to JFK via FRA or MUC for a weekend all summer. Via ZRH, yes, but short connects and the panorama lounge aren't my idea of a First Class Experience.

So it's back to the pricing board and waiting for bloody TG to release fares.

It does make me wonder if it's worth collecting the miles sometimes. I had this with BA and ended up burning them on QF domestic tickets (which were very good value).

Starting to winnow it down

Having done some sums and looked at the dire state of the kitchen electrics I have decided that unless I strike lucky with the Award lottery, the Oz trip has to be in C.

Having had a good prowl through expertflyer and available fares makes me think that unless I can find a deal, this will be nearly as expensive as the F/C deal of 2010. Ouch.

The runners and riders at the moment are.

LH+others ticket from Opodo/Expedia etc

Advantages - fly from BHX, Star Alliance
Disadvantages - LH C, tend to have strange stopovers, hard to sort out FF benefits, unupgradable in advance.

EK

Advantages - can do everything I want, fly from BHX
Disadvantages - don't want to go through the sandpit, no FF benefits, danger of horrid seats

SQ

Advantages - know and love the product, Star, SIN stopover
Disadvantages - expensive, no chance of upgrades, LHR

TG

Advantages - Star, BKK stopover
Disadvantages - that horrid website, LHR,

MH

Advantages - whalejet, Kul stopover
disadvantage - no ff gain unless they join one world in time

BA/QF

Advantages - can do favoured stopover. whalejet, accrue on OneWorld, can book whole ticket
Disadvantages - Mona, LHR, poor timings on some connections

ET

Advantage - price out of MAN
Disadvantage - no ff accrual, sandpit stopover

NZ

Advantage - Star, chance to visit AKL, good website
Disadvantage - HKG stopover ok, KX stopover no way. AKL.

AC

Advantage - Star
Disadvantage - long way round, don't fancy YVR stopover in Winter.

I think that's the runners and riders so far. CX has been ruled out for seating, NH for nightmare website.

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

It's decision time again

The last part of 2011 was a bit chaotic, contract problems at work, the Thai floods, a nasty cold which would not go away and several other things combined meant a couple of cancellations, no trip report for a couple of Business Class trips and ending up on a mad dash on a Fokker 100 to Zürich to score the last few miles needed for Senator Status for 2012/2013.

Now I am in the position of thinking of spending a few miles, but I have two possibilities in hand.

1) Try to get a Star Alliance First Award for Christmas 2012 in Australia, chances of this are slim to none.

2) Get two business class awards for October 2012 to Singapore, the dilemma being either to use a Senator Companion award and face the slope seats of Lufthansa or try and bag some SQ space from MAN or LHR. The first is fairly available, the second is hard to find.

Obviously First space might open up later to Australia, but it's unlikely and if it didn't I'd be stuck with a high priced ticket. What I may do is look at it using KVSTool and if not I'll be looking at getting a ticket with another airline.

WIth SEN status safe for two years, I can contemplate going to Oz not on a Star Alliance airline, so if the price is right, I may consider something One World-ish. Musts for this time are Sydney and Brisbane, possibles are Hobart, Perth and Auckland (if it's open). Looking at funds, it's likely to be business, as there is a new kitchen calling to me, but I shall look at first as well, just in case.

I'm trying to save my eVIPS for a possible trip to New York in 2013, assuming Lufthansa ever open up First Class space on the A380.

There you go, I shall tell you how my deliberations are going in a few weeks.

Trip Report 9, Part 2 LH HKG-FRA-BHX

I managed the first part of the morning pretty well for someone with four hours sleep. Shower, breakfast, extra coffee, finish packing and out to a taxi to HKG.

On arrival, it took me a little while to find the Lufthansa Check-In but I soon had boarding pases and my bag was on the way to BHX, festooned with various tags including another HOT tag (this time for a 2:40 transit!). I then made my way through exit immigration and security, there was no priority line for either which I found a bit odd (or I didn't spot one if there was).

I then perused my way up through various duty free shops and via several smoking rooms of varying quality to the United Airlines International First Class Lounge - which is a designated Star F lounge. What a dismal dump.

I was the only person in there, but there were still plenty of traces of former occupants, cups, saucers, spillages etc. The furniture looking like it needed a good clean and the air-conditioning was set to sweaty. Having perused the selection of cheap spirits and two-buck-chuck wines, I settled for a quick Perrier and then went back to mentally pricing up cameras. To be fair, there seemed to be a reasonable food selection. I dread to think what the Faded Carpet Club proper was like. I was going to try and glom into the Thai lounge, but I found myself lost in shiny electronic toy world for too long.

Our steed today for the trip back to Frankfurt was the mighty Potsdam, a 747-400, sadly not refitted with the New First Class. Boarding was nice and fast and I swiftly settled into 84K on the upper deck. The crew for First consisted of two ladies assisted by the purser, who all introduced themselves, offered drinks (Ginger Ale for me) and handed out various amenities including the piss-poor amenity kit, a rather nice jumper and some magazines etc.

We were off on time and spent about 20 minutes having a bit of turbulence whilst climbing through the murky clouds which had infested the Hong Kong area throughout the trip. After that, we had post-take off drinks and the distribution of the menu with an amuse,

The amuse was a asparagus frittata, quite pleasant. I didn't get my first choice of main, which would have been the salmon, but I honestly wasn't that bothered, I would have happily tackled all four. From what I know of LH's catering that means 4 out of the other 5 pax ordered salmon.

The HorsWagen turned up - I had the caviar and Courgette/Parma Ham/Parmesan

Some people dislike LH's farmed caviar, I would agree that is isn't as nice as SQ's, but it was more than acceptable. The other plate was some quite delicious ham, nice parmesan and slices of courgette - light and pleasant. I skipped the salad course, nuts lurked within it.

For mains I had Agnolotti with Porcini Mushrooms and Thyme Cream Sauce with braised leek and more courgettes. The Agnolotti were delicious. but I was feeling a little over courgetted by then.

I failed to take a photo of the cheese course, there was  Edam (OK), Double Gloucester (a bit meh), Brie (good), Goat (very good) and Danish Blue (avoided). I then went onto the Ricotta Cheesecake with Berry Compote and a glass of the offered dessert wine which was a Auslese and quite nice - but not as nice as the Yquem I'd had back in Birmingham just before leaving.

I avoided the pralines, they did look very nice and settled down to a few hours of fizzy water and doing some writing on the MacBook. I was mildly chastised for working so hard, and explained that it wasn't echt work, but some creative writing - I was writing another couple of chapters of an alternate history (entitled Where you still up for Balls) and catching up on the last episode of series 4 of Dexter on my much larger screen on the MacBook.

Drinks were constantly offered and a tray of cakes, rolls and fruits was wheeled out at about half way as I watched various places ending in -Stan through the window. I took a nice selection of tropical fruit (dragonfruit, melon, papaya, pineapple) and some coffee.

About two hours before landing, there was another meal. This was slightly larger than expected and stopped my plans dead from taste testing the FRA F-lounges renowned Schnitzel Wiener Art. To start with there was an HorsWagen containing, Bayerisch Wurstsalat, Obzatda and something oriental. I took a small plate of the Wurstsalat, although a larger plate was offered with more if it was wanted.

The Warm plate was a choice between a Dim Sum basket and a traditional Biergarten snack. I foolishly chose the latter and waved bye-bye to the schnitzel.

It was quite large, three Nürnberger Röstbratwurst, a piece of smoked pork loin, mash, sauerkraut and gravy, nice gravy. Nom, Nom, Nom.

I didn't really have room, but it would have been rude not to have a tiny bit of Strudel with Vanilla Sauce followed by another cup of coffee.

By this time we were somewhere just to the north of Prag and so, I packed everything up and prepared for landing. It had been a nice, but somewhat lengthy flight and I thanked the crew on leaving. I must say this was a great crew, all three were helpful, drinks were constantly topped up, nothing was too much trouble and they had time to chat etc, especially during the last couple of hours, when every one was awake feeling at bit "have we got there yet"ish. They stood out sufficiently from the fairly high standard Lufthansa set that I sent a compliment through to Lufthansa.

We arrived at B28, which is right next to the First Class Lounge, but this is Frankfurt, there was a considerable walk on a high floor, which I think was round in a circle to get to the B-B transfer security - which was slow, bored and lousy. But a couple of minutes later I was welcomed into the B First Class Lounge, I headed straight for the Cigar Room, which was even more impressive than the München one and consumed two cigs with a nice cold Coke Zero.

At that point I went in search of the showers, they weren't busy and they were really rather good. Having washed and changed, I had a little prowl around, the buffet looked delicous with all the jambon Iberico and salads and Zander with fava beans and decent wines with real stemware, but I couldn't manage a single mouthful. Not even a pretzel passed my lips, not even a gummibear could have been managed.

However, I did save my alcohol ration for something from the Wall of Whisky.

Which turned out to be some of the 18 year old cast strength The Macallan, they have lurking there. A very large shot of it, far more than I should have had. They did have an nice selection of Schnapps and offered to make a number of cocktails - perhaps I should have had a WooWoo.

After that, I spent a quiet hour drinking black coffee, coke zero and having the odd cancer stick before going to get my connection. Now, the great thing about this is that the bmi A320's (who are the wet lease for LH on 3 out of 4 BHX-FRA's) end up out on remote stands, which means you get a car from the First Class Lounge to the aircraft. However, this is not just a car, but Mercedes S-Class. Very nice (and the driver was rather delectable as well) which makes for a very nice ride out to the remote stands.

There were downsides, all the other passengers were on board, so you get the full "evils" treatment as the sole pax to board last. But we were ahead of time and bounced out onto the runway at precisely the right time. The flight itself was pretty fast, we left on time and arrived 12 minutes early. I could have had a hot meal but I just took a diet Pepsi as I couldn't have eaten another thing. The crew seemed nice enough and we helping always offering drinks etc.  Note to LH, I know you are going to sell BD, but can we keep them on BHX-FRA please, the 320's are much nicer than those 735's you used to inflict on us.

The final bit to mention is that incredibly, I was home within 30 minutes of the wheels touching down. Now it's true that  I've moved a bit closer to BHX, but given their track record on arrivals so far this year, it was straight to immigration (no queue), 5 mins wait for the bags to come off and my bag was first, off to the ATM, taxi queue and a driver who knew the shortcut through Sheldon and Olton. I was greeted by an ungrateful feline demanding food and was in bed by 11:45pm, about 23:30 mins after waking up.