Blog Archive:
Recent Items:
Airline Geek Stuff Part II
The geekery continues?
Because we fly a lot with Air Canada we get a lot of benefits for
sticking with them. Take upgrades for example: every 15,000 miles
we fly with Air Canada, we get upgrade certificates and for every
45,000 miles we fly we get special upgrade certificates. The
difference being special upgrade certificates allow you to pretty much
upgrade any economy ticket to first class, whereas regular upgrade
certificates will only upgrade certain economy tickets (typically the
more expensive economy tickets that we don?t normally buy).
So I was looking at my balance of air miles and figured that by the
time I fly back to Toronto I will be 900 miles short of that special
threshold of 45,000 miles for this year. That?s 900 miles short
of two upgrade certificates that would turn any economy ticket into a
first class ticket. Given that we spend a good portion of our
life on aeroplanes it would make sense to try and cross that threshold
and get the upgrade certificates (especially since we plan on flying
back to Europe in January to do another 3 week trip ? doing a red eye
in first class is much more preferable than an overnight in economy).
So? let?s put this in perspective. I get 500 miles to fly from
London to Edinburgh and another 500 to fly back. For a couple of
hours flying time, I can ensure that I get those upgrade certs for a
cost of about £100 (a first class ticket from say Toronto to London is
about $5000 ? about ten times the cost of an economy ticket on the same
flight). It?s a no brainer. So that?s precisely what I am going
to do tomorrow. That?s right. I am flying from London up to
Edinburgh. Getting off the plane. Waiting 5 minutes,
getting back on the same plane and flying back to London. I
figure I?ll just bring a book and my iPod and enjoy a couple of hours
down time in the air.
In normal, non-airline life we had a lovely day today in London. Gary, AJ and I are staying with the quite wonderful Jenni Sandford. Today the three of us (sans Jenni who joined us later) went into London to visit the Apple Store and I am afraid it was quite the underwhelming experience. Considering this is Apple's UK flagship store it was distinctly unimpressive. Although the store itself is fairly big the layout of the shop gives you the impression that it's quite sparse. Then there is the fact that wherever I looked, people were just using the machines to check their hotmail so it had the feeling of a cybercafé (remember those?)... On top of that, some of the staff were particularly unhelpful in that they didn't have a clue and seemed distinctly uninterested in helping us. And then they didn't have any of the new G5's that I wanted to investigate! All in all it was a bit of a let down.
So then we kind of wandered around - got on the tube to Covent Garden, went to the Paul Smith store to look at expensive shirts (only look mind you), had our portraits drawn, met Jenni, went for dinner at this Mongolion place and then went to see Oliver Twist (which was about as impressive as our trip to the Apple store). So... there you have it. My day tomorrow and my day today.
Originally published on 2005-11-04 23:43:15 by Alyn Jones
Last edited on 2005-11-05 00:30:48 by Alyn Jones
There are 624 posts in this Blog.
Visitor Comments:
Left by sarah on 2005-11-05 08:11:25 #
So I totally understand the up-grade thing I am getting up graded for my trip back to nz (God is so good to me!). Can you use your free upgrades for your trip to nz? It would be well worth it!
- Love the cartoons by the way.
Left by Alyn on 2005-11-05 09:10:48 #
We can only use those certificates on Air Canada flights and Air Canada code share flights I think (code share is when one airline sells tickets as if it is their flight, but the flight is actually operated by another company, e.g. buying an AC ticket but actually flying on Lufthansa airplanes). So if AC actually flys to Oz/NZ then I am fine, but if I fly Air New Zealand then I can't.
However we often get upgraded without certificates because we have Gold status across the network of airlines we fly with and they tend to honour each other's passengers (e.g. one time we checked in on Lufthansa in Germany and we just asked, "Are you upgrading any Star Alliance Gold passengers today?" and they were like, "Sure!").
To be honest, most of our upgrades come from the favour of God though! Yay God! Thank you!
Left by Adele myfanwe blog fan Richards on 2005-11-05 17:41:42 #
Ahhh! Now you're talking. Can you tell me how the favour of God scheme works? How do you get to gold status? I think I have 5,500 prayer points but I don't know what the threshold is to get to Really Big Angel Protection...and how do I get into those Elite lounges in the Third Heaven? Any help appreciated. xx
Left by Christoph on 2005-11-05 19:39:22 #
Hey Adele,
good news is on the way. There will be a time coming when God himself gives us a lift around the globe. Then we are all gold members, even the non-geeks... :-)
Left by Ash on 2005-11-06 02:07:39 #
That is so great about your upgrade and the photos of London make me a bit homesick.
Does the favour of God scheme work if you don't actually have the money to purchase an AC flight? :)
Left by shannon on 2005-11-07 04:19:16 #
bwa hahaha - the favour of god scheme! very funny.
btw - isn't that called translation?
as in: Motion of a body in which every point of the body moves parallel to and the same distance as every other point of the body.
as in 'Philip Airlines' of Acts 8:39-40 fame.
now THAT's a scheme.
Left by shannon on 2005-11-05 04:04:15 #
yeah ... well, i think i just might have enough airmiles to fly to hamilton. but probably not enough to get back. although if i buy more alcohol, i just might be able to get to, oh i dunno, windsor.
having said that (and probably confused the non-ontarians of the bunch), i think your flight will be totally worth it.