I just have booked 2 trips!
These are no simple trips… Flyertalk.com just had a new post where Iberia fare rules allow you to potentially fly from Paris to Madrid, or vice versa, through most of the cities in the eastern world served by BA/Iberia. What this means is that, you could book a ticket from Paris to Madrid, via Sydney, Australia. That’s exactly what I have done…
I have booked 2 trips.
The first one is as follows:
Outbound 1: Paris – London – Singapore – Sydney – Singapore – London – Madrid
Inbound 1: Madrid – London – Singapore – Sydney – Singapore – London – Paris
and the second one is as follows:
Outbound 2: Paris – London – Singapore – London – Madrid
Inbound 2: Madrid – London – Singapore – London – Paris
All these flights are taking place in a span of 14 days. During which I will be back in the Netherlands for 3 days for my work and back on the road again. It will be quite an Epic Longhaul Flying trip. I have already booked it, but I am not sure if I will go through it all the way.
I have clubbed my trips together, for example, I will doing both outbound flights (outbound 1 & 2) at once (back to back) and then will be returning to the Netherlands and go to the office for 3 work-days. And immediately after that I will be doing the two inbounds’, back to back.
Of course, I had to book other short-hops between Amsterdam, Paris and Madrid to facilitate this trip. In all I spent around 700 euros to book all these flights (+ a few BA miles to get to Madrid from Amsterdam and Paris). Not a bad deal, I would say.
Part 1 of the trip looks like this: 12 segment path: 38423 miles = 61835 km
ORY – LHR 228 mi
LHR – SIN 6765 mi
SIN – LHR 6765 mi
LHR – MAD 773 mi
MAD – ORY 639 mi
ORY – LHR 228 mi
LHR – SIN 6765 mi
SIN – SYD 3908 mi
SYD – SIN 3908 mi
SIN – LHR 6765 mi
LHR – MAD 773 mi
MAD – AMS 907 mi
At this point i will be back in the Netherlands for 3 day work, and after that Part 2 commences.
Part 2 will be looking like this. 13 segment path: 39874 miles = 64170 km
AMS – MAD 907 mi
MAD – LHR 773 mi
LHR – SIN 6765 mi
SIN – SYD 3908 mi
SYD – SIN 3908 mi
SIN – LHR 6765 mi
LHR – ORY 228 mi
ORY – MAD 639 mi
MAD- LHR 773 mi
LHR – SIN 6765 mi
SIN – LHR 6765 mi
LHR – MAD 773 mi
MAD- AMS 907 mi
It is quite a marathon run. The plan is to collect BA miles/avios. Given that I am Emerald with Oneworld, I will be having all the first class lounge accesses at London, Singapore and Sydney. Secondly, being BA gold I will collect 200% miles for all the miles flown. From this crazy routing i will be collecting around 160 K miles. That is quite a lot of miles and our family of 4 can go to India or USA in business class easily with these miles. And if I plan carefully, we can even go to India twice in Business class. For example, when I book premium economy and upgrade with these Avios (miles with BA), we can go to India twice in business. That is a great incentive to fly this itinerary. 600-700 euros spent, and potentially 4-8 intercontinental round-trips in Business.
Given the circumference of the earth is around 25 miles, and i will be flying around 75K miles in 12 days, it will be equivalent of going around the earth thrice. It will be a lot of long-haul flying, and I need to prepare my body for this marathon trip. I will need to plan my time in the flights well, as well as on the ground. It will be actually like preparing for a marathon.
I have booked this trip for July, during the summer vacation, and when my wife and kids will be with her family in Hungary. This way, I wont have to feel bad of abandoning my family for 14 days for some crazy flying around the world. And I still got around 7 months to plan this trip!