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I’ve been asked a number of times to write a few more posts explaining my thinking when I’m booking my flights (I’ve already written a general post on how I plan and book my flights) so, when a scenario came about that led me to pay a lot more for a flight than I would have normally considered acceptable, it seemed like a good opportunity to share my thoughts.
My Travel Next Year & Where I’m Crediting My Flights
I like to plan my travels well in advance so, to a large degree, I already know what my travel patterns are looking like for next year….at least through August. I also know that, despite the fact I’ll still be flying on oneworld airlines quite a bit, I won’t be crediting my flights to the American Airlines AAdvantage program – the math simply doesn’t stack up.
It looks like I’m going to be crediting my 2018 oneworld flights to the British Airways Executive Club and, although I haven’t been booking my flights with a view to earning status with BA, it would appear as if I’m heading in the direction of British Airway Gold status anyway….and that’s what’s got me thinking.
Early next year I have a Qatar Airways Business Class trip booked to Bangkok and, between that trip and a flight I’m taking just after New Year, I’ll have BA Silver status sown up before January is out (my BAEC year starts in December but I’ll be crediting flights to AAdvantage up until the end of this year)…but Silver status isn’t of much use to me as I already hold Lifetime Platinum status with AAdvantage and that gives me most of the same benefits as BA Silver.
Looking through the trips I have already booked (and knowing what trips I’m likely to book in the next few months) I can see that I’m likely to be around 120 Tier Points short of BA Gold status come the end of my membership year….and that’s too small of a gap to ignore.
Bridging The Tier Point Gap
Image courtesy of Pedro Szekly via Flickr
My immediate reaction to seeing that 120 Tier Point gap was to think of bridging it by planning a short-haul, intra-Europe Business Class trip that would earn me 80 Tier Points in each direction.
There aren’t many intra-Europe routings that offer that many Tier Points but they include trips like…
- London – Istanbul
- London – Malta
- London Marrakech
…all of which would be fun to do and some of which can be relatively well priced.
London – Malta is often priced at around £272 ($360) roundtrip and I’ve seen London – Marrakech for not much more…but then I remembered one other option.
I’m going to have to position from London to Helsinki to catch my Qatar Airways Business Class flight and, although I was planning on booking the cheapest possible fare to and from Helsinki, this is yet another route on which you can earn 160 Tier Points for a roundtrip Business Class fare.
At first glance it appeared to make a lot of sense to book my positioning flights into Business Class and to get the extra Tier Points that way…but there was a small issue.
The Math
Booking a Business Class fare between London and Helsinki is a good idea in theory (it meets my objectives) but, for the dates I need to fly, the fare came out to an eye-watering £440 ($580).
This isn’t a fare that’s going to get me the Finnair A350 for the two and half hour flight (the timings of the A350 flights don’t work for me), that’s how much it’s going to cost to sit in a regular Finnair A320 Business Class seat with just 31″ of seat pitch!
Finnair A320 Business Class
For someone who prides himself on flying in comfort for as little as possible the idea of paying that much for this type of seat really hurts….so I nearly dismissed the idea out of hand.
But then I started to do some math….
The Economy Class fare to/from Helsinki was pricing up at around £117 ($155) so, if I was to buy the Business Class fare I would be paying an additional £323 ($426) purely for the Tier Points.
When I know I can fly to/from Malta for £272 roundtrip that increase in cost doesn’t look like its worth it…until I start factoring in the true cost of a hypothetical Malta trip.
To get the good Business Class fares to destinations like Malta, Marrakech and Istanbul requires at least a 1 night stay (usually 2 nights) and that’s an added cost.
If I didn’t book the Business Class fare to/from Helsinki the costs for a further Tier Point run would look like this:
- Airfare – £272 (minimum)
- Airport Parking – £25 (minimum)
- 1 night at a reasonable hotel – £70
That’s a total of £367 and that doesn’t take into account a number of other things like the cost of eating out while on the Tier Point run, my time or the fact that I’d be away from home and traveling for at least 48 hours.
This is where I’d probably stay if I was going to Istanbul
Put into that light things look very different.
Paying the price for the Business Class fare between London and Helsinki may well be painful but, if I’m going to bridge the Tier Point gap to BA Gold status, it’s the economical way to go.
- I save a net £44 ($58) at a minimum (in reality I believe the savings will be greater)
- I don’t have to spend any more time away from home than I was going to anyway
- I don’t have to spend any more time in airports or on aircraft than I was going to anyway
Do I think that a Business Class fare between London and Helsinki on a Finnair A320 is worth £440 ($580)?
No, absolutely not – it’s not even close to being worth it if I’m just judging the price on the product….but in this case that’s not the point.
Bottom Line
I’ve now booked the Business Class flights to/from Helsinki and, despite knowing the math works in my favor, it still took me at least 10 minutes of further hesitation before I persuaded myself to click the “buy” button on the website.
In the end it all came down to two things:
- I’m effectively paying £323 ($426) to have British Airways Gold status (oneworld Emerald) in 2019 rather than falling back on my American Airlines Platinum (oneworld Sapphire status) – for the amount I travel I do and the places I visit I think that’s a price worth paying.
- The Business Class fare was way higher than I would normally even consider paying but the math doesn’t lie – it was the cheaper of the alternatives I had at my disposal.
Hopefully that’s given some of you guys a further insight into how I think about my flights and how I work out what I think the right thing to do it….even if it’s a painful decision to make 🙂
Would any of you have done things differently? If yes, what and why?
“Early next year I have a Qatar Airways Business Class trip booked to Bangkok and, between that trip and a flight I’m taking just after New Year, I’ll have BA Silver status sown up before January is out”
You are probably just compressing words for brevity, but for newbies to BA, remember that Silver requires not just 600 tier points, but four flights on BA metal (Bronze requires two, Gold just the same four that got one to Silver)