Trip report #001
Flyer Talk Thread

It’s November 28th 2025 and I have been trying to calculate the XP I need to progress to Platinum. My Flying Blue Gold lasts until the end of May and I have re-qualified but for another 29XP I can upgrade to Platinum. I’d then have 2 years as STE+. I have award flights coming up which I could purchase SAF for but I don’t want to spend €290 and have no additional trip to look forward to.

My wife is in a similar position she needs to gain just over 30XP by the end of March to upgrade to Gold. Doing this would effectively extend her status of STE to 2 years (one as STE+). Again it would be at a cost of around €300 so I’m looking to find a return flight which will give us 30XP each and costs under €600. Ideally it’s somewhere warm as we will be staying 3+ days to avoid the higher prices when booking return fares.

I can’t find anything that works. Most return trips from BHX with SkyTeam airlines take us first to AMS or CDG then on to our destination in Europe. So that is 4 flight segments. In economy these yield 5XP each so 20XP in total. We need 30XP each not 20 so it still leaves a shortfall that would cost €100 each to fill so my budget is down to €400 in order to be more cost efficient than buying SAF. It is sometimes possible to find flights this cheap with AF or KLM, but nothing seems to be available. Last year when we started out on this Flying Blue odyssey we took our first trip in years to Mallorca. Its actually 6 segments but as the BCN-PMI segments are domestic they gain 2XP each, still it pushes the XP total to 24XP and coughing up €60 for the last few XP doesn’t feel too terrible.

So I’m poking round on Google flights and ITA Matrix but where I found return fares last year for around £300 (still on the expensive side with hindsight) theres nothing close. But I notice some really cheap fares with SAS on some routes. Being a SkyTeam member SAS flights will bring in XP but almost all routes are oddly enough in Scandinavia or Northern Europe. Funny that. By now I’m thinking of cold winter nights and how nice it was to get away for a few days in the warmth in February/March and I really liked it in Mallorca, it was really quiet in late February last year. But theres nothing sensible flying BHX-PMI with SAS. BHX has just one daily flight to CPH and it’s in the evening so all connections end up with an overnight stay in Copenhagen. Less than ideal for a trip on the cheap.

Meanwhile I’ve already found a one way Jet2 flight to PMI for under €50 each and it’s really tempting me. I wonder if I could get the XP by flying back with KLM or AF in J? If it wasn’t really expensive that might work as it would knock off 30XP each and we’d be fine. So my budget is now up to €500 total but I need to get back from PMI to the UK (ideally BHX) in business class with a SkyTeam airline. I have a hope that maybe I can do it on Air Europa because they fly into Gatwick. After playing around on ITA matrix I noticed a few cheap, I mean really cheap fares into LHR with SAS. And so for £182 each I booked business class flights from PMI to LHR. Not ideal as the train journey home from London is 4x longer than from BHX and consequently also more expensive.

In total the flight costs were £67.20 + £364 = £431.20 for our trip flights (€491) which is way under the €600 just to purchase the XP through SAF contributions. A result. €8.18/XP including the BHX-PMI on Jet2 for no XP. I’m sorry to mix up € and £ but the SAF XP cost is fixed at €10/XP so makes for an easier comparison. If I excluded the Jet2 *positioning* its down at €6.91/XP which is pretty much as low as it gets these days.

So thats how we came to be spending a few days in Mallorca in March. And flying home with SAS in Business class.