ARTICLES

  • How to Book Queen Mary 2 for Less: Three Expensive Mistakes to Avoid

    Last year I spotted a really great looking QM2 transatlantic crossing. We booked it and 3 weeks later we were on the iconic Queen Mary 2 crossing the Atlantic. I’ve been watching fares ever since and booked to go again in October 2026, this time USA-UK. It will be an alternative to flying home from…

  • A day in Palma

    Day 2 We woke reasonably early (before 9) the next morning so we made it down to breakfast. We had paid for breakfast, though no-one ever questioned us or seated us in any of the three days we were there. It’s a fairly large buffet on the ground floor and always had lots of diners…

  • Is Jet2 to Mallorca Worth it?

    In March 2026 we went to Mallorca again. It’s one of the two trips we’ve promised ourselves we must do each year. Ive written about how we used the return flight to get all the XP we needed to upgrade our Flying Blue status for 2026/7. This post is all about that experience, something I…

  • How I Earned 30 Flying Blue XP for Less Than Buying SAF

    Trip report #001Flyer 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…

  • Playlist Airline Reviews

    I’ve been spending some time over on You Tube the last few weeks.If you haven’t been there yet please do, its organised a lot better now. I’ve been trying to get ahead before I go on a not so premium trip. Don’t forget to like and subscribe! However the BEST thing you can do is…

  • BHX Disruption in 2026

    I passed through Birmingham BHX in early March 2026. It was decidedly off season but it was far from the usually good regional airport experience I am used to. If flown 12 times from BHX in 2025, second only to AMS Schiphol which is the hub I usually pass through with KLM.Typically the airport is…

  • How I got Platinum Status with Flying Blue

    Reminder – I need 29XP to qualify Platinum Status with Flying Blue. I need to do this by May 2026 Its complicated because Anth needs 28XP to get to Gold. So how to get it as efficiently as possible? So the post below is how I booked the trip and how the XP added up  …

  • Tracking Flying Blue Status

    Until about 3 weeks ago I was tracking all my flight status and XP through scraps of paper and some notes in a notebook. I didn’t *really* understand how efficient my Flying Blue status qualification was or how Id benefit from it. Then while I was searching something about the nuances of qualification I got…

  • Amsterdam (sort of) January 2026

    I was due to fly with my son to Amsterdam on 6th Jan 2026. We were leaving from Birmingham for out first flight to Paris at 10:25 a.m. Out itinerary was BHX-CDG followed by CDG-AMS arriving mid afternoon. We were due to travel in European Business class with Air France. I’d booked tickets using Virgin…

  • Birmingham to Krakow – FB Gold #1

    This trip back in April 2025 was the first one after I decided to chase Flying Blue Gold Status. This is equivalent in the Sky Team Alliance to SkyTeam Elite Plus so gives benefits on Delta Virgin SAS Vietnam Airlines as well as of course AirFrance and KLM. I hope you enjoy the video and please…

  • Amsterdam – First trip of 2026

    I originally intended to buy a flight to Hamburg for my son, but it never got sorted out and he decided he would like to come on a trip with me instead. Looking around I coould get a good deal on business class flights and there was one available BHX-CXG-AMS so 2 flights in one.…

  • All the flights I took in 2025

    I’ve been logging my flights using myFlightRadar24 so here are the stats for 2025. I’m not pleased about the 8.6 Tonnes of CO2 but in my defence I did pay SAF surcharges on at least half of these flights, which should reduce the total to about half of this. It was a pretty amazing year…

  • Helsinki (part1)

    In October 2025 I decided to cancel our USA trip to Cancun/USA we had booked for March 2026. This had become quite a complicated trip, which started by me chasing a business class fare from MAD-CUN for 119k Flying Blue miles and €125, for 2 people! I saw this and jumped at it without realising…

  • Our travel goals in 2026

    I’ve been giving this a lot of though since we returned from USA back in October.Some of the statistics on what we’ve done are insane compared with the last 2 decades or so when we travelled much LESS than most people. Nursing and Teaching leave you with a lot less leisure time and we had…

  • New You Tube Content Soon

    I’ve been pretty busy since our last trip with setting up this Website, Instagram and the Newsletter.So that I can target the content at those who are best placed to make use of it, there will be a focus in the future on travelling in the run up and going into retirement. Much of the…

  • Flying Blue Platinum in 2026?

    Following on from my Gold qualification in May 2025 I had 87XP to carry forward. My requalification date had now been reset. I qualified on 4th May which worked perfectly because I had Gold Status and the requalification date showed 31st May 2026. I had almost 13 months to requalify for Gold   So the…

  • Is Flying Blue Gold Worth Chasing? My Actual XP Run

    Flying Blue Gold can be valuable if you will use benefits such as lounge access, advance seat selection and SkyTeam Elite Plus status. I decided to pursue it before a USA trip and recorded the flights, SAF contributions, XP and positioning costs involved.  Its April 2025 and I’ve got Silver status with Flying Blue. Both…

  • Turkish Airline Status Run?

    I have currently got Status with Turkish at *G level. In the 9 months Dec2025 – July (June to be safe?) 2025 I need to get 15000 status miles to extend for another year. It’s not yet clear whether this is worthwhile, probably not when its about our flights to USA but as YT content…

  • What’s the Cheapest way to get around Lisbon?

    For visitors mainly using public transport, the Navegante occasional card can be a cheaper option than buying a Lisbon tourist card. We used it for trains and local transport while staying in Estoril and travelling into Lisbon. We spent a day of our stay in Estoril travelling in to Lisbon from Estoril.Theres a rail station…

  • Is Avanti First Class Worth it for a Short Journey?

    Avanti First Class can be surprisingly good value on short journeys where the fare difference is small. On routes such as Rugby to Birmingham, the extra comfort and included refreshments can cost little more than buying food and drink separately. I take a look at short journey on Avanti West Coast.Travelling on a First Class…

  • Is Flying Blue Status – worth it in 2025?

    In this video I explain why I decided to chase Flying Blue Status in 2025. Thanks to Matts Planet for inspiration although it might have been easier not to know about this suff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk9YM6FAvVs A brief look at Flying Blue Status and why it might be worth chasing. More specifically why I decided it was.…