British Airways and Avios Points

Next November, I'll be taking back-to-back cruises with Royal Caribbean for the 2nd time. I decided to see just which airport I was likely to fly out of: Baltimore Washington International or Washington Dulles. I found out for flights ultimately ending in Venice, Italy which where the 2 cruises will start from, Dulles would be at least $300 cheaper. Another attraction of flying out of Dulles was that I could use the 200,000 plus airmiles now called Avios points. British Airways made a big thing about the change over to the new points. I would find out they didn't change anything when it came to trying to use them.

I figured I should have a good shot at either getting a free Business Class ticket or paying cash and getting a guaranteed upgrade to Business Class since I was going to book the flights 10 months out. Why is Business Class so important to me? Because I know I can get some sleep in those seats. I can't sleep for crap in Economy seats. To my surprise, I couldn't get a free seat on the dates I needed to fly out and, I couldn't get a guaranteed upgrade with cash. This reminded me of the fiasco I had when I tried to get a free seat to Copenhagen and back from Oslo in connection with a Globus tour I was planning to take of Scandanavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway). I couldn't get a free seat then and, that wasn't the last time I had this problem. I was so pissed off by the experience I cancelled my British Airways Visa charge card. I told the lady at the charge card center there wasn't any point in having the card and paying the yearly charge if I couldn't use the airmiles when I wanted. Keep in mind too that even if you managed to get free seats, British Airways made you pay a stiff fee of supposed taxes. When I did to fly Business Class to Paris in advance of the Globus La France tour I took, I had to pay British Airways over $700 for my supposedly free ticket. British Airways claimed this was a deal. In my opinion, no it wasn't considering what I had to do just to earn the airmiles. By the way, concerning the Paris tickets, I got lucky to get those as it turned out after I booked the ticket British Airways changed their flights making it impossible for me to get back. Luckily for me, I didn't find out till I finished the tour and arrived at Charles de Gaulle ready to leave only to find out I wasn't. Thanks to a great and understanding British Airways ticket rep, I did make it home. However, if I had found out about the change, I might not have been able to use my airmiles AGAIN. grrrrrrr

This latest fiasco over trying to use the new Avios points has guaranteed I won't be flying British Airways when I travel to Venice. Also, to add further fury, I found out that in the new great Avios system British Airways came out, they devalued their airmiles AGAIN. According to Tim Winship at Frequentflier Blog (http://blog.frequentflier.com) on November 17, 2011, the new Avios points will be yet another devaluation i.e. it'll cost even more points/airmiles for many U.S. travellers who want to use them on British Airways. I haven't forgotten when British Airways devalued my airmiles back in 2006. Their reason then was they wanted to get all their U.S. members on par with other members in other countries. Apparently, British Airways wanted to value us as little as they did their other members worldwide. Now, they've put the screws to its U.S. Executive Club members again.

Because of this latest devaluation, I know what I'll be doing. Once I can travel again (sometime in April 2013), I'll book whatever flights I can where I can get a free ticket with British Airways just so I can use up my Avios points. Once I do that, I won't be flying British Airways again. They've stuck it to me too many times. I would advise other U.S. travellers to do the same. Happy travels all.

Home Again

Yesterday, I arrived back in Maryland. My British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Baltimore Washington International Airport was very nice. I'll talk more about that when I start posting blogs about the trip. When I got home, I was relieved nothing was stolen. I'm leery about leaving my place for long periods. I haven't forgotten that other apartments where I live have been broken into. Thankfully, mine was left alone while I was gone. Now, I get to work on getting adjusted back to the local time. There is 6 hours difference between Paris and Baltimore time zones. Also, I get to hand out presents I bought for various people. I gave the Baldons their's yesterday. Modestine enjoyed her small purse from Chateau Chenonceau and Tami liked the candy I bought for her at London Heathrow. I hope to mail my sister Ellie's and my mom Kay's presents sometime soon. I can be really bad about mailing things. Work wise, I'll go back Wednesday and deliver Express Mails though that's always subject to change. Work schedules at the Post Office are subject to repeated change. I am curious to see what has happened while I was gone. The Post Office where I work is like a long running soap opera. Personally, I don't care for soap operas but, I'm having to learn how to deal with real life ones. Lastly, there will be things I have to do like grocery shop. I tried to use all the food that would go bad before I left and I succeeded. So, I have to buy more.

It's always a bit of a come down when I return from a trip like the France tour. Two days ago, I was enjoying a kebab in Paris. Today, I'll be visiting Sam's Club to buy some of their roasted chickens. Big difference in routine. This time, I do have one pick me up. In 5 months, I'll be leaving for Egypt. When I got back yesterday, I started checking into that. There'll be things I have to do in preparation for that. I need to get my Egyptian visa from their embassy in D.C. I have to make sure I have transfers to and from the airport. I need to buy a current travel guide. To my annoyance, I found out the one I had for France was out of date. I knew about that but, it slipped my mind about getting a new one. I had plenty of time then. I didn't when it came time to leave for France. So, I have that to look forward to.

Also, I plan to get with Alliance Francaise and start french lessons again. I really enjoyed them and, I only stopped because there wasn't time for them in my military life. Hopefully, I can find time in my Post Office life. The only drawback to the lessons will be the hassle of getting down to D.C. to do the lessons. I suspect I'll have to do 1 on 1 tutoring vice taking a class with them. We'll see. I'm looking forward to those and doing even better with my french when I return to France in 2010. Pour maintenant, au revoir.

Tour Update

Greetings my faithful readers. I thought I'd fill you in on what's happening at my end of the woods. The tour of France that I've been on the past 13 days ended last night with a nice bang. I got to see the famous Moulin Rouge for the first time. I can't say I was very wiped out with it. A lot of the ladies were very model looking which means they had very little top side. Also, some of them were heavy with the fake eyelashes which I think is ugly. Because of those 2 factors, I wasn't impressed with their female dancers and singers. They had some acts between the dance and song routines which were very good. There were 2 gymnasts who were incredible. The man part of the duo must have some killer muscles considering some of things he did in regards to lifting his female partner. Also, the had a hilarious ventriloquist. He managed to make it look like his dog was talking and his dog had some witty quips. Lastly, they had a juggler/drummer/golf ball extrordinaire. The guy could juggle golf balls so fast he beat a drum with them. He could also juggle them with his mouth firing them over 5 feet straight up into the air. He must have some killer lungs.

After the show, our tour guide got us back to our hotel and I said my last good-bye to her. I thought she did a fine job. I was sorry to say good-bye to her.

I didn't much sleep at the hotel as I had an early departure. I left the hotel around 5 a.m. I got to Charles de Gaulle International and had to wait to see a British Airways rep as I couldn't check in for some reason. I found out why when they checked into it. It seems British Airways had a flight change that made it impossible to catch my connecting flight to New York JFK. They never told me. It looked bad for a bit but, things unexpectedly worked out for the better. They were able to get me on a straight flight from London Heathrow to Baltimore Washington International saving me a layover at JFK. I was delighted.

As my flight flew in, it flew over London. I got to see London Bridge, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. Also, I got to explore the new terminal 5 at Heathrow. It is impressive. I posted this entry from BA's lounge which is even nicer than the one at JFK.

Concerning my trip to France, I took copious notes and will post a number of entries detailing day by day what I got to do and see. There was some seriously cool stuff. The American Cemetary was beautifully and enormously sad. There were almost 10,000 crosses and stars of David there. Mont St. Michel was mind blowing. I could easily imagine I was at Minas Tirith. The vineyards around St. Emilion seem to go on forever. Monaco was very classy. Some of the yachts were unreal. I got to go to my first wine tasting in Beaune and, I ended up buying 2 bottles which made it necessary for me to buy a new travel bag.

I enjoyed France so much that I hope to go back in 2010. Also, I'm going to look into picking up French lessons at the Alliance Francaise. I enjoyed trying to speak french in France and, I feel my french improved considerably thanks to the tour. If I get back with Alliance Francaise, I'll continue to improve. Funilly, I did such a good job making myself understood that people promptly replied in french. Unfortunately, my ability to understand spoken french was far worse than my ability to speak it. This left me struggling to figure what the person responding said. That'll come with practice.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for entries on my France tour. They should be interesting. Cheers all!

France

Greetings my faithful readers. I've made it to France. I had a nice couple flights with British Airways. Business Class still rocks. Paris seemed the same. Still very pretty. There are 42 people on my Globus tour. All of them seem very nice. One interesting item is that we have 3 couples from Australia. I bet they had some killer flights. I can't say anything super exciting has happened so far. However, tomorrow I visit Mont St. Michel. That should be awesome. I'm looking forward to it. That's all for now. I'll try to post updates as the tour progresses. Stay tuned.

Free Ticket

I decided to see if I could get free Business Class tickets to Paris for my friend Harvey and myself. I wanted to use them in conjunction with the Globus tour of France we plan to take. One of the aggravating things about trying to use your airmiles to get free tickets is that you have to book MANY months in advance. In our case, we won't be going on the Globus France tour for almost 11 months. You would think I would have no problem getting seats that far in advance. You would be wrong. I checked seat availability for Washingon Dulles for the dates I needed. I could get to Paris with no problem. I wouldn't be able to return until 2 days after the tour ended. I checked seat availability for Newark Liberty Airport. I couldn't any seats on the date I needed going out but, I could get them coming back. I decided to try New York's JFK Airport. Eureka! I had loads of choices going to Paris. I had one choice coming back. I checked on what the likelihood was of the tour going on the date I wanted to go on. Not surprisingly, Globus has no idea right now what tours for the La France tour will go. The catalogs only came out last week and not many people have booked yet. So, I'm taking a gamble that the tour will go on the dates I'll use my free British Airways tickets. If it doesn't go, I'll have to see if I can change them though I doubt that'll work. I'll most likely have to cancel the reservations and see about making new reservations with some airline. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the tour goes on the dates I booked the tickets for. I'd really like to fly Business Class to Paris and not have to pay for it. We'll see what happens.

Various Stuff

At last! Globus has finally come out with their 2006 Europe tours. Me and my friend Harvey hope to go on one of their Scandanavia tours during the summer. I found out the price will be $3,278 with single supplement. That's about what I figured. That doesn't include airfare but I'm planning on using all those British Airways airmiles I've been collecting for years. If I can't get a free ticket with BA for the tour, I'm going to be furious. I'm still not thrilled with BA when they went and cut the value of my airmiles by half back in the summer of 2004. They said they were just getting the US program in line with everyone else. Up yours! I busted my butt to collect those airmiles and then you devalue them by half. I don't give a damn what your stinking excuse is, you're in the dog house with me after you do that. Not surprisingly, I haven't been working real hard to get airmiles with BA since.

On a different subject, I continue to wipe myself out on the elliptical machine. I burned another 993 calories on it today. I was shooting for a 1,000. I keep hitting a wall about the 22 or 23 minute (I do 47 minutes on it) mark. It's infuriating. Hopefully, it is just a matter of time to where I can keep on going and break the 1,000 calorie mark.

Also, I heard from the General Manager of the Baltimore Medieval Times. For those of you who don't know what a Medieval Times is, it is a very small indoor renaissance festival. It was actually created by folks who came up with the great idea of having a place where you could watch jousting, displays of falconry, fancy horseback riding, enjoy a finger food feast, and be able to buy various medieval type souvenirs all indoors. The Baltimore Medieval Times is a pretty nice place plus it's convenient. It's located at the Arundel Mills Mall where they have tons of parking and is right next to Interstate 295 which runs between Baltimore and Washington D.C. The reason I heard from the General Manager of the place is because of their loyalty program. What the loyalty program is is a program that rewards you for going to Medieval Times multiple times in the same year. You start getting rewards on your fourth and following visits. On your fourth visit, you get a free Royalty package upgrade which will save you between $8 and $10 per person. The Royalty upgrade in my opinion is worth it as you get to sit right on the edge of the arena. You get a much better view of the action then you would with the standard seat. You also get a DVD that tells you more about the show and some of the things that go on behind the scenes. It's an interesting DVD. You also get a little banner you can use to cheer your knight on. The Royalty package upgrade can also be bought for either $8 or $10 depending how you book your reservations.

For your fifth visit, you get a Medieval Times pewter coaster. The coaster is very sturdy (it is pewter) and can be useful at home. For the sixth visit, it apparently depends on the General Manager of the particular Medieval Times (there are eight of them currently according to their website www.medievaltimes.com). For the Baltimore one, their offering a free metallic hurricane glass or beer stein. The hurricane glasses look pretty cool. They look fairly close to goblets and they come in six different colors: red, silver, blue, green, gold, and black. I've collected all six. I plan to invite some friends to go in November. While I know the show storyline by heart (I've gone 7 times within the last year and a half), it is still fun, and a great place to take friends, family, and classmates.

Just FYI, I don't work at Medieval Times and I don't get jack tiddly for writing nicely about them. I like the place and they've treated me and my friends very kindly there. I've even bought the knighting package once. I have a picture of me bowing before King Alfonso the Magnificent wearing the knighting cloak and looking sufficiently stupid. It was a lot of fun and I'd recommend it to anyone who has a special occasion coming up. If you're really rolling in the dosh (British for money), get the sword and scabbard included. The sword is pretty cool and the scabbard which has nice green leather will keep the neighbors from getting nervous when you carry the sword outside your apartment or house. You wouldn't want them thinking you've gone psycho would you.