How Brad is flying around the world for 112,000 airline miles and just £173

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• Stuart says:

  13 Dec13 December 08:22

  Good work, how long did it take to put together?

  • Brad says:

    24 Dec24 December 21:35

    I have collected all miles from credit cards sign up bonuses except qantas miles (though qantas is a partner with le club 1:1). I took me less than 6months to do it. This can be done even cheaper using avios to fly to TYO from HEL and from LHR to HEL

• VP says:

  13 Dec13 December 08:37

  Very inspiring brad. Are the stopovers for more than 24 hours or less in TOKYO-FIJI and FIJI-HNL?
  Also was availability an issue for any particular segment? Have a great time and kudos once again for your research and patience putting all this together.

  • Brad says:

    24 Dec24 December 21:43

    Surprisingly availability between TYO-NAN was very good in fact you can start your journey in different cities even ICN or BKK for the same cost. NAN-HNL availability was also very good. Since they are to separate reservation you can stay on Fiji for as long as you want…though flight between NAN-HNL via Samoa is only available once a week other available flights are direct from NAN-HNL , but I wanted to have short (7h stopover) on Samoa.

• Jeff says:

  13 Dec13 December 08:39

  yet a fare from BHD to AMS would cost me c £275 and BA have the cheek to offer £100 off for 15,000 Avios…where’s the equity?

  • harry says:

    13 Dec13 December 08:57

    Put me out of my misery and explain why you’d pay the extra to fly in business when it’s such a short journey? 😉

    There’s no real concept of equity here, more like: different airlines, different strategies in terms of load factor & reward schemes, different values obtained for points, different ‘ease’/ cost of obtaining those points. You can certainly compare all that one against the other.

    Which is why the United fare looks so good.

    • mark2 says:

      13 Dec13 December 09:32

      Agreed entirely
      If you don’t like it don’t buy it

      • Jeff says:

        13 Dec13 December 10:45

        I can choose wherever I want to fly at what price, but surely if BA/Avios operate a points exchange system shouldn’t there be some comparative value between the flight distances?

        Brad’s TXL-AUH cost only 12500 miles for 2901 miles…BHD-AMS is 465 miles cost in Avios 23500

        just trying to see the point

        • John says:

          13 Dec13 December 13:17

          Not sure how BHD-AMS is 23500 Avios, BHD-LHR is 4000/4500 and LHR-AMS is 4000/4500 so it should only be 8000/9000 one-way??

    • Jeff says:

      13 Dec13 December 10:36

      “why you’d pay the extra to fly in business when it’s such a short journey? ”

      No..that was economy

      • harry says:

        13 Dec13 December 10:54

        I stand corrected 🙂

• Joe says:

  13 Dec13 December 09:50

  Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I’m constantly amazed by what I don’t know when it comes to airmiles and discount travel. Every time I think I’m becoming knowledgeable, I realise I’m just a beginner.

  I thought I knew what I was doing when I took out the BA blue credit card and earned enough points for a RFS.
  Then I REALLY thought I knew what I was doing when I combined my Clubcard account with my BAEC account.
  Then I thought I was REALLY, REALLY clever when I started generating extra clubcard points through 3v etc, and joining hotel loyalty schemes to earn even more avios.
  Then I thought I was SERIOUSLY clever for booking some ex-EU cash flights.

  And then people like Brad come along and show what a real expert can do. I think I’ll just have to settle for being a beginner – I can’t imagine the organisation a trip like this requires… and that’s before you get to all the gobbledegook on tricked fares. (and I dare say that there are even levels of expertise beyond that!)

  • Kathy says:

    13 Dec13 December 12:14

    Yes, indeed. I would like to visit New Zealand flying business class (because that length of flight in economy would be horrible) without breaking the bank, and have been thinking that a LHR-SYD using a Lloys upgrade voucher from PE to Club, then SYD to New Zealand, would be the cheapest route. Now I’m seriously wondering what trick I am missing!

    • Mark says:

      13 Dec13 December 13:24

      In the BMI Diamond Club days we did Singapore-Christchurch and Auckland-Melbourne-Singapore with Singapore Airlines / Air NZ in business class each for £670 plus a 20,000 BMI miles credit card sign-up bonus (the cash element included buying some more miles and for a part cash, part miles redemption – the taxes and fees were a very small part of it).

      I thought that was good going….

      • Jason says:

        13 Dec13 December 21:52

        To be fair it is good going! 🙂

    • Matthew says:

      13 Dec13 December 23:18

      If you have some MR points or SPG points you could convert them to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer for the following redemption from Europe to New Zealand.

      AMS-SIN-AKL or AMS-SIN-CHC is just 68,000 Krisflyer miles in business class one-way.

      The AMS-SIN leg will also be on A350 come April 2016.

  • Brad says:

    24 Dec24 December 22:41

    Thanks Joe it means a lot to me. There is no doubt Avios are not only miles available on market and it is possible to do RTW using avios it is good to have different miles in different programs. I think we need more posts like this to show people possible redemptions available using avios and other miles. I do not think it has been mentioned that for instance departures from Brasil and Philippines do not have YQ (fuel surcharges) and there are some excellent redemptions available even with airlines like SQ. I think HFP has to go a bit further and cover other programs and see possible options.People in this country know now how to collect miles but they do not know how to wisely spend them. Seriously BA and using avios for LHR-SYD , where you can use AA instead from HEL.

• RIccati says:

  13 Dec13 December 12:11

  What about Manchester to Berlin?

  Hi is ditching the last segment!!

  • Mark says:

    13 Dec13 December 13:21

    I expect he is walking that segment!

• Callum says:

  13 Dec13 December 14:08

  An amazing itinerary, though probably not quite as amazing as most people assumed from the description of it!

  Those are just routings and not destinations. Despite the long list there are only about 6 destinations (maybe a couple more for less than 24hrs if timings worked out). Still a decent deal anyway!

  • Brad says:

    24 Dec24 December 22:43

    True ! However in this trip my aim was to see Fiji and Hawaii as I saw other places before. Thanks anyway

• Choons says:

  13 Dec13 December 20:28

  Great idea, thanks for the tips

• SoloFlyer says:

  13 Dec13 December 22:14

  OT: apologies! But has anyone else noticed BA pushing Premium Plus Amex on checkout advertising £50 statement credit and 6,000 bonus points? Wondering if the 6,000 was in addition to the current enhanced bonus in which case very lucrative
  Solo

  • harry says:

    13 Dec13 December 22:51

    Checkout from where?

    • David says:

      14 Dec14 December 15:28

      BA.com when buying a flight (only gets offered if BA.com thinks you are UK based).

      • SoloFlyer says:

        14 Dec14 December 17:00

        Yeah got it from BA site! Never seen it before! Would have took them up but just cancelled my BA card 3 months ago. Will wait and hope it comes up again

        • harry says:

          14 Dec14 December 17:40

          Ah right fellers. Wouldn’t surprise me if it were INSTEAD of the 25K deal as they account for 25K points in very different ways to the likes of us. I think they might even count them as low as 0.25p.

          So 25K points = £250 to (some of) us, £62.50 to BA.

          And £50 + 6000 points = (say) £65 to BA? You get my drift?

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