How Jason got to the World Cup semi final at 48 hours notice using his Avios, miles and points

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• Ollie says:

  14 Jul14 July 05:42

  Hi Jason, nicely done by the looks of it, especially at such short notice too. Out of interest did you watch the game in person too, as appears to be the case, and was the ticket expensive if you don’t mind sharing that part?

  • the real harry1 says:

    14 Jul14 July 06:51

    Yep great use of Avios & hotel points, Jason – definitely not a ‘still rubbish’ result 🙂

  • Dean says:

    14 Jul14 July 07:55

    One of the good things about Germany being knocked out was their fans had a lot of tickets for games they thought they would play in. We managed to pick up tickets from German ebay and get them sent over by DHL. Many that we bought were at less than face price.

    • Chris P says:

      14 Jul14 July 09:36

      It was OK that the Fan ID didn’t match the tickets?

      • Alex says:

        14 Jul14 July 09:49

        From experience they didn’t have to match. Although authorities said they might check to make sure that both matched and was advised to also bring passport to the stadium, just in case.

• flibby says:

  14 Jul14 July 05:54

  Well done Jason. How did you get a visa?

  • Adam says:

    14 Jul14 July 06:16

    Visa free during World Cup.

• Chris says:

  14 Jul14 July 06:13

  nicely done. in euro 2016 I booked a holiday inn in lille for 10k points after the wales England game in hope wales won the group and made the quarters. it all came in, ferry was paid on avois, rooms were about £400 a night in lille that night.

• Concerto says:

  14 Jul14 July 06:27

  You had to go through a process and get a Fan ID, which you could only get if you had purchased a ticket to a match. Maybe he has a multiple entry visa?

• Jason says:

  14 Jul14 July 06:51

  Managed to grad a seat off the FIFA site on Sunday morning which in turn gets you a FAN ID which is your visa for the tournament

  • whiskerxx says:

    14 Jul14 July 07:12

    You didn’t even need a ticket to get a fan ID, just the application number of someone who did. Great way to get to Russia without a Visa

• whiskerxx says:

  14 Jul14 July 07:11

  Seems expensive to me.
  Sadly I booked my route to final on 29th June
  Birmingham > Berlin > Moscow > Berlin > Birmingham
  Total cost 24000 Avios plus £98
  4 nights a Park Inn Izmailovo, Moscow @ 9,000 per night = 36,000 Radisson points
  Then England didn’t bother to play the second half ;-(

  • the real harry1 says:

    14 Jul14 July 07:21

    yep but Jason’s was last minute so the comparison is against cash cost on the day he booked

    sure I love to pat myself on the back comparing my Avios reward flights vs cash cost in the week before Xmas, Easter etc but it’s all illusory (and jolly good fun! 🙂 )

    next week’s flights out to the place in the sun x4 would be £2250 so didn’t I do well @ T-355? that’s 7.3p/ point I got there lol

    • Anna says:

      14 Jul14 July 08:42

      So much fun! Yes, price of 3 x CW to east coast US for August now coming in at just over £9k so happy with paying 240,000 avios & £1500 taxes.

• TripRep says:

  14 Jul14 July 07:27

  Love stories like this.

  Yes on paper you can’t say that you got X10 normal points value because you wouldn’t have actually paid the ridiculous short notice cash price..

  However using points made booking the whole trip accessible and possible, that’s what I was trying to convey with my 20k Hilton booking the other day when the cash price was £350.

  • Peter K says:

    14 Jul14 July 09:10

    Agreed. I love that points open up otherwise closed opportunities for me.

• whiskerxx says:

  14 Jul14 July 07:34

  Errm,…. Harry I wont bore you with the cash cost comparisons but sufficed to say they were rather extreme.

  • the real harry1 says:

    14 Jul14 July 07:37

    So are you in Moscow right now?

    I’m debating whether to even watch the 3rd place playoff live today, most inconsiderate making it 3pm on a lovely sunny day 🙂

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