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

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• whiskerxx says:

  14 Jul14 July 07:35

  Ermm….. Triprep I would have paid the ridiculous short notice cash price if there was no alternative. Like thousands of others did.

  • TripRep says:

    14 Jul14 July 08:03

    Wow – that being the case…

    What was the cash price?

    What value per point did you feel you redeemed at?

• Dean says:

  14 Jul14 July 07:36

  There were plenty of good mileage options available with S7 if you took the long way round, lots of availability from Alicante, Barcelona and Munich to Moscow for 10K miles. With taxes from Moscow to Munich at only £1.50 I had quite a few options booked depending on different scenarios of where England would play.

  I flew s7 from Moscow to Alicante the morning after the game and then Norwegian back to London and I think half the plane were doing the same. I had planned to stay for the final if we had won.

  I managed 3 trips in total with my longest stay in Russia being 30 hours, the others were a day trip (Charter for the Sweden game from East Midlands) where we had about 12 hours on the ground and a bus trip from Lithuania to Kaliningrad (13 hours in Russia) for the Belgium game.

  The Russians have certainly rolled out the red carpet for the tournament, in Kaliningrad they had flown in English speaking students from around the country and put them in bars and restaurants to translate for you.

  • the real harry1 says:

    14 Jul14 July 07:40

    yep massive PR success for Russia, gotta be said – then Putin’s got the Donald there on Monday to further ingratiate himself with the rest of the world…still, detente always was better than war I guess…

    • Paul says:

      14 Jul14 July 08:22

      Tell that to the folks of Salisbury.

      I understand the those who went to Berlin in 1936 had a very similar happy and positive experience.

      • the real harry1 says:

        14 Jul14 July 08:27

        The good news is: they found the bottle of Novichok. It was cunningly hidden in a bottle on Charlie Rowley’s bedside table so the police got tricked into ripping up half of Amesbury before bothering to look in his house

      • Jimbob says:

        14 Jul14 July 09:45

        Indeed, 6 days to find something on the bedside table, what were they doing for the other 5 days?

      • Rob says:

        14 Jul14 July 10:13

        I read an article this week which reprinted some press reports from 1936 on the Berlin games, they did indeed read how the Russian ones went – “Mr Goebbels was such a nice man” (literally).

      • Kk says:

        14 Jul14 July 20:22

        > they did indeed read how the Russian ones went – “Mr
        > Goebbels was such a nice man” (literally)

        That was clearly the goal of writing them, so a case of research being done to fit the conclusion.

        The levels of propaganda are sickening.

• Marcw says:

  14 Jul14 July 08:34

  STILL RUBBISH – STILL EXPENSIVE. They were cheaper options available, specially for flights – therefore I don’t think That was a good price, sorry. I was doing some research, because I almost clicked: but decided it was only worth it if they were clear chances to win. Either with Avios via Germany/Spain with S7 or IB. The other option, which Id have taken: Flying Blue redemption: rtrn from London to Moscow for less than 25k. All economy – for me it’s not worth to fly C within Europe, usually a emergency exit is more comfortable.

• Brian says:

  14 Jul14 July 08:46

  Presumably there was a petrol cost as well as the £1 for the car hire?? But this kind of trip is definitely one of the reasons why it’s good to have a points balance to fall back on.

• Richard says:

  14 Jul14 July 08:49

  I think I might be able to beat that. I sat at home on the sofa, took no time off work, it cost nothing and I got a great view from the half way line where the camera zoomed in so i could see everything in more detail. :p

  • TripRep says:

    14 Jul14 July 08:52

    You forgot to mention about earning Tesco CC pts for your beers & BBQ food 😀

    • Richard says:

      14 Jul14 July 09:04

      Ah yes! Thank you 🙂

• Mark says:

  14 Jul14 July 08:50

  I did a search for flights for this weekend whilst England were playing the other night. Cash returns in business were coming up cheaper than economy at about £350 and hotels were £25 a night!

  • Alex Sm says:

    14 Jul14 July 22:56

    I couldn’t find any reward availability and cash prices for direct flights were astronomical so I booked LOT flights for £266 return at a week’s noticee with good daytime transfers. And Premuim Economy fares were oddly slightly cheaper than Economy, so I had nice food, 2pc luggage allowance, more A3 points on the way to Gold and changeable dates for less money than I would have had none of these perks.

• Mark Barton says:

  14 Jul14 July 09:28

  Forgive my ignorance but what is S7 ?

  (I assume BA but don’t get the nicknane)

  • Rob says:

    14 Jul14 July 10:11

    S7 is a Russian regional airline that is part of oneworld and so bookable on Avios.

    • marcw says:

      14 Jul14 July 13:51

      Regional is a little bit extreme.. They may not have airplanes bigger than an A321, but their routemap is “impressive”. You can fly all the way from the Canary Islands to Tokio.

• Chris P says:

  14 Jul14 July 09:34

  I used 25,000 Avios and 117 quid on Qatar from Doha to Moscow, traveled on the morning of the game returned next day. There were 8 Avios seats on the way out available and 4 on the return. Guess the BA and Qatar systems missed the fact that the Semi was on. Friends paid 1200 cash for the same route. I had become disillusioned with Avios (big fuel surcharges) but I might start collecting them again now! Thanks Avios.

  • L says:

    14 Jul14 July 11:51

    Sounds like you did the luxury version of getting to the game then.

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