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Lol – she has actually got me wondering if I could make it to Gold at some point 😂.
@NorthernLass – keep friendly with @Angelamc11 then, as she’ll be able to gift Gold status to somebody very soon … 😉Ah my husband will take the gold status as he is doing all the drop off and pick ups at the airport as and when needed. I plan to gift the silver to one of the kids so they can choose seats in CW while I’m in F. Unless GGL or the GUF tickets allow seat selection, I can’t seem to find an answer to this. The other silver I don’t know what I’ll do with.
Lol – she has actually got me wondering if I could make it to Gold at some point 😂.
@NorthernLass – keep friendly with @Angelamc11 then, as she’ll be able to gift Gold status to somebody very soon … 😉Ah my husband will take the gold status as he is doing all the drop off and pick ups at the airport as and when needed. I plan to gift the silver to one of the kids so they can choose seats in CW while I’m in F. Unless GGL or the GUF tickets allow seat selection, I can’t seem to find an answer to this. The other silver I don’t know what I’ll do with.
The power @Angelamc11 … the power! mwahahahaaaaah!!!
Lol – she has actually got me wondering if I could make it to Gold at some point 😂.
@NorthernLass – keep friendly with @Angelamc11 then, as she’ll be able to gift Gold status to somebody very soon … 😉Ah my husband will take the gold status as he is doing all the drop off and pick ups at the airport as and when needed. I plan to gift the silver to one of the kids so they can choose seats in CW while I’m in F. Unless GGL or the GUF tickets allow seat selection, I can’t seem to find an answer to this. The other silver I don’t know what I’ll do with.
I have an idea….
Just booked LHR – MEX £2300 return in F for Easter next year. That’s 420 TP, not sure if it can be paired with BAH for double TP as I’ve already got enough TP, but great price for F to MEX
I was already sitting on 1800 points with a year end of Nov, when the sale started. I priced up trips to reach the 3500 for the GUF vouchers, then realised another 2 trips and by adding more segments to the routes I was originally planning, I could reach the 5000 easily. However, I decided to go for 6000 points, so I would get an extra GUF. I wanted to make 5000 with time for the jokers to reach my account so I would have 2 extra jokers I could use before 8th Nov. The extra 1000 points is also a safety net if things go wrong/cancellations or delays with any of the bookings. Cost was around 3K, I’m not costing in the first 1800 as they were actually holidays I was taking anyway. Avios returns is around 70k, with 4 jokers and 3 GUF, plus all the other benefits. Seems like a good deal to me, plus I’m doing what I enjoy – flying.
@Angelamc11 Can you give us an overview of how you get ~4000 tier points for £3000. Where are you going?
@Angelamc11 Can you give us an overview of how you get ~4000 tier points for £3000. Where are you going?[/quote]It appears the more segments you have on a booking the cheaper the flights become. I’ve a few B2B Sofia at 320 points for around £210. I’ve several domestics between £50 and £60 for 80 points. Bookings with 8 or 10 segments have the cheapest flights with only one car hire element. Some of these come in at around £700 for 960 points, but they are a lot of work with very early morning flights, late evening flights and 3 flights in a day.
The trick is getting them booked a soon as the sale lands so you have lots of choice on the dates and times before the seats sell and prices goes up.
Using the ITA matrix and playing around with dates throws up some really cheap fares. Then I found when booking with BA and giving the booking classes as per the ITA matrix, it was working out around £100 less than the matrix was quoting.
For example, I would book 6 or 4 segments on the phone. Then phone back within 24 hours and add 4 more segments, this always seemed to reduce the price down to around £50/£60 per flight even though they were showing at around £80 on the ITA matrix.
Because I’m taking the hire car home I don’t have hotel costs or have to be away unnecessarily.
I also spent full days playing with the ITA matrix to produce flight combinations at the cheapest prices, switching dates and UK/DUB airports.
For example, I would book 6 or 4 segments on the phone. Then phone back within 24 hours and add 4 more segments, this always seemed to reduce the price down to around £50/£60 per flight even though they were showing at around £80 on the ITA matrix.
@Angelamc11 Is there an added benefit of booking only a subet of the segments first and then phoning back, or is rather so you can secure some key flights asap and once you have the rest figured out you can call back within a day?Some agents struggle with booking the 6 segments, so it seemed easier to do it that way by phoning back. But it has all been a process of trial and error and it seems that adding flights to an existing booking rather than all at once was bringing the flight costs down.
Got it, thanks!
@Angelamc11 Can you give us an overview of how you get ~4000 tier points for £3000. Where are you going?It appears the more segments you have on a booking the cheaper the flights become. I’ve a few B2B Sofia at 320 points for around £210. I’ve several domestics between £50 and £60 for 80 points. Bookings with 8 or 10 segments have the cheapest flights with only one car hire element. Some of these come in at around £700 for 960 points, but they are a lot of work with very early morning flights, late evening flights and 3 flights in a day.
The trick is getting them booked a soon as the sale lands so you have lots of choice on the dates and times before the seats sell and prices goes up.
Using the ITA matrix and playing around with dates throws up some really cheap fares. Then I found when booking with BA and giving the booking classes as per the ITA matrix, it was working out around £100 less than the matrix was quoting.
For example, I would book 6 or 4 segments on the phone. Then phone back within 24 hours and add 4 more segments, this always seemed to reduce the price down to around £50/£60 per flight even though they were showing at around £80 on the ITA matrix.
Because I’m taking the hire car home I don’t have hotel costs or have to be away unnecessarily.
I also spent full days playing with the ITA matrix to produce flight combinations at the cheapest prices, switching dates and UK/DUB airports.[/quote]
I’ve nothing helpful to add but just wanted to say you are some form of genius and I wish I had your brain. ITA matrix just sends my brain into a meltdown and I end up on google flights in a massive sulk re my limitations 😩
@Angelamc11 Can you give us an overview of how you get ~4000 tier points for £3000. Where are you going?It appears the more segments you have on a booking the cheaper the flights become. I’ve a few B2B Sofia at 320 points for around £210. I’ve several domestics between £50 and £60 for 80 points. Bookings with 8 or 10 segments have the cheapest flights with only one car hire element. Some of these come in at around £700 for 960 points, but they are a lot of work with very early morning flights, late evening flights and 3 flights in a day.
The trick is getting them booked a soon as the sale lands so you have lots of choice on the dates and times before the seats sell and prices goes up.
Using the ITA matrix and playing around with dates throws up some really cheap fares. Then I found when booking with BA and giving the booking classes as per the ITA matrix, it was working out around £100 less than the matrix was quoting.
For example, I would book 6 or 4 segments on the phone. Then phone back within 24 hours and add 4 more segments, this always seemed to reduce the price down to around £50/£60 per flight even though they were showing at around £80 on the ITA matrix.
Because I’m taking the hire car home I don’t have hotel costs or have to be away unnecessarily.
I also spent full days playing with the ITA matrix to produce flight combinations at the cheapest prices, switching dates and UK/DUB airports.
I’ve nothing helpful to add but just wanted to say you are some form of genius and I wish I had your brain. ITA matrix just sends my brain into a meltdown and I end up on google flights in a massive sulk re my limitations 😩[/quote]
Oh me too! I wish there was some way we could pay you to help book for us, Angela — I would in a heartbeat!
@AmyC – if you can fly a plane, you don’t have any limitations that would prevent you getting to grips with ITA! It’s probably more how much you wish to apply your mind to it.
On the flying note, have you flown to Ostend-Bruges airport? My son flew me a couple of weekends ago – it was 1h25 from Elstree, slightly less on the return. Quite funny landing a mosquito on a 3.2km runway and to be met by a ‘follow me’ van the driver of which then marshalled, put chocks on etc. Private terminal where border officer met us. €55 total fees including €4 overnight parking fee. Easy to get to Bruges from there.
I always wanted to be a pilot! Dodgy eyesight, bad hearing and some spells of ill health meant that could never be. I’m happy as a neurodivergent professor but definitely not genius level lol.
The ITA matrix is frustrating as the airport codes change randomly when switching dates and only allow so many segments. As @JDB points out, it’s how much you want to make it work. Persistence and time driven by determination gets results.
Is there a recommended ‘beginners guide’ to ITA matrix somewhere?
An example would be BHD-LHR-DUB-LHR-MAN-LHR-BHD. But any combination works.
I am a matrix beginner but I am usually able to reproduce routes that ppl post in matrix just in case … one day.
In this case I can’t reproduce BHD <-> LHR with outbound routing LHR DUB and inbound routing MAN LHR even when the direct flights were available. Did you find this only work for specific dates? I get no flights found.
Other variations such as any connection point doesn’t work either.
An example would be BHD-LHR-DUB-LHR-MAN-LHR-BHD. But any combination works.
Oops, my post disappeared.
I am a matrix beginner but I am usually able to reproduce routes that ppl post in matrix just in case … one day.
In this case I can’t reproduce BHD <-> LHR with outbound routing LHR DUB and inbound routing MAN LHR even when the direct flights were available. Did you find this only work for specific dates? I get no flights found.
Other variations such as any connection point don’t work either.
@Angelamc11 – how long do your itineraries normally span? I’m just wondering if I can squeeze in 8 sectors on one booking over 2 months next summer, which would include trips to London, Portugal and Edinburgh! Should be 640 TPs so enough to retain Silver for nearly another 2 years.
@Angelamc11 – how long do your itineraries normally span? I’m just wondering if I can squeeze in 8 sectors on one booking over 2 months next summer, which would include trips to London, Portugal and Edinburgh! Should be 640 TPs so enough to retain Silver for nearly another 2 years.
Mine span mostly 1 week, but I also have one at 3 weeks. I don’t see why your suggestion would not work.
An example would be BHD-LHR-DUB-LHR-MAN-LHR-BHD. But any combination works.
Oops, my post disappeared.
I am a matrix beginner but I am usually able to reproduce routes that ppl post in matrix just in case … one day.
In this case I can’t reproduce BHD <-> LHR with outbound routing LHR DUB and inbound routing MAN LHR even when the direct flights were available. Did you find this only work for specific dates? I get no flights found.
Other variations such as any connection point don’t work either.
I’m not sure why this is. It’s working perfectly on my laptop and phone. Is it the ITA matrix?
@AmyC – if you can fly a plane, you don’t have any limitations that would prevent you getting to grips with ITA! It’s probably more how much you wish to apply your mind to it.
On the flying note, have you flown to Ostend-Bruges airport? My son flew me a couple of weekends ago – it was 1h25 from Elstree, slightly less on the return. Quite funny landing a mosquito on a 3.2km runway and to be met by a ‘follow me’ van the driver of which then marshalled, put chocks on etc. Private terminal where border officer met us. €55 total fees including €4 overnight parking fee. Easy to get to Bruges from there.
A De Havilland mosquito????
Well I learned 20 years ago when my brain was a useful sponge. I no longer do anything solo and (since 2009) have just accompanied other pilot mates on trips to give them a bit of relief in the air (that sounds wrong) while they do all the hard stuff. These days I can barely fill in a spreadsheet without causing everything to implode let alone navigate ITA matrix….no matter how many times I watch the Matt’s Planet YouTube video! But I will try again this weekend but my patience wears thin.
Haven’t been to Ostend yet but we keep talking about it. There’s still time this year, maybe next month. Cotswolds Aerodrome was great last week, 46 minutes there from Elstree, lovely airfield and cafe. Last month did Alderney from Biggin. Some shocking weather and it took 1hr 40 outbound and an hour on the return thanks to tail wind. Done lots of Le Touquet (a favourite) and Isle of Wights this year.
BTW, thanks for the lunch recommendation for last Friday, twas top notch!@AmyC glad you liked the Feathered Nest. Not a real mosquito, just seemed so small – I think it’s a Cessna 172. Thank you re Cotswolds, we will try that as well as Alderney. We like Compton Abbas which is a bit different and my brother lives quite near. I was taken to Bembridge on the IoW for Father’s Day which was great; nice walk up to the monument and pub at the top!
An example would be BHD-LHR-DUB-LHR-MAN-LHR-BHD. But any combination works.
Oops, my post disappeared.
I am a matrix beginner but I am usually able to reproduce routes that ppl post in matrix just in case … one day.
In this case I can’t reproduce BHD <-> LHR with outbound routing LHR DUB and inbound routing MAN LHR even when the direct flights were available. Did you find this only work for specific dates? I get no flights found.
Other variations such as any connection point don’t work either.
Try entering it on Matrix as a multi city trip with three legs ….. BHD- DUB via LHR, DUB-MAN via LHR, MAN- BHD via LHR. You can probably put that into a custom trip on BA.com too.
@AmyC glad you liked the Feathered Nest. Not a real mosquito, just seemed so small – I think it’s a Cessna 172. Thank you re Cotswolds, we will try that as well as Alderney. We like Compton Abbas which is a bit different and my brother lives quite near. I was taken to Bembridge on the IoW for Father’s Day which was great; nice walk up to the monument and pub at the top!
Yes 172 is the standard craft I fly in. Although to Cotswolds it was a Piper. Is your son going to go commercial or keep it a hobby?
Btw I recommend the Propellor Inn just outside Bembridge airfield and particularly good F&C on Fridays!
On another note EGHN has a good bistro and also nice helicopter tours every so often courtesy of Bliss aviation / Bournemouth. It’s worth a quick walk around the museum around the corner and a bash in the VR flight sim.
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