Someday I'll think of a more creative title for my trips 
Itinerary
This is a wild trip so strap in... as you can see I'm not actually doing a stopover anywhere until I get to Japan. The catalyst for this journey was a post I stumbled across on Facebook saying that there was a drop of EY F availability from AUH to Europe this week, coupled with the reminder that they would shortly be getting the boot from the EY/VA partnership thanks to their new deal with Qatar. EY F is something I've always wanted to try so I thought I might as well see what I can do.
Booking this was a rollercoaster of emotions for the three days that I looked at this - availability for the AUH-Europe flights fluctuated daily, I couldn't find flights back into Aus, availability for the AUH-Europe would appear but the dates would mean I'd have to have 2 days in AUH (which I was not keen for), man it was not fun and each day I thought I should just give up.
For me, the no-go criteria for this trip was either not managing to find a flight back to Aus, or not being able to get F availability from AUH-Europe - after all that was the whole point of this trip. With QR's partnership and my stash of Avios I figured I could always fly QR later, so whilst it was great to get that availability in F I wasn't prepared to fly in a circle just for that one, and I'd already done JL F in my last trip. At one point I did consider even booking EK from DXB to Europe and then from Europe to America to get back home via SFO, but I didn't want to pay a lot of taxes and points to fly EK F (as good as it is) and I also didn't want the trip to take ages.
Well, my persistence paid off. As suspected ANA was only releasing availability one day at a time and that got me the final piece of getting back into Aus. Whilst I would've preferred to fly back the next day after arriving into HND, the only option was Y, so I bit the bullet and waited a day. Miraculously, an AUH-LHR EY flight also appeared on the day I wanted so I wouldn't have to do a stopover in AUH. With both these conditions met, I pulled the trigger and booked it. The outbound flight from SYD-AUH was a bit of a wild card I didn't expect to see from QR, as there was no availability from AUS-DOH on that day. This is also a massive first world problem but I also wanted to experience QSuites before doing F, but ah well I'm sure I will recover
The ticketing is a bit messy - every VA flight is booked as a separate ticket with the QF CBR-SYD return and the LHR-CDG-HND also separate. Really hope nothing goes wrong but I've left lots of time between flights.
This review is (obviously) going to be very heavily skewed towards the flight and lounge experience. I'm really keen to see EY and QR F as well as ANA J. Also looking forward to spending a stupidly long amount of time in the Al Safwa First Lounge in Doha and the EY F Lounge in AUH.
In terms of hotels, I've booked the Hotel Indigo Tokyo Shibuya [it has a small gym] using my stash of IHG points - getting almost a cent of value per point so a (very very small) win - and I've booked the Rydges in Sydney airport through QF hotels, using a voucher to get it down to a very reasonable $175.
I plan on eating my weight in caviar and champagne, and walking a lot in the airport. I have a dinner planned for Tokyo but not much else... I will probably be sleeping for the day I think!
Itinerary
| DATE | ROUTE | FLIGHT | CLASS | POINTS | PROGRAM |
| 09 JAN 13:25 - 09 JAN 14:20 | CBR-SYD | QF804 | J | 18,400 | QF |
| 09 JAN 21:40 - 10 JAN 04:50 | SYD-DOH | QR909 | F | 152,500 | VA |
| 10 JAN 14:15 - 10 JAN 16:25 | DOH-AUH | QR1050 | F (J) | - | - |
| 11 JAN 02:40 - 11 JAN 06:45 | AUH-LHR | EY61 | F | 78,000 | VA |
| 11 JAN10:55 - 11 JAN 13:20 | LHR-CDG | BA328 | J | 20,000 | QF |
| 11 JAN 17:15 - 12 JAN 14:45 | CDG-HND | JL46 | F | 149,800 | QF |
| 14 JAN 08:35 - 14 JAN 20:15 | HND-SYD | NH8999 | J | 78,000 | VA |
| 15 JAN 08:40 - 15 JAN 09:35 | SYD-CBR | QF801 | J | 18,400 | QF |
This is a wild trip so strap in... as you can see I'm not actually doing a stopover anywhere until I get to Japan. The catalyst for this journey was a post I stumbled across on Facebook saying that there was a drop of EY F availability from AUH to Europe this week, coupled with the reminder that they would shortly be getting the boot from the EY/VA partnership thanks to their new deal with Qatar. EY F is something I've always wanted to try so I thought I might as well see what I can do.
Booking this was a rollercoaster of emotions for the three days that I looked at this - availability for the AUH-Europe flights fluctuated daily, I couldn't find flights back into Aus, availability for the AUH-Europe would appear but the dates would mean I'd have to have 2 days in AUH (which I was not keen for), man it was not fun and each day I thought I should just give up.
For me, the no-go criteria for this trip was either not managing to find a flight back to Aus, or not being able to get F availability from AUH-Europe - after all that was the whole point of this trip. With QR's partnership and my stash of Avios I figured I could always fly QR later, so whilst it was great to get that availability in F I wasn't prepared to fly in a circle just for that one, and I'd already done JL F in my last trip. At one point I did consider even booking EK from DXB to Europe and then from Europe to America to get back home via SFO, but I didn't want to pay a lot of taxes and points to fly EK F (as good as it is) and I also didn't want the trip to take ages.
Well, my persistence paid off. As suspected ANA was only releasing availability one day at a time and that got me the final piece of getting back into Aus. Whilst I would've preferred to fly back the next day after arriving into HND, the only option was Y, so I bit the bullet and waited a day. Miraculously, an AUH-LHR EY flight also appeared on the day I wanted so I wouldn't have to do a stopover in AUH. With both these conditions met, I pulled the trigger and booked it. The outbound flight from SYD-AUH was a bit of a wild card I didn't expect to see from QR, as there was no availability from AUS-DOH on that day. This is also a massive first world problem but I also wanted to experience QSuites before doing F, but ah well I'm sure I will recover
The ticketing is a bit messy - every VA flight is booked as a separate ticket with the QF CBR-SYD return and the LHR-CDG-HND also separate. Really hope nothing goes wrong but I've left lots of time between flights.
This review is (obviously) going to be very heavily skewed towards the flight and lounge experience. I'm really keen to see EY and QR F as well as ANA J. Also looking forward to spending a stupidly long amount of time in the Al Safwa First Lounge in Doha and the EY F Lounge in AUH.
In terms of hotels, I've booked the Hotel Indigo Tokyo Shibuya [it has a small gym] using my stash of IHG points - getting almost a cent of value per point so a (very very small) win - and I've booked the Rydges in Sydney airport through QF hotels, using a voucher to get it down to a very reasonable $175.
I plan on eating my weight in caviar and champagne, and walking a lot in the airport. I have a dinner planned for Tokyo but not much else... I will probably be sleeping for the day I think!
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) but after that it was smooth sailing.
