A Return to J, QF MEL-LHR-MEL

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TonyHancock

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Preamble:

I have a very good boss, I genuinely don’t dislike him......no seriously it’s true, he has a great sense of humour and is very good at his job. There are, however, two downsides to my boss, firstly he is very good at his job. This presents some difficulties for me. I’m fundamentally lazy, some might say bone idle, so having a boss that knows what is happening in the business presents challenges to someone who’s primary desire, on arriving in his office, is to do as little as possible. Being 11,000 miles away does provide some assistance....but nowhere near enough. :-|

The second downside is made up of two components. He is not very tall, in fact he is quite small. No.... I’m not being heightist or sizest, I don’t particularly like anyone, short, medium, tall, thin, less thin, large etc etc. This all round smallness means he can fit into an 747 Y seat as if it were an F sleeper bed. (He could probably stow away in the emergency medical equipment and be comfortable.) Don’t get me wrong I think this is great...I wish I could. (Actually I really don’t, I dislike anything that doesn’t maximize my comfort, but I feel I need to say that I do....more on humility later.) It does mean that he flies Y everywhere!!!!

So what has all this to do with travel and, in particular, my first trip report? Well, actually not a huge amount other than to give a little background......... I’ll continue....In the balmy pre GFC days I managed to swan around the world in OW J class cabins. Trips to the UK, South America, and China were regulars on my itinerary. I don’t particularly enjoy travel, and the prospect of going to new places and meeting new people I find quite annoying....but at least I could do something I don’t like with a degree of comfort. I got to choose my airline and book my own tickets, so it was nowhere near as unpleasant as it could have been. :)

CRUNCH!:shock::shock::shock:.......and then, thanks to a bunch of greedy half witted investment bankers, my world crumbled. Not only did I have to go to foreign climes and meet new people I wasn't going to like, I had to do it in Y class. I’m not a snob (more on my shallowness later), I spent the formative part of my business life in Y, in fact the best part of 10 years, but in those days I was young and ambitious. (Although I still detested traveling to new places and meeting all of those new dreadful people and was still fundamentally lazy and arrogant.) As a middle aged (even more) cantankerous chap the prospects of extended Y travel horrified me. :shock:

As we came through the GFC, how I hate investment bankers, I managed to keep my WP status with 1205 SC’s. It was horrendous, the food, the begging for more drinks, the toilets, the screaming kids....err actually I didn’t see or hear many screaming kids, but that shouldn’t spoil a good story. (Not that this is a good story.)

I found myself living on the QF website from 24 hours before travel to see if my upgrade request had been approved. I practiced small talk and pleasantries in the vain hope I could somehow acquire an Op-Up.

I thought to myself that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Little did I know it was an oncoming train.

We, the business, squeezed through the GFC, almost unscathed, only one voluntary redundancy in Australia, how I hate investment bankers, and at this point I was set for a return to the pointy end of the plane. I could see the dessert trolley, complete with a plate of cheese biscuits and dried fruit, approaching me. “Would you like a glass of port Mr Hancock?” to which I would reply “No thanks I’ll stick with the 2005 Heathcote Shiraz please". :)

....but how do I achieve my goal? A need for humility was required, I learned this on one of the courses I had attended in foreign climes. If only I had listened when humility was being explained. As a one dimensional sort of fellow, who is baking dish shallow, humility has never been one of my strong points. Loud, obnoxious, smug and rude come easy, and I could humiliate folk at will, but humility.....I checked google and hatched a cunning plan. :cool:

“Of course given the problems we have experienced over the last couple of years and the extent of my future travel it would make sense it this were done in Y+” I found myself saying to my boss. “Yes” he said “that seems a good approach. I'll fly Y, but you are a bit bigger than me”.

Not the words I was expecting to hear. What happened to “Don’t be silly, you can’t be expected to fly to the UK in Y+ five or six times a year.“? Mmmmm not so keen on this humility malarkey. It's all backfired like a 1978 Austin Allegro.

Back to the drawing board then. I brightened up and thought “Y+ is not so bad, I’ve still got the F lounge, it is a bigger seat, and I’ll be able to use my WP status to get bulkhead or exit row seats.” I almost smiled to myself, but held back. (I didn’t want to regress to childhood habits, smiling is not something I have done since 1974 and I still put that down to a bout of wind caused by a particularly stodgy pork pie..)

My first exposure to Y+ was on a BA 777. Ye Gods! My thought, after I cried for two hours, was “how do I cancel my next trip in three weeks time and rebook on QF”. The food, the begging for more drinks, the toilets......err..err deja vu anybody? There was something a little different about it though, I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Then when dinner was served, I say served I mean thrown at me, it hit me, much like a sledgehammer somewhere between my eyes,..........BA cabin crew.

It was almost a career changing moment for me, I sensed a calling. I realised I could be a BA FA. Without blowing my own trumpet, I have the qualities needed - I’m sullen, rude, I have a genuine disinterest in people and hate dealing with the general public. Perfect but for one thing...I would probably have to work more than I currently do.

I knew this whole sorry, sad affair could not continue, but how could I get back to the pointy end of the plane? Well Google was my friend, in a roundabout way, I stumbled upon a website called “The Australian Frequent Flyer” and the JASA!!:o

I knew of the mythical JASA but in my, somewhat small mind, it was a ludicrous award seat booking process where for a billion FF points I could fly to the UK in J. It was just another QF "enhancement". This proved untrue though, and lo, it was possible to find JASA’s at similar points prices to Classic Awards. Two things resulted....a cunning and devious plan the like of which had not been seen before,........ possibly, and secondly I found myself constantly visiting the weird and wonderful community that is AFF.

So to the plan! If I could book a J class flight for the right price I could add a second flight, as a JASA, and the combined price would be the same as two Y+ flights. “Brilliant” I thought to myself, well thought of myself really.......did I mention how self centred I am - one of my better traits and one I’m proud of. It just comes naturally. Me, me, me, me!

So at the end of June I will be traveling to the UK in my first paid J flight for more than three years (The JASA follows in October), and I thought to myself what better way to celebrate than inflict a dull trip report on the very people who have provided the cunning means for me to achieve it. If there is any interest I'll bore you with tales of F lounge visits, IFE reviews(;)), arrival lounge visits, restroom visits, and food reviews!
 
The Booking

The Booking process was not as smooth as I had hoped for, mainly because of a bottle of Wolf Blass Grey label 2004 Shiraz. I am assuming that it is a QF enhancement not to have a warning on the site about the hazards of alcohol consumption when booking flights.

Once I had received the go ahead from my, unfortunately, extremely capable boss I raced to the QF website with Amex card in hand. In retrospect attempting this after a bottle of the aforementioned wine and at almost midnight was perhaps not as sensible as it had first seemed..........after a bottle of wine and at nearly midnight!!!!

The dates were entered and I was presented with a choice of QF flights at some quite reasonable prices. Armed with tips from this very site, (Why fly direct when you can go via somewhere else...or something like that.) I cleverly picked my flights to break up the MEL-LHR-MEL journey and maximise my SC’s....well at least on half of the journey. MEL-SIN-LHR-MEL. That will do very nicely - 520 SC’s. Now for the JASA...hic. :)

Within minutes my Blackberry was flashing it’s little red light. My itinerary had arrived. I picked it up on my Mac and all was as I had requested and paid for. Yes exactly as I had booked..........hic! :)

I printed my itinerary and looked at it with a sense of satisfaction. Now to check Triptracker on my iPhone. hic! :)

“Mmmm that is interesting” I thought “I don’t remember booking that BA Y+ trip for the exact same dates as the QF J flights I have just booked”.

:shock: BLIND PANIC :shock:

...and in an instant I was stone cold sober. (I briefly wondered if this could be a ground breaking cure for intoxication before realising that I actually needed to do something about my double booking.)

I had put in April instead of July. The dates of travel in April were the same as I needed for July. :oops:

I called up QF and got to speak to a delightful chap. He checked dates and tapped his keyboard and spoke in a reassuring manner. Within moments I was all sorted out...and at no extra charge! I was booked on to QF9 through to LHR and on QF10 back and the dates were correct. I thanked him profusely, poured myself a soothing 15 year old Dalwhinnie. (Straight of course!), and moved on to book my JASA. hic!

A lesson learned I thought to myself....but in retrospect I’m not sure it really was. Fom time to time I still receive items from ebay sellers that I have apparently purchased - none of them see overly useful in the cold light of day. (Thank God I don’t have the shopping network on my TV.) :?:

After a couple of days I made one final change to my itinerary. I switched the SIN-LHR leg to QF31, but had to pull back the outgoing flight a few days, and got back to my 520 SC’s. (The SC’s had gained a new significance - I needed to get PG for MrsH)

...to be continued.
 
Was glued so much to the report, I didn't even notice we hadn't even left the ground...

You could be a sand salesman in the Sahara

Great report :D so far
 
Marvellous self-deprecating humour. Just the sort of TR I wish I could write.

Can't wait to see how it turns out.
 
The Seat Selection

After the somewhat, alcohol induced, problematical booking I decided to leave seat selection until the following day. I checked my diary and squeezed half an hour in, just after lunch, but before my afternoon nap, to complete the task. (This was an achievement in itself on two counts, I'm terrible at time management and I struggle to complete anything.)

My previous QF long haul J travel had pretty much been solely (jeez i had trouble spelling that, two L’s - who’d have thought it?) in a 747. I had developed a taste for the upper deck and seat 16K in particular. (Emergency exit, TV screen in the arm rest, and with that lovely little storage compartment at the side - perfect for my backpack - I'm struggling with the manbag concept.)

...but this time I’m flying on a 380*, so a little research was in order, and what better place to start but here on AFF. A quick search soon had me viewing the appropriate thread. A quick read through left me in no doubt I should follow the advice of Drongo, simongr, dfcatch, pshepvic, and Hvr. (I know where you live if it all goes wrong!:p)

Being on the wrong (or right if you prefer the larger form) side of average build I have no desire to climb over some poor unfortunate fellow traveller so a window seat is not for me. Conversely I’m not overly keen on some equally well built fellow climbing all over me, so an outside aisle doesn’t work for me either. I’d like to be in the smaller forward J cabin too - Emerald City. (I don’t often get the chance to turn left when boarding!)

12E it is then - all the way there and back. (MEL-SIN shown below)

Seating.jpg

I’m not overly happy with the QF seat selection process. I do like to find fault with QF and have a good moan at them, but unfortunately the process was rather smooth and easy. It left me with half an hour at the end of my working day to fill. I had scheduled this time to write a complaint to QF but couldn’t think of anything to complain about. :-|

.....to be continued

Four weeks to take off, but there is still the excitement of “The Preparation parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5”, “The Clothing Selection”, “The Packing”, “The Gadgets”, “The Long Term Car Park” and more, watch this space for a degree of ennui you thought you’d never have to witness in your lifetime.

*My previous A380 J experiences were two onboard op-ups and a points upgrade. In the former my memory is a little hazy - please refer to previous alcohol induced comments and the points upgrade was at the back of the J cabin.
 
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Why do I feel like a drink?

Great TR so far I am looking forward to the actual trip.

ejb.


Sent from my iPhone so please ignore auto corrects!
 
...and that, Ladies & Gentlemen, is how you write a Trip Report :)
 
...and that, Ladies & Gentlemen, is how you write a Trip Report :)
I don't doubt the funny brilliance of this trip report, but alas this is not what I'd consider to be the gold standard of trip reports (and that's even after my own, epic unfinished tome - see link in sig).

I proffer this example, the famed 8 bottles of Dom from LAX-BKK on SQ in F as what I'd consider to be the pinnacle of trip report authoring (with bonus points for the sheer volume of champagne consumed).
 
From my perspective, it's nice to have a homegrown TR of this flavour :)
 
What a fantastic start to a Trip Report! I had my eyes stuck to the screen the whole time reading it.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with next!!

LR
 
The Preparation - Part One

“Anthony”, I said to myself, “you need to get organised and get your transport and hotels sorted in a timely fashion, no more last minute running around......and another thing you damned well need to get yourself prepared to make a proper fully detailed trip report with photos and everything.”

I’m the sort of traveller that can be found searching for his passport on the day of travel, and fumbling in my pockets for itineraries at check in, so preparation and I don’t often meet, and when we do it turns into a kind of disorganised cage fight with me on the losing side.

The real driver for sorting this out was that I could almost class it as work, thus reducing my, albeit minimal, guilt about not actually working. Well, I am traveling on business so clearly I needed to do my prep work during business hours. Nothing like messing about on the interweb on a Monday morning. Certainly beats sales figures and production output, and worse having to speak to customers. :shock:

It would probably help if you knew where I was traveling to,......I know I said the UK, but I haven’t told you what glamourous destination awaits me. I’m heading to the resort city of Wolverhampton, did I say resort? Perhaps, in retrospect, industrial wasteland might be a better term.

Visiting Wolverhampton is like visiting a scene from Lark Rise to Candleford, but with lots of added concrete, speed cameras, traffic lights......and oh yes without any of the pastoral charm.

Whilst others get an opportunity to write trip reports about exotic far flung demi-paradises I get to tell you poor folk about Wolverhampton. Now you can see why I don’t get quite as excited about travel as some of you do here on AFF. :-|

So my first port of call is to the IHG website, I’ll be needing a King Size standard room at the Wolverhampton Intercontinental, and then a status based upgrade to an exec room when I arrive. (I’m a platinum you know! [Translation: I have stayed for seven and a half nights in a Holiday Inn this year and registered for every promotion available.......and then some.])

Well that didn’t quite work as planned. It seems my travel dates are a little early........about a generation or two I’d say. Due to, I can only assume, an administrative oversight IHG has yet to build an Intercontinental, or for that matter a Crowne Plaza, in Wolverhampton. They have, however built a Holiday Inn Garden Court at Dunstall Park race track. There are days when I feel the very life force being sucked out of me and this was one of them, but hey ho if it is good enough for Jim Davidson* it’s good enough for me.

Dunstall Park it is and at this stage I make a mental note to both, increase the insurance cover, and lower the spec, on my rental car. At first glance a hotel at a racecourse sounds an enticing proposition...but this is Dunstall Park, Wolverhampton.

My final task is to organise a hotel for the night before my return journey. I get to escape, what i can only describe as, the hell of the industrial heartland of Britain or what is left of it, and head to the tranquil, quite posh, town of Marlow. a.k.a. the singles capital of Buckinghamshire. (Well it was on my last visit, couldn’t even go out to the local pub for a pint with my mate without being constantly harassed by attractive divorcees.) Fortunately there is a very pleasant Crowne Plaza in Marlow and only 20 mins from LHR. :)

So on to Avis, my preferred purveyor of rental vehicles, and a manual Vauxhall Insignia will do the job. I’m getting used to Avis now, the car is always ready, does not look as though it has been one of the poorer performers in a demolition derby, and I have had a few upgrades. (The buses never seem to be a frequent as Hertz though!) I yearn for the days when you could request a “small” automatic and find yourself driving a Mercedes E Class, but it seems these days UK rental companies actually do have small automatics!

So against all odds I have completed the main prep work for my trip and managed to spin out the relatively simple tasks of hotel and car bookings into somewhat long winded, drivel laden post...but hey it is another three and a half weeks before I fly.

I promise, that at some stage I will actually travel and when I do I will not, well maybe not, drink so much red wine that I won’t be able to report the trip.........

..........to be continued.


It will probably be a week or so before more is added, work requires some of my time this week. Most unfortunate! Can’t seem to find a way around it.

*British comedian who once stayed at the Holiday Inn at Dunstall Park. (I know this because one of my colleagues was there at the same time.)
 
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Love your style TonyHancock:!:

Don't work too hard - I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this TR! :)
 
Tony you certainly have come along way since Aug 10 ol soak!!

Are you the AK Rowlings of TR's?? Will there be a movie ala Mr Bean style??
 
The Preparation - Part Two

It seemed a perfect opportunity to sneak this in under the radar. With all the gamesmanship between DJ and QF I don't know whether I'm coming or going!

It’s very cathartic writing a trip report, well I imagine it will be when my trip starts and I write a report about it. :)

To recap, I flew J, crunch, didn’t fly J, flew BA Y+, small but competent boss, still didn’t fly J, cunning plan, flying J, booked, blind panic, rebooked, 12E, hotel booked, car booked, oh yes and a JASA too. See......... catharsis at work, although I still fail the DJ 25 word test! All those nasty additional words purged from the page. Who needs lots of flowery language? (.......actually, I do, it doesn’t half help to pad things out!)

“So what next Tony?” I imagine the three people left reading this thread, are asking. If I wasn’t writing this somewhat lengthy introduction to my trip I’d say “I’ll worry about that the day before I fly” but I am writing this lengthy, and somewhat repetitive, introduction. So............

To be true to myself there are only two other travel arrangement things I think about three weeks advance: The F Lounge menu, although that is just ongoing, and how I’m going to get to the airport.

The latter is an easy one to sort out. It’s a late afternoon flight so I can’t possibly justify staying the night before at the Holiday Inn. I have to plan this weeks in advance so that if I do stay I am able to get my points discrepancy form filled in and sent two weeks before. That way I get my points a week after the stay.*

So I’ll be driving to the airport and parking long term...but that is for another post. (I know.........you can hardly wait for that one.)

Now for the F Lounge and it’s well reported food offerings. As you now know, I’m one dimensional, shallow and self centred, but what you probably don’t know is that I have the sophistication of Albert Steptoe. Anyway, to get back to the point, I’m more suited to trough dining than island dining.

Having declared that, it will no longer come as a surprise to you to know that I don’t tend to dine in the fancy F lounge restaurant. (Breakfast excluded, but that is a whole new thread.) There is one thing, and one thing alone I’d kill for on the F Lounge menu - The chips. :shock: I love the F Lounge chips, can’t get enough of them. Just bring me chips. Chips, chips,chips. I’ve eaten them with the calamari, the linguini, on their own and of course with the club sandwich....and how they go together with the club sandwich. It’s like, Morecambe and Wise, Rod Hull and Emu, Jason and Kylie or Alan Joyce and Qantas......err..err....mmmm...not sure that last one works...but you get the picture. Do you think Neil Perry inspired the chips and club sandwich combo? I lay awake at night wondering if he did. :?:

...and what do I wash down this ambrosial combination with? I’m afraid it’s not champagne. Just can’t get into champagne, I’ve tried, I really have, I’ve read the threads, studied the labels, been to tastings, but I’m a shiraz sort of chap. Even better give me a decent Dan Murphy cleanskin cabernet-shiraz blend. (...and as an aside why aren't Dan Murphy stores part of the Everyday Rewards program? It’s costing my tens of thousands of points a year.) The finer things in life are not for me I’m afraid.

The whole spa and massage scenario is beyond my ken. The thought of being touched by someone I don't know sends shivers down my spine, and even worse it just wastes valuable shiraz time!:shock:

....to be continued.

*I discovered on my last stay that despite booking via the IHG website, logged in, the HI at MEL ignores the information and attempts to post miles directly to my QF account.
 
“So what next Tony?” I imagine the three people left reading this thread, are asking.

Rest assured Tony I will always be here awaiting the next installment... ;)

Also devastated about Dan Murphy's personal theft of my many thousands of points :rolleyes:
 
The whole spa and massage scenario is beyond my ken. The thought of being touched by someone I don't know sends shivers down my spine

Ha! I'm with you on this one :) Everywhere I look, spa's spa's spa's. I'm sure they must be great because everyone is giving these massages and getting them, I just can't get myself past weird person I don't know rubbing oil (or whatever) all over me.

I've got to get over it and try one of these though ... they must be really good given what everyone I know says.
 
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