I’ll be departing on my SAS EuroBonus million mile challenge shortly with my son and will live blog that, like I did with the Ukraine trip report last year. I imagine that will provide a lot of content in the following couple of weeks. I’m not sure I am going to do a full review of each flight, but we will see…
A Mounting Pile Of Trip Reports To Close Out 2024…
There are several other trips I need to share about:
- Ethiopia on Ethiopian Airlines and United Airlines
- Summer Germany trip on United Airlines and Air France
- Autumn Germany + France trip on Virgin Atlantic and JetBlue
- Copehagen on SAS and Brussels Airlines
- Morocco + Paris trip on American Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, and United Airlines
- Chicago Trip on United Airlines and American Airlines
The problem is time: due to other professional obligations, I do not have the time right now to devote extensive trip reports…at least to the extent, I would like to. I am also not willing to sacrifice sleep…I’m already running at a sleep deficit and cannot afford to age myself more rapidly by burning the candle at both ends.
So that means they are piling up…
And over the last couple of years, I have made a very conscious effort not to fall behind on trip reports, yet here I am…way behind.
So I’m open to suggestions from you dear readers on what trip reports you might like me to focus on first. All of the content will not go stale fast…there is time and after the SAS challenge I hope to severely limit my travel for the rest of the year.
But for now (after finally completing my extended Asia trip report), I’m still just trying to catch up…
Thanks, as always, for reading.
I’d write a very rough draft with all your thoughts and then let grammarly clean it all up. I find that editing and fine tuning to be a real time waster. Grammarly does a great job imo of taking care of the minutiae saving me a ton of time.
I use Grammarly for every post … and I think it continues to miss a whole lot!
I don’t mean just for spelling. I find it does a great job fine tuning the actual writing.
Have you also tried ChatGPT? I have a subscription and it is great.
Have you tried using Grammarly’s AI writing tool?
No.
I, for one, would be least interested in anything dealing with US carriers. AA vs. UA on a ORD-LAX is fairly predictable. As is another Polaris review or J on AA’s 787 or 777. I also don’t find US hotels worthy of reviews anymore since any semblance of service in the US has been eliminated.
That’s fair enough. I do intend to review The Pennisula Chicago there, which was an interesting stay.
It’s funny, when reading about hotels overseas, brands like Peninsula (FS, MO etc) don’t interest me very much because I know I can get great value, and great experiences staying at points hotels. In the US it’s kind of the opposite. I’d be curious to see if the Peninsula in Chicago could actually offer a high level of service.
If anything, I want reviews of US hotels even more given how loose service standards have gotten. I find them helpful in differentiating the few hotels that are still worth top dollar here.
Interesting take. I agree on the U.S. carriers. Unless something is wildly different and being introduced, i.e. new J, new upgraded catering, new aircraft…it’s just not interesting and same old crap.
As to U.S. hotels…I find it very useful. Though a great deal of my work is overseas there are still plenty of U.S. hotels that interest me in different markets. Right now I am at The Edition in WeHo which Matthew just reviewed, all because he reviewed it, and it struck me as an interesting one to try outside my usual haunts. In fact, looking at most blogs, U.S. hotels seem to be the least blogged, including in major markets.
I think it’s simpler than that – when it comes to the US airlines there’s unlimited, non-stop coverage online because they’re big and operate in a market where blogging about air travel can be quite lucrative (mostly because of credit card referrals), plus obviously English is the lingua franca for this stuff. None of that would apply to Royal Air Morocco, Bangkok Airways, Skyexpress or whatever, so reading about those is obviously more interesting than another trip report about an AA crew not making much of an effort in their interactions with premium cabin passengers (and I am writing this as someone who’s never even flown AA!).
If the trip was months ago it’s probably too stale. Service, food, even the amenity kit may have changed since your trip and what good is it to us to hear about what was included in an amenity kit or on a menu that is no longer being offered?
That is incorrect. Services changes are very minimal.
Didn’t United just change their amenity kit?
The amenity kit is a tiny part of the flight experience (and a waste to me)
Consider putting some of the SAS challenge as a table. What I am interested in is the:
Date, routing, flight number, departure and arrival times.
Yes, I would like to see that too. I think I have done a decent job of optimising my own routing but curious to see what you and other readers have done.
The key thing is to figure out how to get the frequent flyer number loaded properly into the bookings and how to make sure the flights actually post to the EuroBonus account.
I’ve managed to do it with most of them, the SAS app is actually pretty decent for that.
My main concern is crediting to SK while using my ITA E+ status in order to check in luggage on RO and UX light fares (I can’t do three weeks without a suitcase) and to get into lounges without having to pay Dragonpass $28 a pop.
AFKL have confirmed in writing that they’re fine with the crediting/elite benefits split, so I am not worried about their light fares
I compliment your ambition. I wish you fair skies and early arrivals. Makes me wonder if many, many decades from now, your son will post on his blog about his memories of this trip on your passing.
What kind of travel blogger travels but does not blog?
Never mind, just take lots of pics with August.
We like him a lot.
There are only 24 hours in a day..I do blog a trip report of some kind almost daily but that’s still not enough to keep up.
This should prove to be an epic experience, Matthew. Fair to say I am intensely jealous. It’s not as much the miles, but the experience itself that is so great. Good thing is that given all the media coverage of this in mainstream it’s doubtful SAS can back out of it later should tens of thousands surprise and do it as well. If that’s the case, so happy they are leaving Star Alliance, lol!
Wishing you happy trails on this adventure and smooth connections. But, a few misadventures are good as well, so long as it doesn’t derail it all…the stories will be better for it.
I’m hoping that the engagement will be so high that other airlines will be incentivised to do similar fun, flying-based stuff in the future as opposed to just trying to skim money off credit card spending within the US.
Last month and before the election I had estimated 500 people to be doing the 1 million point challenge. SAS has since said the same. At this point I think that more than 500 are seeking to do it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number will be over a thousand.
SAS will be seeking out more attention from this in the first quarter of 2025, so overshooting 500 is helpful in that regard.
My Aeromexico flights are posting automatically to SAS accounts within 48 hours of flight. I have been adding SK number in at time of booking on online travel agency and using the EBX prefix attached to the numbers. Also I make sure that the alphanumeric is showing on the Aeromexico boarding passes where it displays as “SK [EBD123456789]” for example.
I am curious to see how it goes later this month with Aerolineas Argentinas. Then the SkyTeam Americas airlines will be done for my bookings. We will finish with the Asian SkyTeam carriers and Kenyan.
Focus on Ethiopia first!