shambles
Intern
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Posts
- 86
- Qantas
- Platinum 1
- Virgin
- Platinum
OK - so I slogged away as a SG for years with all my airline loyalty to OW/QF and doing the hard yards in discount economy, long & short haul, managed year after year to JUST scrape across the line and hit my 600 SC earn. Then 2 years ago over a bottle of fine Shiraz I started reading (and joined) AFFF. I soon realised that getting to WP was a piece of weewee if you just knew how, and after applying what I learnt from the fine bunch that haunt these parts, come next anniversary (Aug 2011) my nice new WP card arrived. Being the tinny b##tard that I am, 2 weeks later I get the status match email from this airline I'd heard of but never flown, 
and much to my delight, I'm grinning like a cheshire cat coz now I'm essentially an overnight WP in One world & Star Alliance (nearly kinda). Now I'm flogging the best of both worlds and with no real increase in travel spend, I find myself legitimately re-qualified for both WP programs with months to spare
This week though, the membership gods truly blessed me...
For the princely total sum of $440, 7500 Velocity points, & 15000 Priority Club points, me AND SWMBO are off to the Gold Coast to escape Melb winter for a 3 day break...
Direct flights MEL-OOL-MEL VA Business Class
3 nights at the Crowne Plaza Surfers in a spa suite
GIDDY right UP
I guess all the moons really lined up for me... Booked a flexi fare for myself and then used one of my 4 "two for one" free companion fares that come with my VA credit card to get SWMBO on board. Then called Velocity to use their half price J upgrade offer (7500 points return per person). Get the new itinerary all locked in as J for both of us but much to my pleasure, their system only deducts points for me because the other pax obviously just shows as a freebie (2 for 1) on their system. SO whatever change I made to mine (ie points upgrade), same happens to hers seemingly automatically without incurring any cost. Dont get me wrong, I'm more than happy to part with a paltry 7500 points each, but hey - if "computer says no", then so be it
On the accom side, I'd decided to book with IHG as I always use them and actually forgot to book the room at the time I did the flights (was gonna be circa $220 per night). So on Monday I was cursing myself, expecting that a short notice booking was gonna cost more, and much to my surprise, there was an email that morning from Crowne Plaza promoting a PC member discount. After a couple of clicks I'm through to the promo page on the PC site and there is a rate for the exact three nights I want, for only 5000 points per night! Happy days considering I'd literally just burned all bar 20K of my 240K PC points on a booking at the Intercon Bali for 6 nights in Sep. so I happily parted with another 15K and now its free accom for the whole Gold Coast break.
For all the early starts and late nights that a travelling job dishes up, its good to be on the shiny side every now & then and get all that for just 440 fun tickets.
cheers,
The Shambolic One
and much to my delight, I'm grinning like a cheshire cat coz now I'm essentially an overnight WP in One world & Star Alliance (nearly kinda). Now I'm flogging the best of both worlds and with no real increase in travel spend, I find myself legitimately re-qualified for both WP programs with months to spare This week though, the membership gods truly blessed me...
For the princely total sum of $440, 7500 Velocity points, & 15000 Priority Club points, me AND SWMBO are off to the Gold Coast to escape Melb winter for a 3 day break...
Direct flights MEL-OOL-MEL VA Business Class
3 nights at the Crowne Plaza Surfers in a spa suite
GIDDY right UP
I guess all the moons really lined up for me... Booked a flexi fare for myself and then used one of my 4 "two for one" free companion fares that come with my VA credit card to get SWMBO on board. Then called Velocity to use their half price J upgrade offer (7500 points return per person). Get the new itinerary all locked in as J for both of us but much to my pleasure, their system only deducts points for me because the other pax obviously just shows as a freebie (2 for 1) on their system. SO whatever change I made to mine (ie points upgrade), same happens to hers seemingly automatically without incurring any cost. Dont get me wrong, I'm more than happy to part with a paltry 7500 points each, but hey - if "computer says no", then so be it
On the accom side, I'd decided to book with IHG as I always use them and actually forgot to book the room at the time I did the flights (was gonna be circa $220 per night). So on Monday I was cursing myself, expecting that a short notice booking was gonna cost more, and much to my surprise, there was an email that morning from Crowne Plaza promoting a PC member discount. After a couple of clicks I'm through to the promo page on the PC site and there is a rate for the exact three nights I want, for only 5000 points per night! Happy days considering I'd literally just burned all bar 20K of my 240K PC points on a booking at the Intercon Bali for 6 nights in Sep. so I happily parted with another 15K and now its free accom for the whole Gold Coast break.
For all the early starts and late nights that a travelling job dishes up, its good to be on the shiny side every now & then and get all that for just 440 fun tickets.
cheers,
The Shambolic One
