Scrapbooking Award

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Skyring

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This time I'm going to do it.

This time I'm going to put up a trip report all the way through.

Usually I write a bunch of posts on planning, send a few updates from the lounge, write a post about the first day overseas a week late and that's it. I just never have time when travelling to sit down and post here. Or internet to spare.

This time it's different. Two reasons.

I did this trip with my son, an award flight, just like I did with my daughter a few years back. Probably the only time he's going to fly around the world exploring first class lounges. Plus we had a fabulous trip. So I'm writing this up, printing out the reports with the photographs, and sticking them in a scrapbook, along with all the boarding passes and maps and tickets and stuff.

He'll be able to look through it and relive all those wonderful experiences. As will I.

Second reason is that I'm also posting to Bubblews. Don't laugh - I know it's a content mill and click farm, but they pay, and I get a dollar a post or thereabouts. If I work diligently that will pay for my newly acquired Scotch habit.

My Bubblews page is here - feel free to read my stuff and comment there. Enough clicks and I can down another dram.
 
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Over the past ten years I've managed to travel completely around the world nine or ten times.

Yes, I've lost count. Some places - airline terminals particularly - I'm at home in, with favoured menu items and the best routes for getting to the best places.

I'm not quite at the stage of having a favourite luggage trolley, but give me time...
I've just returned home from a trip around the world using redeemed airmiles. I've booked five of these things over the years, and they are probably the best value you can get out of airline points. Forget the toasters and iPods in the online store - you'll get more bang for the buck by going long.
I've got a tonne of photos from my trip and I'm going to inflict them upon my readers over the next few weeks.

To make up for the month I've been away.

So be warned!
 
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First things first. The thing about having enough airmiles to do a round the world trip is that no miles or status credits are earnt on such a trip. Unless you want to travel, or like just sitting around on planes, it's pointless.

Part of my regular travel is to earn enough status credits to be in the top tier of travellers in a particular airline alliance. Extra bags, no wait time on the phone, access to first class lounges, preferred seating, premium check-in lanes.
This makes long-distance travel bearable, and generally involves me doing a long trip in business class each year. I try to minimise the cost by various means, but still I have to spend a few thousand dollars to get the points.
That's my hobby, Others play golf or collect fancy cars or go to the opera. I save up my money to be a platinum flyer. I think it's worth the effort, but others may differ.
Spending the airmiles I accumulate isn't always straightforward. I had enough for a round the world trip in business class, or two in economy. Finding award seats in premium cabins is notoriously difficult. Stringing them together to make a feasible itinerary is all but impossible.
Book it a year in advance and be prepared to wait in some transport hub for a week or two to get the next flight, that's the sort of trip it would be.
Economy seats are difficult too, but not quite so much.
And it was my son's turn.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

Should be an interesting TR
 
The Big Trip - the first hour (16 September 2014 afternoon Canberra)

Packed up, devices charged, last check of passports and it's time to call the cab.

We're off on an award points round the world trip. It's been an epic to gather the points via cards and flights and shopping, but even more of a drama to sort out the flights over the net and the phone.

But I worked it out, selected seats where possible, printed out the tickets, arranged insurance and US entry, ticked off all the boxes.

Last minute luggage shipments from the US arrived. At the last minute. We now have matching LL Bean rolling duffles. Large for checkin, small for carryon.

The cab arrives and we get a chatty driver. It's not a long fare to the airport, so I'm inclined to tip generously after chatting with the cabbie about my own cabdriving days.

The Qantas checkin counters have one dedicated to International. There's no direct international flights from here, but there are so many government and diplomatic movements that it's worth while manning a counter to handle those flying overseas from Sydney. Or, in our case, Melbourne.

Sydney was my first choice - it makes for a shorter flight to Dubai - but the big kicker is the First Class lounge there. A fabulous affair and I'd love to show it off to John. But the award flights weren't available on the right day, so Melbourne is the second choice.

We're given our boarding passes, sent through security, and it's up the stairway to heaven.

Or, well, the Qantas Business Lounge. Cheers!
 
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Bear with me.

I'm cut and pasting these posts from another forum, one where the average reader isn't quite as up on FF jargon. Besides, it's also written for my son, likewise.
 
Lounging (16 September 2014 afternoon Canberra)

Qantas has a number of levels to its frequent flyer program. From highest down, they are:
• Chairmans Lounge
• Platinum One
• Platinum
• Gold
• Silver
• Bronze

Even Bronze level gets you a few perks, and the higher you go, the more you get. Things like extra luggage allowance, priority call centre response, bonus airmiles, priority boarding, better seat selection and so on. These little things make air travel less of a hassle.

The big benefit is access to lounges. Instead of hanging around the general passenger areas of airport terminals, Gold members and up can enter Qantas lounges where food and drinks are provided, internet access is free, seating is plentiful, showers are available and so on.

The base level Qantas Club lounges aren't bad. There's a hot and cold buffet, coffee machines serve passable espresso, the bar opens after noon.

One step up are the domestic Business lounges, with better food and drink, more facilities, fewer people. You can get barista espresso, for example.

The Chairmans Lounge - the most exclusive club in Australia - is a step up again. You have to be invited in, and you generally have to be either a big deal in the community or someone responsible for a million dollar travel budget.

Top of the line are the International First lounges. These are fabulous: sit-down dining, free massages, top class drinks available all day. Sweeping views over airport and surrounds and a well-stocked library.

I'm a Platinum flyer with Qantas. To reach this level, I have to make four paid round the world flights in economy within a year. Or equivalent in other classes.

There's no other way to get here except by making the flights - I can't churn money through credit cards and fake it in the usual way.

But there are ways and means. If I play my cards just right, I can minimise the cost and gain the status credits in a dozen carefully-chosen flights, even on the modest financial resources of an ex-cabbie like myself.

An added bonus is that Qantas is a member of the oneWorld airport alliance, including British Airways, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and a few others. I get premium access to their services as well, at what they call "oneWorld Emerald" level.

For this trip, where John and I are travelling Economy class, those benefits and lounge entries are going to be gold.

Or platinum.
 
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First Drink - (16 September 2014 afternoon Canberra)

By my records - and from the moment I began planning this trip I kept every printed booking confirmation, every docket, every ticket, every boarding pass, every rental agreement, every map - John and I arrived at Canberra airport at exactly three in the afternoon.

For a flight leaving at ten past five.

The booking instructions said we needed to check in two hours before an international departure and though we weren't actually flying directly out of Australia from Canberra, they still want us to be there in good time. I've been growled at before by checkin folk when I showed up half an hour before my first flight even if the actual international flight is six hours away in Sydney (a half hour away as the Boeing flies).

But I don't mind hanging around airports. I love the way it all comes together, so many people, so many interactions, so many things to do to get things running smoothly.

And I love watching the great metal birds as they glide in, taxi to the gates, unload, load and power off into the sky.

"Do you know why aeroplanes fly?" I asked John.
"Uh, no Dad," he said, rolling his eyes in anticipation of some lame joke.
"Because their wings make them too wide for the roads."

The Army theory of flight, as explained by a warrant officer several decades ago.

And, of course, lounge time is nearly always quality time. Especially after noon when the bar is open. I asked for champagne and John wanted a Manhattan.

We also had coffees and a very delayed lunch. Maybe it was a first dinner. I don't know. Anyway, I hadn't bothered with lunch at home because I knew I'd be eating in the lounge.

And having my first champagne of the trip. I do like getting a mellow glow on.
 
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Our Bird (16 September 2014 afternoon Canberra)

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Here's our bird to begin. A Boeing B738, the workhorse of the Qantas domestic fleet. The best looking of the current crop of Boeings, I think. It's just a tiny plane, 150 passengers and a single aisle. No seatback videos. But for the hour or so it takes us to fly down to Melbourne, who cares?

The Canberra airport has totally transformed from the inadequate little shed with free parking we used to have. Once upon a time it was more like the train station than a modern terminal. Park out the front, enter the front doors, there were a few desks and vending machines, and nothing stopping you from going out to the aircraft parked a few metres away.

Security was non-existent, there were no airbridges or baggage carousels. No shops or lounges. And air travel was a great deal more expensive. It was the preserve of the wealthy.

Now, the terminal has been torn down, rebuilt, expanded and torn down again a few times. It's world class, if I may use such a term.

Grandly called Canberra International Airport, there are no overseas flights. They experimented with some direct flights to Fiji once, but there was the military coup and unrest and the service fell off. Every now and again they make noises about New Zealand or Singapore, but nothing ever comes of it.

And why should it? Sydney is a major airport two hours drive away with flights to everywhere. Or, as I usually do, I just bundle in a Canberra-Sydney flight for a little bit more on the fare.

Or Melbourne, in this case.
 
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Into the Clouds (16 September 2014 afternoon Canberra)

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We boarded our bird. We'd been given window seats at the front of the main cabin.

One of the perks of holding elite status - the best seats are held for Platinums, marked as unavailable for the general passengers.

Sometimes I'll be given a "shadow", an empty seat beside me. And generally the cabin crew manager will greet Platinum flyers, possibly have a little extra such as an Express immigration pass or a glass of the good stuff from the Business cabin.

If I could allocate seats, I'd book a window seat for myself and maybe another close by for John. If that wasn't possible, I'd grab two together, but put my name on the window.

As the trip progresses, I let my son have the window seats and take the aisle or middle seat without a view. I've flown enough that it's not quite so exciting nowadays.

But for the cabin crew with a list of Platinum flyers to greet, our seat swap would present a bit of a challenge. They would lean over me to greet my son, using my name, and there'd be a moment of confusion all round.

After a while I learnt to pipe up, "Ah, that's me. It's okay, we're brothers."
A patent lie which had the potential for giggles all round.

That's Canberra out of the window, the sun slicing down towards the Brindabellas on the horizon. Mount Ainslie in the foreground - our home is at its foot, just out of view. Lake Burley Griffin in the distance, and some of the office buildings in Civic.

Bush and farmland in the foreground. We live five minutes walk from the city centre, but across the road the bush begins, a ten square kilometre block of nothing much before the Majura Parkway and after that it's open country all the way to the sea.

I love Canberra. There's no other city quite like it in all the world.

It was pretty much clouds all the way down to Melbourne. A pity, because I like looking out the window at (say) the Snowy Mountains below, but it was pleasant enough. After takeoff we were offered a snack. I declined, saying we'd be dining at the First lounge.

"Oooh, la-di-da!"the flight attendant said. I guess I should have kept my trap shut.

I didn't want to fill up on inflight food, loaded down with fat and sugar and salt, when I knew that we had three hours in what amounts to a very good restaurant ahead of us. There's only so much I can fit in!
 
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Flounge (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne)

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Just a hop to Melbourne, really. The hassle is swapping over to the International terminal - that means navigating through the shopping mall that the domestic airport has become, exiting into the shared foyer, going through the landside shopping mall. going through security and navigating the duty free shopping mall on the international side.

At least it doesn't involve a shuttle bus around the runway, like Sydney transits require. (Though for a planespotter like me, that's its own kind of fun.)

Along the way we shopped for an iPad case for John - I dragged him into the Crumpler shop and laid out far too much for a bum pack that had an iPad compartment.

A bag with enough room for iPad, camera, chewing gum and a book or two. That's my essential roaming-around-like-a-tourist kit.

Shops and shops and more shops until we reached the end of the terminal where the Qantas First lounge is located. It's the kid brother to the grand Sydney lounge. Not as big, but holding the same design DNA. In other words, comfort.
* Sit down dining with a four-star menu.
* Bar to match.
* Free internet, comfy chairs, well-stocked library.
* Spa with free massages.
* Excellent views over the runways.

We had about three hours here. Enough time for a leisurely dinner and a few drinks before climbing into our economy seats for the night flight to Dubai.

First up, "Two champagnes, please!"
 
Second Dinner (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne)

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Well, if you count the "meal" on the plane down from Canberra, this will be John's second dinner.

For this meal, I'll join him. Meals at the Flounge are few and far between, even for me.

And well worth enjoying properly. Qantas takes a good deal of trouble with their offerings. For premium classes, they engage the services of Neil Perry, who runs the Rockpool restaurant franchise across Australia.

That makes it sound like a chain, but every one is five star. I've dined at the Sydney flagship twice now, and both times the food - and drink - has been divine.

The food here isn't quite that good, but it's certainly the best at Tullamarine and equivalent to a good restaurant elsewhere.

The menu is seasonal, and we're dining on the spring selection. Some yummy offerings here.

I choose crispy duck: "“This is a twice-cooked duck, one of Neil Perry’s favourite ways to cook duck” we are told.
“It’s marinated in soy, rice wine, garlic, ginger and dried mandarin peel, left overnight, then steamed at a low temperature and cooked on the bone to keep juices in. Then we pull the bones out, put it into the fridge and have it fried up to order, which crisps the skin.”

The duck is served with broccolini, shiitake mushrooms, spring vegetables and a ‘ginger and sesame oil scented’ jasmine rice. Oh my, but is it good!

Champagne, a good shiraz, and a Manhattan to wash the tucker down.

We're taking our time, watching the airliners land and taxi and take off again out of the panoramic windows. Our big bird to London is one of them, an Airbus A380 parked just outside.

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Pav in Glass (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne)

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I can't leave off the lounge without describing one of the favourites on the menu there.

Pavlova in a glass. Always my dessert of choice. (Well, I can have as many desserts as I want and the waiters won't say a word, Mister Creosote, but there's only so much one can tuck away.)

It's a deconstructed pavlova - a confection of meringue and fruit that always makes me salivate - made up in a glass. With a bit of luck the photo will show how it's put together.

The crowning glory is the "fairy floss" on top. Absolutely delectable with a sticky dessert wine or port.

We had coffee and cheese after, but the night had fallen and we were getting rather full, so we repaired to some comfy chairs and did our best to stay awake for the hour or so left until the flight.

I love being able to look out and watch the action at a busy airport. Melbourne isn't Sydney, but there's a plane landing or taking off every few minutes, so there's plenty to see.

We have the Qantas A380s serving London and Los Angeles, and both Emirates and Singapore Airlines have theirs to Dubai and Singapore respectively. Not so many jumbos as there used to be, but plenty of A330s and B777s and of course there are the smaller jets running the domestic routes.

As mentioned earlier, our big bird is parked right outside the window. We can wave to the pilot if we want.

All too soon the departure board clicks and clacks our flight up. We're QF9 to London, via Dubai, and another flight after that before we're done.
 
Camera Power

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I'm a bit of a photography nut. I like documenting my travels, and since I discovered digital SLRs earlier this year, I've put a bit of effort into it.

This photo is taken with my Canon 70D. It's a serious DSLR. What they call a "prosumer" camera: a bridge between the big, expensive full-frame DSLRs of the professional photographers, and the entry level consumer DSLRs that are the next step up from point and click. But, much as I love it, it is a big and chunky beast, especially with the battery pack and a few lenses. Not what I want to carry around all day in a strange city.

I took all three of the cameras pictured overseas. My Lego photographer staid home.

The middle camera is a little Canon point and shoot I bought duty free in Heathrow last year. It's something to slip into a pocket, and I took it along specifically for photography on planes, where space is limited in economy and the other two cameras just wouldn't fit.

The camera on the left is Canon's entry into the mirrorless market. It's basically a DSLR with the mirror, viewfinder, and articulated viewscreen removed. It has a couple of "native" lenses, and with an adaptor it can take the whole range of Canon lenses. Some combinations, the poor little thing is almost lost on the back of a big telephoto zoom.

It's a sweet little camera and takes very good photos. Two caveats: first, it doesn't have a viewfinder, and squinting at the fixed screen in bright sunlight (like when you are being a tourist) is more guess and pray than point and shoot. Second, and this is the killer, is the autofocus. It's very slow. Hold the thing up, press the button, and wait.

The child has stopped smiling, the bird has flown, the moment has passed.

I gave it to John to experiment with, but after a bit he abandoned it for his iPad, which is easy to use, fast as, and can upload direct to Facebook.

On the right is my little sweetie. Another mirrorless, this one from Olympus. Fast autofocus, electronic viewfinder, tilt screen, internal stabilisation, all sorts of buttons and controls and functions, weather-sealed, small, and light. I love it.

Coupled with a 12-40mm lens, it's an excellent walking around camera. And its handheld low light performance is incredible.

I left the original lens cap in a Heidelberg brewery - understandable after a couple of excellent German beers, so I had to buy a replacement in Copenhagen. And the strap mount on the left side of the body pulled out somewhere along the way, making it a worry that the other one would come adrift at a dangerous moment.

There's also my iPhone camera, and I bought a couple of Android smartphones here and there, but didn't use them for much beyond experimenting.

So, all told, we had seven or eight cameras along, and if the image quality is variable, that's why.
 
Superjumbo (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne)

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Our big bird to London is a Qantas Airbus A388, the biggest airliner in production. Or ever.

I've flown on a few of these now. They are quiet and roomy. Even with airlines cramming in a great number of seats, there's still a fair bit of open space to walk around in.

I've put a bit of thought into seat selection here. There are a few seats that have a bit of extra space without being exit rows, but on our flight they are long gone.

So I've headed upstairs. Here Qantas has made the rear section into a tiny (five rows) economy cabin. The fuselage is not as wide as downstairs, so rather than the 3-4-3 configuration, it is 2-4-2.

I grab a pair of those outer seats. 33A and 33B. John gets the window seat (though there's not a lot to see on this night flight) and I take the aisle.

Another advantage is that we are well back past the wings. The A380 has enormous wings and if you are anywhere near the middle, all you see is wing.

I prefer being seated ahead of the wing (obviously), but if that's not an option, it's good to be right at the back.
 
Third Dinner (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne - Dubai)

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Our flight left well after the scheduled 22:55 departure, lifting into the night sky over Tullamarine like an airborne block of flats.

Rural Australia quickly turns into outback Australia, and our path tracked right over the centre of the continent. Vast expanses of desert. Nothing to see outside, and to be honest, after a busy day and a very good meal I was interested in trying to get some sleep.

But the cabin crew had to serve the hungry hundreds, and it was quite some time before dinner was complete and the lights were dimmed.

Qantas has entered into a partnership with Emirates, outside of the oneWorld alliance, which makes for some interesting quirks.

On this flagship route to London, we stop at Dubai rather than Singapore or Bangkok. Even though there seemed to be very few Middle Easterners aboard (one imagines that they would prefer the parallel Emirates flight) the menu card was printed in both English and Arabic and noted that meals served on board contained no pork or alcohol products.

This last has caused some grumbling amongst those who want bacon and eggs for breakfast, but I don't see substituting a beef sausage for pork is a major problem. If we were to travel via Mumbai, maybe...
 
Night Flight (16 September 2014 evening Melbourne - Dubai)

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We didn't take off until just before midnight, so dinner was served about one in the morning. I wasn't interested. I was very tired and just wanted to sleep. It's a fifteen and a half hour flight from Melbourne to Dubai.

We had the small cabin to roam around, and with an aisle seat I could get up as I pleased. Which I did. I was able to stand behind my seat and lean on it, which I did to give John a chance to get in and out.

Watched a movie or two, dozed a bit, and eventually dawn arrived over the Arabian peninsula, just as we began our descent into Dubai.

There were tawny sand dunes, rocky outcrops, villages and empty roads. Dubai itself was pretty much shrouded in haze, and only the faintest shadow of the world's tallest building on the horizon.

We landed and taxied past an long terminal packed with A380s. An immense fortune on display right there, with each plane costing $400 million, and 55 in the fleet. In fact, the whole vast terminal was designed from the ground up to cater for these superjumbo aircraft.

Very few terminals have the ability to line these aircraft up side by side. Usually they are restricted to the ends of concourses, where there is more room for those long, long wings.

One additional benefit of being on the upper deck was that, even though we were at the back of a very large plane, we didn't have that many passengers ahead of us. Just the business class and premium economy cabins. A hundred passengers above and three hundred below. We filed out through the business cabins, where the passengers had enjoyed a far more comfortable flight than we had.

Next time...
 
Shake Shack (17 September 2014 morning Dubai)

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Dubai is a two hour break for the plane to be refuelled, cleaned and the crew swapped over.

We're set free into the terminal to have a break, stretch the legs, explore the duty free shops.

This place is huge. The building is the largest in the world. I've seen some large airport terminals in my time - Kansai International, for example - but this one takes the cake.

Apart from a massive departures level with abundant shopping and dining options, there are whole floors devoted to First and Business lounges.

Two hours was not nearly enough time to explore.

I liked this restaurant: Shake Shack. I wonder if it has any affiliation with the famous establishment in Manhattan?
 
A Mug Game (17 September 2014 morning Dubai)

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I've got this habit. Or hobby. Maybe it's a hobbit.

Collecting Starbucks mugs.

I like Starbucks - they provide reasonable coffee, a clean and tidy and comfortable place to drink it, and best of all when on the road, free wifi.

In America especially, I look for those green mermaids, because the regular coffee at diners and service stations is so incredibly awful.

And if they have a souvenir mug that I haven't got, I'll get one. Chicago, Osaka, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Brisbane... I must have a hundred of them by now.

Drives my wife crazy.

And loads up my baggage.

Anyway, I looked at the terminal map at Dubai and noticed they had a Starbucks. Bingo! Went looking for it but got the direction wrong and had to head back to the other end of the vast concourse. Through a positive maze of shops offering all sorts of goodies to travellers.

But they had Dubai mugs, and I bought one. Without buying a coffee to go with it, as I often do. Didn't have the time for it. Not with the First lounge upstairs.
 
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