Been a While

I know it's been a couple years since I've blogged. I am by no means a prolific blogger, so don't count on this.

Since I retired, my life has been kind of quiet until I found some insane travel deals so it does look like I am back to traveling at the moment.

For years, I was a 1K with United Airlines. Playing the frequent flyer game was far more rewarding back then, I'd leave for London on a Thursday evening, taking Friday and Monday off, then fly back to Los Angeles on a Monday afternoon.

The fare was usually around $450, and I'd do at least ten trips a year to accumulate 100,000 frequent flyer miles to keep my top-tier 1K status which entitled me to upgrade certificates, double miles, and so forth.

Simple math: $450 × 10 = $4,500 a year.

The abundance of upgrade certificates meant I rarely flew in Economy Class and more than half of my flights to London were in Business Class, despite paying Economy Class prices. Every year, I did about $45,000 worth of flying for $4,500. Quite a bargain, eh?

In addition to this, one of the perks of being 1K was double miles so flying 100,000 miles netted me 200,000 frequent flyer miles. Back then, a round-trip Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, in Business Class cost me 90,000 frequent flyer miles.

Nowadays, an award ticket Australia is now at least 400,000 miles round-trip. And there is a minimum spend of $24,000 to keep that vaunted 1K status. The two combined was a deal-breaker for me so I don't play the game anymore. Not only that, but I was getting tired of London. My old passport shows at least 50 stamps from London-Heathrow.

Last year, I scored a cheap Business Class ticket for $2,800 to Istanbul on United Airlines in Polaris Class and another to Tokyo for $1,838 on Zipair where the business model was to nickel and dime their passengers, regardless of class, so I had to pay every time I wanted water from the comfort of my Business Class seat.

For 2025, I scored two, one on Saudia to Jeddah and Singapore for $2,700 and another on SAS to London for $1,750, all in Business Class. Now, I can  fly on any airline, not just United Airlines.

Instead of flying ten times to London, I can fly twice a year to cities around the world in Business Class and pay the same amount of money I did twenty years ago. I'm happier with that arrangement.

I regularly post my YouTube videos under SoloGlobetrotter.