Million points received! (Stephen’s Million Mile Madness trip journal)

A week ago I received confirmation from SAS that my 15th and final flight had credited. I’ve now received the bonus points, so I’m now a SAS millionaire! More about this below.

Wednesday February 12

A week ago I got a notification in the SAS app that my 15th and final flight from the EuroBonus Millionaire challenge had credited. It was therefore only a matter of time that I’d received the million points and sure enough – those showed up in my account yesterday, along with a confirmation email from SAS.

Previous Journal Entries

Wednesday February 5

As a quick recap, the 15th flight that I was missing was from Kenya Airways which I flew on their 5th freedom flight from Guangzhou to Bangkok. I’d checked in for the flight online and had a screenshot of my boarding pass, but security at Guangzhou airport required a physical boarding pass.

The Kenya Airways desk wasn’t due to open for a few hours and I wanted to get through security to get to a lounge, so I used a business center in the airport to print off my boarding pass on a letter-sized sheet of paper. Although this was ultimately accepted for security and to board the plane, it caused a lot of confusion and it’s presumably also what – for some reason – caused the delay in the flight being credited to my account.

After trying to claim the points for the flight a couple of months ago, I’d been (im)patiently waiting on SAS to credit me for the flight. I was fairly confident that it would credit, but there had been a nagging doubt that they – or Kenya Airways – would deny the claim for some reason.

It was therefore a lovely surprise to wake up this morning to the following notification on my phone:

785 points are very little in the grand scheme of things, but it’s those 785 points (well, the flight itself really) that mean I’ll soon be the recipient of 1 million SAS EuroBonus points.

I think I’d submitted my missing flight claim a few days before Nick did the same for his, o fingers crossed he gets a similar notification soon.

Tuesday December 17

It’s been a month since my last journal entry and some readers had wondered if, like Greg, I’d received confirmation that I’d be earning 1 million EuroBonus points.

Sadly not yet, but I’m confident I’ll eventually receive a similar email. I previously had three airlines I was waiting on – Air France, KLM and Kenya Airways. I’d tried claiming online for the missing points for all three, but had received different error messages.

For both Air France and KLM, the SAS website said that the routes I’d flown weren’t eligible. I knew that wasn’t correct based on the qualifying fare rules as there weren’t any route exclusions, so I intended to call to claim those. I procrastinated with doing that and when I did finally plan on calling, I decided to try claiming again online. This time I had success with both airlines, so I let Greg know and he had success too (he’d encountered the same error messages).

That left Kenya Airways. Neither Greg nor Nick had an issue with this crediting, so it’s a little annoying that this is the one I’m still waiting on. When trying to claim online, it gave me a message stating that they needed more information. I tried providing those details (which included a copy of my boarding pass), but the SAS website wasn’t working properly and so the ‘Submit’ button wouldn’t submit the documents.

After having eventual success with claiming for my Air France and KLM flights, I tried claiming for my Kenya Airways flight again. This time it gave a different declination message (I forget what), but for some reason I decided to try again immediately. This time it asked for more information like it had the first time I’d tried claiming for the flight, so I uploaded the documents they asked for and this time was able to submit them. It said I’d have to wait up to something like 8 weeks for it to be processed, so now I’m just in a holding pattern. I’m as confident as I can be that it’ll credit though because my boarding pass had my EuroBonus number listed on it.

I think the reason for my delay is due to some airport-related goofiness. In my November 15 journal entry, I mentioned that I’d printed a letter-sized boarding pass at a business center in the airport rather than getting a paper boarding pass from the check-in desk (it was going to be several hours before the check-in desk opened.) This seemed to cause all kinds of confusion at the airport, both when going through security and at the gate. Despite having checked in online, I’m wondering if the Kenya Airways computer system was confused about the fact that I hadn’t checked in at a desk. I’m assuming it won’t have me down as a no-show though seeing as I did get on board and flew that leg. I also have a photo I took of my email on the flight as timestamped evidence that I flew with them, just in case SAS denies my claim.

So that’s where I am: 95% confident that I’ll soon get notification that I’ll be a EuroBonus millionaire and 5% nervous that I’m going to have a fight on my hands to get that credited. I’m in Hawaii through the end of the year, so heading down to Mexico to join Nick with flying Aeromexico isn’t really an option. Fingers crossed!

Wednesday November 20

I got back to Vegas on Sunday evening after taking 23 flights over the course of 10 days during the Million Mile Madness challenge. A couple of people had asked for details about the specific flights I took, so here’s what I booked and how much those flights cost (bolded flights are the SkyTeam qualifying airlines):

• American Airlines – LAS-LAX-JFK – Business/First – 21,500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles + $5.60 (positioning flight)
• Virgin Atlantic – JFK-LHR – Economy – $243.30
• SAS – LHR-CPH – Economy – $151.50
• Iberia Express – CPH-MAD – Economy Comfort – $89.20 (positioning flight)
• Air Europa – MAD-ORY – Economy – $116.90
• Air France – CDG-AMS – Economy – $214.25
• KLM – AMS-OTP – Economy (this flight was booked as part of one itinerary with the Air France flight above)
• TAROM – OTP-ATH – Economy – $63.80
• Aegean – ATH-JED – Economy – 12,500 Aeroplan points + 87.90 CAD (positioning flight)
• Saudia – JED-MED-CGK – Economy – $408.33 + $18.40 for seat selection on the second flight (n.b. I ended up skipping the second flight for the next entry)
• Garuda – MED-CGK – Business – 56,000 Flying Blue miles + $27.55 (positioning flight)
• Garuda – CGK-SIN – Economy – $119.10
• Vietnam Airlines – SIN-SGN-ICN – Economy – $183.84
• Korean Airlines – ICN-CAN – Economy – $110.40
• Kenya Airways – CAN-BKK – Economy – $163.00
• Xiamen Airlines – BKK-XMN – Business – $366.30
• China Eastern – XMN-KMG-SGN – Economy – $113.50
• China Airlines – SGN-TPE-LAX – Economy – $527.71
• Delta – LAX-LAS – Economy – $85.48

Here’s how I booked my accommodation along the way:

• Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4 – ~$70
• Marriott Madrid Auditorium – ~$137
• Hilton Charles de Gaulle – $178.85
• InterContinental Athénée Palace Bucharest – 40k free night certificate (award cost was exactly 40k points)
• The Airport Hotel in Ho Chi Minh – $32.80

Trip Reflections

My Million Mile Madness trip went more smoothly than expected, plus it was more enjoyable – and stylish – than I’d anticipated.

My biggest concern leading up to my trip was that although I had some much longer than ideal layovers (due to focusing on affordability rather than optimal flight timings), I also had some tight flight connection times that didn’t provide much leeway for flight delays or other issues such as long lines at immigration. For the most part, this didn’t prove to be much of an issue. I hustled through the airports in Seoul and Bangkok, but still got to my gates in plenty of time.

The only properly worrisome moment was when I was flying China Eastern from Xiamen to Ho Chi Minh via Kunming. Our flight out of Xiamen was delayed which put me at very real risk of missing my flight on to Ho Chi Minh. In the event that I did miss that flight, the situation was recoverable because I could’ve booked another flight at the last minute. That would’ve been far from optimal though because it would’ve required a connection elsewhere and would also mean I wouldn’t get in until late, missing out on my first proper night’s sleep in five days. In the end, it didn’t prove to be an issue because a China Eastern agent met several of us at the gate at Kunming airport and got us fast-tracked through the airport.

Everything else went pretty much smoothly. There was some other issues along the way such as when trying to get a visa in Indonesia, but those more frustrations rather than actual problems that caused any stress.

My other big concern had been potential exhaustion. My pace in Europe at the start of the trip was slower, but then became more fast paced in Asia. With five days not in a hotel bed, I thought I might end up becoming somewhat delirious through lack of sleep and end up making silly mistakes that impacted on my trip. That didn’t end up being an issue whatsoever as I managed to get a decent amount of sleeping while flying in economy, as well as on the business class flight from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia that I booked at the last minute. My sleep was so deep that a couple of times I got woken up by the plane touching down in my next destination. Another time I was confused by how long we were sitting on the tarmac after pushing back from the gate, only to realize that we were in the air and that I’d managed to sleep through take-off without noticing it.

I was also pleased with how much more stylish my trip ended up feeling:

• My flights in First and Flagship Business class on American Airlines was a great way to start my trip, especially seeing as it provided access to the Flagship lounge at LAX
• I was able to redeem a Nightly Upgrade Award at the Marriott Madrid Auditorium to get a one bedroom suite with lounge access
• I was upgraded to a junior suite at the Hilton Charles de Gaulle courtesy of my Diamond status
• I had lounge access at the InterContinental in Bucharest as I have a lounge membership from a Milestone Award choice at the start of 2023, plus I received an upgrade to a suite thanks to my Diamond status (I don’t have Ambassador status)
• Booking the Garuda flight in Business class at the last minute from Madinah to Jakarta was an excellent choice as I was significantly more comfortable than I would’ve been for 10 hours in economy on Saudia which is what I’d originally booked
• Getting a 75 minute massage for less than $20 in Vietnam was excellent value and much needed
• I managed to hit up three different Centurion lounges within 24 hours at the start of my trip, visited the American Airlines Flagship lounge at LAX and also 15 different Priority Pass lounges (matching the 15 different SkyTeam airlines) along the way
• Despite not having a hotel booked for five nights, I’d arranged layovers at airports which meant that I was able to shower every 24 hours

All those factors ensured that my trip was much more comfortable than might be expected seeing as 19 of my 23 flights were in economy. Another helpful factor was the fact that other than my Virgin Atlantic JFK-LHR flight and my second China Eastern flight from TPE-LAX, I don’t think that any of my economy flights were more than four hours long.

One thing that wasn’t as ideal was that I didn’t have a chance to spend any proper time in any of the locations. Having said that, that was my plan going into the challenge as I’d anticipated having to spend pretty much any non-flying time either sleeping or working.

As it turned out, I wasn’t quite as busy work-wise as I’d originally thought. However, my wife and I are now in the process of planning a move back to the UK early in the new year, so looking into getting her a visa to live there, researching how to transport our pup so that she doesn’t have to be quarantined or have to travel in the hold of a plane, etc. took precedence over getting out of airports for a couple of hours to explore what was nearby. My overnight stays in Bucharest and Ho Chi Minh did intrigue me enough though to want to return to Romania and Vietnam to spend some proper time experiencing those cities/countries.

Let me know if you have any questions about my trip in the comments below.

Sunday November 17

My previous journal update finished with me about to check out of my hotel in Ho Chi Minh to head to the airport. A reader had mentioned that it’s worth getting to SGN airport 2.5 hours before your flight due to long security lines. That was a good tip because the lines were indeed lengthy.

Despite the line being so long, it moved at a reasonable pace and so I got through security with plenty of time to spare. That gave me time to swing back by the Rose Business Lounge (part of Priority Pass) that I’d visited during a layover a couple of days beforehand. The hotel I’d stayed at offered breakfast, but I wanted to get to the airport and so hoped to have time for breakfast in the lounge instead – the plan worked.

From Ho Chi Minh it was time to start the long journey home. The first leg was on China Airlines – my 14th SkyTeam carrier of the challenge – to Taipei. This flight was only a few hours and was perfectly comfortable. I got to enjoy another empty middle seat next to me and a meal was served.

In Taipei I hunted around for the Plaza Premium lounge in order to visit a Priority Pass lounge for the 15th time on my trip (in keeping with the 15 SkyTeam airlines we needed to fly). The Priority Pass website’s directions weren’t very helpful as they only listed its location as ‘Airside – International Departures, Level 4, Departure Hall.’ I eventually found it near the A gates which wasn’t too far from my D gate.

Although this was my 15th Priority Pass visit, it was only my 14th unique lounge as I’d visited the Rose Business Lounge at Ho Chi Minh airport on two separate occasions.

My next flight was the one I was looking forward to the least. I was flying from Taipei to Los Angeles in China Airlines economy class. This was an 11 hour, 15 minute flight which – after more than a week of mostly economy flying – wasn’t overly appealing.

I knew I could handle it though. My wife and I have flown to and from the US to Bali and Australia in economy in the past, both of which were longer flights. As economy flights go, the China Airlines experience was great. The flight attendants were friendly, the food was decent, the entertainment selection was excellent (including the games) and the seat had a good amount of leg room.

Despite that, I ended up getting sausage feet halfway through the flight which isn’t something I think I’ve ever encountered when flying before, at least not to this extent. My ankles in particular started getting sore, so I spent a significant portion of the second half of the flight standing up and walking around.

Thankfully I’d dodged a bullet when checking in. I’d procrastinated with checking in online which was a huge mistake because by the time I did that a few hours before my first flight, the only seats remaining on the long TPE-LAX leg were middle seats – argh!

I was incredibly fortunate though. For some reason China Airlines wasn’t able to provide me with a digital boarding pass for the shorter SGN-TPE leg, so I had to visit the check-in counter to get a paper boarding pass. When obtaining that, the desk agent looked at me confused and asked if I really wanted a middle seat for the TPE-LAX leg when an aisle seat was available. My eyes lit up and I gratefully took her up on that opportunity. I’ve no idea why the aisle seat didn’t show up for me when checking in, so perhaps China Airlines (and maybe other airlines?) blocks those for agents when people check in at the airport.

Either way, I went from having a middle seat at the back of the plane to an aisle seat about halfway up. Being able to get up and down whenever I wanted was a lifesaver for both my ankles and my sanity.

At LAX, I had to make the relatively short walk over to Terminal 3 for my Delta flight. While I waited, I visited one of the Delta Sky Clubs there, gaining access courtesy of the Amex Platinum card. My wife and I rarely fly Delta and so I think this might’ve been my first time in a Sky Club. It seemed very nice with good food and drink options, but its best feature for this visit was a row of cubicles with a small desk and chair. We had our live check-in on YouTube during my layover there, so it was awesome being able to do that in a seemingly soundproofed cubicle so that it didn’t disturb other Sky Club guests.

From there it was only a one hour flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas – my end destination. My wife and I are still traveling full-time through the end of this year and Las Vegas is where we’re spending much of the month of November.

This final leg was on Delta for my 15th SkyTeam carrier – woohoo! Timing-wise, this was the end of the challenge. However, I had one more thing I needed to do.

I mentioned earlier that I’d visited Priority Pass lounges 15 times on the trip, but had only hit up 14 individual lounges due to visiting one of those lounges twice. I’d wanted to visit a Priority Pass lounge during my layover at LAX, but there wasn’t one I was eligible for. That meant my only option was to stop by The Club at Las Vegas airport upon my return.

There was a 10-15 minute wait, but I was finally admitted for my 15th unique Priority Pass lounge. This wasn’t in any way a requirement for the challenge, but I figured it added a fun bit of flair as I’d gone into the challenge knowing that I wouldn’t have the time to get out and about to enjoy locations as much as Greg and Nick were able to.

I’d managed to meet a cat in Vietnam for the ‘pet fido’ task to earn bonus points during the challenge, but there was only one pupper I’d been looking forward to petting – our dog Truffles! Shae and her picked me up from the airport, then when we got back to our Airbnb she leapt on me while I put my feet up to try reducing some of the swelling.

I’ve a feeling I’m going to get a good night’s sleep tonight!

Saturday November 16

The last 24-36 hours have been action packed. The last update ended with me at Guangzhou airport in China, about to fly Kenya Airways from there to Bangkok on its fifth freedom flight.

That flight went off without a hitch and we arrived in Bangkok a few hours later. I was a little nervous about this next stage because my layover was only a couple of hours. At first I thought I’d be able to transit to my Xiamen Airlines flight without needing to go through immigration, but Xiamen Airlines seems to be pretty much the only airline without a transfer desk airside at BKK and they don’t offer the ability to check in online right now. That meant having to go through immigration and then out to the departures hall to check in at their desk, before going back through security.

I thought that only having two hours to do this might cut things too fine, but everything moved quickly and I was back through security with my boarding pass with plenty of time to spare. So much time in fact that I managed to sit down in a restaurant to have my favorite dish from when we lived in Thailand – som tum (see the video here). This spicy papaya salad dish was like crack to me and I used to have it for dinner several times a week because not only was it tasty, it was only $1.

My Xiamen Airlines flight went smoothly too. I’d gotten a ticket in business class because it seemed like most economy fares weren’t qualifying. The cabin had two rows in the business class cabin with them in a 2-2 formation. There were seven people in business class on this flight and I was the lucky one not to have someone next to me, so it was like being in Pepper first class.

Getting a 144 hour transit visa on arrival in Xiamen proved painless despite having gotten a similar visa the day before in Guangzhou. After getting my visa, I had a hard time working out where the China Eastern check-in desk was. I’d forgotten to consult my spreadsheet with all my flight details as I’d noted on there that my flight on Xiamen landed at Terminal 3 and that my next flight was out of Terminal 4. I asked a different check-in desk agent and they said I’d need to take a taxi to Terminal 4, so I withdraw a little money from the ATM to get there.

At Terminal 4, I spent a little time in the First Class lounge (part of Priority Pass) before boarding my flight on China Eastern to Ho Chi Minh via Kunming. This is where the real adventures began.

Our flight out of Xiamen was delayed by air traffic control, with my heart continuing to sink ever deeper as time ticked by. You see, my connection time in Kunming was only 1.5 hours and our flight ended up leaving an hour late. We made up a little time in the air, but that still only gave me an hour to make my next flight and I knew I might have some kind of delay at immigration.

I was therefore ridiculously relieve when, on the jetway after disembarking, there was someone holding a sign saying ‘Ho Chi Minh’. There were five of us on the delayed flight connecting to Ho Chi Minh, so rather than walking through the airport, we got to take a shortcut on a VIP bus.

We still had to rush through the airport though which isn’t as fun when you’re carrying a heavy backpack rather than pushing a carry-on with wheels. There were a couple of other shortcuts in the airport we were able to take seeing as we were with an employee, then it was time for immigration.

Uh-oh.

First, although the line wasn’t super long when I arrived (tons of people showed up seconds after I got in line though, so that was lucky), there was only one agent and he was processing people slowly. When it was eventually my turn, he seemed concerned about the fact that I’d had a transit visa for Guangzhou the day before and Xiamen for that day seeing as Kunming isn’t – as far as I know – in either of those regions. The 144 hour transit visa has strict rules about which port(s) you can exit out of based on where you entered. From my research, I thought that provided I left Xiamen on a flight booked on the same carrier to another country, that was allowed – even if it connected in a different Chinese city. He called someone over to discuss the situation. Meanwhile, the other four people flying on to Ho Chi Minh were all presumably Chinese as they’d breezed through a different line at immigration. They’d continued on to board, with the fast track employee waiting for me as seconds and minutes ticked by.

Eventually I got the stamp needed to exit and I was on my way. I got fast tracked through the priority security line, then it was just a quick run to my gate before hopping aboard a different bus to get to the plane. There must’ve been several other delayed flights in, because the bus waited around for half a dozen more people connecting to Ho Chi Minh.

A few days before the trip started, I applied for a visa to enter Vietnam for the night as my flight out of Ho Chi Minh wasn’t until late morning the following day. It was approved, so I downloaded a copy to my phone and thought I was sorted.

I think there must be something goofy with Vietnamese visas applied for online, perhaps when doing that from overseas in a different time zone. Greg had a problem when arriving in Vietnam as his visa had been valid for the day before he arrived through the day he actually arrived. When in line, I happened to look at my visa a little more closely and, sure enough, the exact same thing had happened to me. I was certain I’d entered November 16 as the date I was due to arrive and that I’d be spending one day, but for some reason it seemed to take that as me arriving on November 15 and leaving on the 16th.

The immigration agent picked up on this and wouldn’t let me through. He did call someone over to look at it and he came up with a solution that couldn’t be better. I have a British passport and so I’m able to enter Vietnam – visa-free – for up to 45 days. The original immigration agent was therefore able to effectively wave me through after giving me a passport stamp.

I’d booked a hotel only a 15 minute walk from the airport. Google Maps suggested I could walk it, so I decided to try for research purposes. Perhaps there is a safer route there, but Google Maps wanted me to walk along the road with no sidewalk which wasn’t going to happen, so I went back to the rideshare area and took a Grab (similar to Uber and Lyft in Asia) to my hotel.

I’d been particularly looking forward to this hotel stay for a couple of reasons. The first was that it would be my first proper bed (other than a lie flat bed in Garuda business class) for five days. The other reason was that it was a fantastic deal – a one bedroom apartment a short distance from the airport with a kitchen, living room and a washing machine. Chain hotels in Ho Chi Minh were going for $100-$250 per night, but this apartment/hotel was going for only $31 through Hotels.com. I had about $35 of OneKey Cash, so was able to cover the entire cost with that. Affordability and style? Sweet!

It wasn’t meant to be though. When trying to check in, I was advised that there was some kind of issue with the apartment (I didn’t catch what the exact problem was) and so they’d booked me a stay at a different hotel around the corner instead. She walked me down there and I could see that it was going to be the White Diamond hotel. I’d seen that one on Hotels.com and it didn’t have great reviews online, so I told her that I’d prefer a refund instead. At first I thought this might’ve been some kind of scam as I’d heard of a similar thing happening with Airbnbs in some places. However, she gave me a refund in cash and was extremely apologetic, following up with another apology via WhatsApp later on, so it might well have been a genuine issue.

That meant I didn’t have somewhere to stay for the night. I wasn’t overly concerned though as another budget hotel I’d looked at originally was The Airport Hotel. This was right next door to the Sabay Airport Apartment hotel and so stood outside that hotel, hopped on to Hotels.com quickly to book that and went inside. A minute later I had my key and I was on my way to my room.

I was a little confused finding it though. I was given room 109, so I went up to the first floor and looked around, only finding rooms 101-104. I went back down to the front desk and he said I was on the sixth floor in room 601 – I’d glanced at the room number on the key upside down. D’oh!

For $32.80, the hotel room was perfect. It was clean, comfortable, had a safe, air conditioning, a couple of bottles of water, a mini fridge and my own bathroom. The hotel was extremely quiet with no street noise from outside and is only a few minutes from the airport by taxi. Not having to hop in a Grab or taxi to head to a chain hotel for at least triple the cost was worth it, especially as there had been a couple of places in the neighborhood I wanted to check out.

At the start of the Million Mile Madness challenge, Greg flew through New York and got a massage at the Equinox Spa there. Nick had a spa day at Therme in Bucharest, so with my trip winding down and after a week of flying almost exclusively in economy, I went for a massage.

There was a place around the corner that offered a 75 minute stone massage for 420,000 VND (~$16.50) + tip, so how could I pass up that opportunity?! After that, I went to a noodle bar because being in Vietnam for the first time meant I wanted to try local pho. It was very good and that, along with a beer, came to only 72,000 VND (~$3). Delicious and a bargain.

From there it was back to the hotel to get some work done. I needed to work on this update, plus get Last Chance Deals published. I was exhausted though, so I set my alarm for an hour later to take a little snooze. That went off and I snoozed it. It went off again and I reset it.

I ended up sleeping until about 6am at which point I forced myself to get up. I’ve mentioned in the past that my superpower is that I can sleep easily sitting upright in economy. That’s been extremely handy on this trip, but I have another superpower – I can sleep easily with the light on. That’s exactly what happened here – I slept soundly through the night despite it not being dark in the room.

So that’s where I’m at – sitting upright in bed, typing this all out. I have to work on Last Chance Deals now, then it’s a quick shower before heading to the airport to start my long flight back to the US. I’m currently at 13 SkyTeam airlines for the challenge and, coincidentally, at 13 Priority Pass lounges for the trip. In the next 24 hours I’ll hopefully have hit 15 of both.

Friday November 15

After leaving the Ambassador Transit lounge at Singapore airport, I went to a different Priority Pass lounge – the Marhaba lounge – that was closer to my gate until my Vietnam Airlines flight was due to depart.

I was glad I’d spent more of my time at the Ambassador Transit lounge though as the Marhaba lounge was right next to a play area for kids. It’s awesome that there’s so many fun activities for families to do at Changi airport, but it did mean the experience in the lounge was far less relaxing due to the endless screaming of excited kids.

It was soon time for me to fly from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City. I had a short layover there before continuing on to Incheon airport in Seoul, South Korea. Both these (relatively) short economy flights served a meal, so I didn’t manage to finish the second meal as I’d already eaten in the Singapore lounges, not knowing if meals would be served.

My layover at Ho Chi Minh City was due to be short, but I had enough time to pop into my 10th Priority Pass lounge of the trip – the Rose Business Lounge. I wasn’t interested in any food, but did want a little hydration. I normally drink a lot of water each day, but it’s been harder to do that during this challenge due to repeatedly having to get rid of fluids before going through security.

I said my layover was due to be short, but it didn’t quite end up that way as my flight on to Seoul was delayed by just over an hour. Even after we finally boarded and pushed back from the gate, we had to hang out on the tarmac for what felt like forever, but was probably only another 5-10 minutes.

This started to worry me a little as my connection time in Seoul had been due to be less than 2.5 hours. This delay reduced that to more like 1.5 hours or less. Thankfully we made up a little bit of time in the air – perhaps all the turbulence was caused by the wind at our back. There was still no time to waste though, so I started to hustle through ICN.

Thankfully Incheon was the most pleasant airport I’ve had to transit through so far on the challenge. It was an absolute breeze despite having an additional concern. I’d been able to check in online, but hadn’t been able to get a copy of my boarding pass – it advised I had to get that at the airport. After disembarking from the Vietnam Airlines flight, I followed the signs for international transfers. If you ever find yourself needing to do the same, pay close attention to where you need to go. A couple of times there were sections that looked like they were blocked off, but there was a small entryway through. I seemed to be the only person on my flight needing to transfer, so I wandered off alone while everyone else went in a different direction.

Despite feeling like I was going the wrong way, it was the correct route. After passing through what was, effectively, a personal security area, I got on the train connecting Terminal 1 with Terminal 2. From there I went straight to the gate where I was able to get my boarding pass printed. Even though my flight into Incheon had been delayed, I still arrived at my gate more than 45 minutes before departure. It was a trek though; it feels like the airport gates at Incheon couldn’t be spread further apart, so be prepared to do a lot of walking.

From Seoul I flew Korean Air to Guangzhou, China which was another perfectly fine economy flight that also served a meal. It was another longer-than-ideal layover here in Guangzhou, but I don’t have a 10 year Chinese visa like Nick does, so I wanted to ensure I had extra time in case there were any issues with obtaining a 144 hour transit visa.

As it goes, that went relatively smoothly. I did have to leave airside afterwards though before having to go back through security which is where I had an issue. Security wouldn’t accept a digital boarding pass – it had to be paper. However, my next flight is on Kenya Airways (their 5th freedom route from Guangzhou to Bangkok) and their check-in counter wouldn’t be open for many hours.

I managed to find a solution though. There was a business center in the departures area, so I went in there to print off a letter-sized boarding pass that Kenya Airways had provided in addition to the digital boarding pass.

This involved having to download WeChat and sending the business center the document through that app for them to print. The cost was 2 RMB (about $0.25), but I didn’t have any cash. You can pay using WeChat, but I’d only just downloaded it that moment and so didn’t have any cards added to the app’s wallet feature. The person working in there thankfully accepted a credit card for the transaction despite them possibly having to pay more in processing fees than the 2 RMB they’d earn.

I feared that wasn’t the solution I thought it was going to be though. When reaching security, they were incredibly confused by the boarding pass not being like a long, narrow rectangle like most boarding passes. The security agent had to discuss it with several other agents before they realized that there was a barcode on my boarding pass that they could scan and which worked for their system. The stamped my boarding pass to confirm that it was accepted, but the agent came back a couple of times to look and marvel at its uniqueness!

She wasn’t the only one. There was another security checkpoint in order to officially leave the country where they collect your departure form. Similar to the previous security area, this seemed to be the first time he’d ever seen a letter-sized boarding pass and didn’t know what to do with it, so he called over a colleague for assistance. Just as I was about to point out the barcode, they spotted it themselves and they too marveled at it. Hopefully it made their day a little less monotonous!

With a fairly long layover, I was grateful that the Premium Lounge at Guangzhou airport let me in. It says on the Priority Pass website that there’s a limit of two hours; sometimes when lounges say that it means you can come in at any time before your flight for a limit of two hours, but other times they mean that you can’t enter until two hours before your flight. The Premium lounge let me straight in and didn’t mention any kind of time limit, so I’ve just been hanging out here ever since.

The food and drink selection isn’t as good as some lounges, but there’s still enough to keep you satiated on a long layover. They have showers available which I took advantage of as I’d last had one in Singapore. That had only been just over 24 hours ago, but in the meantime I’d taken three flights and rushed through Incheon airport, so freshening up was ideal. There’s also a ‘Relaxing Zone’ which has at least half a dozen cubicles with a recliner to make it easier to take a snooze during a layover.

By the time this update publishes, I should be in the air on my way to Bangkok on Kenya Airways. I have a fairly short connection there, so I’m hoping everything goes as smoothly in Bangkok as it did at Incheon. The airline I’m flying on next doesn’t let you check in online, so I’m hoping the lack of a boarding pass doesn’t cause any delays in getting to the gate in order to obtain one.

It’s now been about 4.5 days since I last slept in a hotel bed. This was the stage of my itinerary that I was most apprehensive about – that I’d be suffering from exhaustion and would make dumb mistakes along the way that would cause me to miss a flight for one reason or another.

For not having a full night’s sleep in so long, I feel remarkably good. I’ve not had a problem falling asleep while sitting upright in economy (yay for my superpower!) since that last hotel night in Bucharest. I haven’t counted how many hours of sleep I’ve gotten, but it’s been sufficient to still be a functioning human being, plus I’ve been caffeine-loading with tea and Coke Zero while in airport lounges.

In fact, it’s been ridiculously easy falling asleep on flights at times. On the Korean Air flight from Incheon to Guangzhou, I crashed out before we’d even pulled back from the gate. I woke up later on a little concerned as to why we hadn’t taken off yet. Except we were in the air – I’d just slept through takeoff and only woke up about an hour into the flight when they were serving a meal! It’ll be another 24 hours or so before I’m next in a hotel, so even if it’s a rock hard bed like you sometimes get in Asia, I imagine it’ll feel like the most pillowy goodness imaginable.

Thursday November 14

My last journal entry left off with me in a Priority Pass lounge at Madinah airport in Saudi Arabia. I was about to fly from Madinah to Jakarta on Saudia Airlines having already flown Saudia from Jeddah to Madinah earlier that day.

What I hadn’t really paid attention to when booking those Saudia flights was that the Madinah to Jakarta leg was almost 10 hours long. At the time of booking that, I was scrambling to find an alternate Saudia routing as my previous one went kaput when the price jumped $2,000 during the booking stage.

Sitting there in the lounge, fighting off a cold, with not much sleep in the preceding 24 hours and not much to come in the coming 96 hours, a 10 hour journey in economy sounded appalling. I’ve done longer economy flights before (e.g. Washington D.C. to Hong Kong, the US to Australia, etc.) and so I know I can handle it, but I just wasn’t feeling the effort of handling it.

Out of curiosity, I did a quick award search from Madinah to Jakarta in business class and saw that I could book Garuda business class for only 56,000 Flying Blue miles + ~$28 in taxes and fees. For a 10 hour flight that seemed like a bargain, but there was a wrinkle with that plan challenge-wise. We’re accounting for the value of miles we redeem during the challenge and, with affordability being the metric I have the best chance of coming first in, I was concerned that adding ~$750 of spend could be the difference between coming first and second in the affordability category.

Throwing caution to the wind though, I booked it. But it wasn’t as easy as that.

This was only a few hours before my flight and it wouldn’t let me check in online. That meant I needed to find a Garuda desk; there was still 2-3 hours before the flight, so I figured I’d head back landside to check in at a desk there. This ended up not being possible; when passing through security earlier, they’d given me an exit stamp which meant I’d officially left Saudi Arabia. I therefore wasn’t allowed back landside to check in to get my boarding pass – argh!

Instead, I headed to the gate where the flight was due to depart to speak to a Garuda agent. I found someone to chat to, but he was an EgyptAir agent who said I was at the wrong gate as the next flight from there was an EgyptAir one (despite the Garuda plane I was due to be flying on already being parked at the gate). He ended up leaving and time ticked down with no Garuda agents showing up.

I still had the Saudia flight in economy available as a backup, but I’d have to leg it down the other end of the terminal to catch that if a Garuda agent didn’t show up in the next 30-40 minutes. Thankfully someone showed up and he made every effort to check me in, but seemed unable to. Minutes ticked on, with me stress levels slowly rising, more because the business class bed was calling to me. After 10-15 minutes, I finally got my boarding pass – whew!

That wasn’t the end of it though. Five minutes later the agent came over wanting to see my passport. Checking it, he seemed concerned that I only had one stamp and took several photos of my passport info and stamp page. I half expected him to come back and say I wouldn’t be allowed to board, but I was able to, so whew! See this video I recorded for more.

But no whew! After getting settled in to my seat, a completely different Garuda employee boarded the plane, came over to me and said “Mr Pepper?” My heart sunk as I said yes, but then he handed me a duplicate paper boarding pass. After I’d already boarded the plane. I’ve no idea why that was necessary, but I was relieved that was all he wanted and even more relieved once the doors closed and we pushed back.

The Garuda flight in business class was great and I don’t regret it. The entertainment selection was poor, but I’m not much of a movie watcher on planes anyway. It was a couple of other areas that made it such an enjoyable experience.

One was the food. For both meals I selected a beef with rice option and both meals were extremely tasty – flavorful and spicy with just the right amount of heat.

Even better was my ability to get some sleep. One complaint I have with some Asian airlines is that they keep the cabin far too warm and have no air nozzles. Although this flight had no air nozzles, the cabin was kept at a very reasonable temperature, so much so that I was able to snuggles under their comfortable blanket and not be too hot. That meant I was able to get several hours of sleep and felt much more refreshed than I probably would have in Saudia economy.

I had a 6 hour layover in Jakarta, so I wasn’t worried about making my next flight in time, but I’m grateful I didn’t have a tighter connection. I was due to depart from the same terminal that I arrived in and should’ve been able to get a transit visa. There wasn’t anyone at the transfer desk though, so I got in line for the Visa on Arrival; I was able to apply online while in line, but couldn’t pay online.

An agent showed up at the transfer desk, so I went over to get his assistance. I was with him for 15-20 minutes and it didn’t seem like he knew anything about transiting procedure – problematic when that’s the desk you’re working at. He eventually said I didn’t need a visa and to go to the immigration desk and they’d let me through.

They didn’t. They said I needed to transfer, so I explained that I’d explained that to the transfer desk guy, but there wasn’t anything I could do but return to the transfer desk. When I got there, he decided that I needed to get a Visa on Arrival, so I got back in that long, slow-moving line. Once I was seen, they refused to give me a Visa on Arrival as I was transferring, so I was told once again to see an immigration agent and explain the situation.

Once again, I followed those instructions and once again was advised that they couldn’t let me through and that I needed a visa. I therefore returned to the Visa on Arrival desk and finally managed to get someone to let me pay the ~$30 for the visa to be allowed through. That whole process took about 1.5 hours, hence why I was glad I didn’t have a tight connection.

By that point it was time for our livestream check-in, so I found a quiet area in baggage claim to do that before heading back through security for my next flight. Given the visa issues I’d encountered at Jakarta airport, I was half expecting issues getting through security, but I breezed through there and was soon in another Priority Pass lounge there.

My next flight was a paid flight on Garuda from Jakarta to Singapore. This was in economy, but it was a great little flight. It was only 1.5 hours and, despite its short length, they provided a full meal. They offered chicken with fried rice or noodles with fish and shrimp; after having two rice meals on the way to Jakarta, I went with the noodles. As economy meals go it was decent, especially on such a short flight.

After landing in Singapore, it was time to decide what to do. My wife and I flew through Singapore a few months ago and found Thomas Dambo’s trolls in Sentosa, so I didn’t feel the need to go back there so soon after.

During the 3 Cards, 3 Continents challenge I visited Singapore, so I’ve already seen some of the key parts of the country, as well as enjoyed many of the fun activities at Changi airport.

There were two activities I hadn’t done though. The first was the outdoor butterfly garden, so I headed out there to check it out.

Just steps from the butterfly garden is a free movie theater that plays movies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. Except the one specific afternoon that I thought I’d go watch a movie in there.

All was not lost though. Right between the butterfly garden and movie theater is the Ambassador Transit Lounge which is part of Priority Pass. It’s not an enormous lounge, but there’s plenty of seating due to the way they have it set up. It also has one of the most impressive food offerings of all the Priority Pass lounges I’ve been to. In addition to having a live cooking and bar station, there’s about a dozen other hot options, salad, chips, ice cream and more.

They have a three hour time limit, but that’s based on when you enter the lounge – they give you a sticker with the time you have to leave by. That’s fantastic because it means that if you have a long layover, you can lounge hop rather than having no lounge access until three hours before your flight.

The lounge also has showers available, so I freshened up before it was time to leave.

I still have another hour or two before I head off on a couple of Vietnam Airlines flights, so it’s time to find a different lounge to hang out in as my three hours in the Ambassador Transit Lounge is up.

Wednesday November 13

Where we last left off, I was leaving the club lounge at the InterContinental in Bucharest to head to the airport. From there I caught a TAROM flight to Athens which only cost $63.80. Even better, the flight was so empty that I had an entire row all to myself.

The flight was perfectly comfortable and once at Athens I went and chilled in the Goldair Handling Lounge. I picked this lounge as it had a shower available subject to payment, so I figured I’d freshen up before continuing my journey. That was until I discovered that the lounge wanted to get fresh with my wallet. That ‘subject to payment’ wording referred to a €50 (~$53) fee and so, having showered that morning, I declined that special opportunity, returning to the main part of the lounge to have some dinner.

My flight out in the evening was on a non-SkyTeam carrier – Aegean. I needed to position to Jeddah and Aeroplan had award availability on Aegean for 12,500 points + CA$87.90 (~$63) in economy. While it wasn’t exactly a stellar value, it was still better than the cash prices being charged on that route.

It was at Jeddah where all the weirdness started. Actually, the weirdness started a day or two beforehand when I kept getting an error message when trying to check in for my Saudia flights. Error message on desktop, error message on mobile and error message in their app. After landing in Jeddah on Aegean, I therefore needed to find a Saudia desk to get checked in and get a boarding pass. After getting my visa on arrival (more about that in a mo), I went through the transiting route and got through security without having a boarding pass. There were Saudia desks along the way, but no one attending to them. I asked various airport workers where I could find a desk with someone there and they sent me every which way except to a desk. In the end, I had to leave airside and go back to the main departures area to check in at a regular check in desk.

The desk agent had a hard time getting me checked in and had to get assistance from her supervisor a couple of times. I’ve no idea what the issue was, but I eventually got a boarding pass, albeit one that said ‘Requested Seat Unavailable’ which seemed sub-optimal. She was also only able to give me the boarding pass on this first flight and not for my connecting flight – I’d need to get that in Madinah.

At the gate, I checked with the agent to make sure I did actually have a seat on the plane and he confirmed I did which put my mind at ease, at least for now. When boarding a few minutes later though, that ease drifted away when some kind of message flashed up on the screen in red to the effect of ‘Do Not Board’.

Uh-oh.

However, the agent scrolled through a couple of things, hit a few buttons and told me it was fine – very weird.

On board I discovered my requested seat that was supposedly unavailable was indeed available and was in fact an exit row seat – sweet!

Once we landed in Madinah, I tried getting the boarding pass for my next flight. Seeing as I’d already been checked in, I figured it might be possible to get a copy of it online. Sure enough, when going on the Saudia website I was able to have a copy of the boarding pass both emailed and texted to me.

However, it wasn’t that straightforward. I noticed that the seat number they’d given me would be a window seat (it ended in A) and I’d paid a little extra to sit a little further forward in the cabin in an aisle seat. I went to a check-in agent with my boarding pass on my phone and the seat I’d selected on my laptop. While he was looking into that, he asked if I was traveling alone or with someone else. That seemed like a weird question as surely my booking would only show me, but I confirmed that I was traveling solo.

Based on that question though, it occurred to me what might’ve happened and so I looked closer at the boarding pass that had been texted and emailed to me. Yep – Saudia had somehow sent me the boarding pass for an entirely different passenger as his name was on the boarding pass. The check-in agent gave me a correct paper boarding pass, but it’s a little concerning that I was sent some random dude’s boarding pass after clicking through to their website from my own booking confirmation email.

Now that I had my boarding pass, I was able to head to security. Scanning my boarding pass wouldn’t let me through though because my flight was still more than four hours away. There was a kind security agent though who checked the reason it wasn’t letting me through and opened the gate for me anyway.

With it being so many hours until my flight was due to depart, I thought that the Primeclass lounge (available through Priority Pass) might not let me in as they have a three hour time limit. The lounge wasn’t particularly busy though, so they were happy to let me in where I was able to have some lunch and a refreshing shower. Unlike the lounge in Athens that wanted to charge €50 for the privilege, the Primeclass lounge at Madinah airport offers complimentary showers. There’s only one shower in the men’s bathroom (I presume it’s the same in the women’s bathroom), so if you have a short connection you might want to try taking a shower before having any food.

While the lounge doesn’t have the most comprehensive food selection, there have been several hot options. I arrived in the morning and had a late breakfast, before having some lunch after they updated the lineup.

There’s plenty of seating, especially for how non-busy the lounge has been for the few hours I’ve been here. Lots of the seats have power outlets as well as USB ports for easy charging. If you’d like it even quieter, there’s a peaceful library room that you can rest in.

Going back to the Saudi Arabia visa process, this had been one of the most confusing parts of all my planning. Based on my research and some helpful reader comments below, it seemed like because I have a UK passport, I could get a transit visa which is cheaper than a regular visitor visa. There was very little information about this online though and then when I reached what seemed to be the correct website, the application process was confusing and laborious. The website was in Arabic and so I had Google Chrome translate the page. That worked for the most part, but some sections seemed to be translated confusingly. For example, the section asking about how I’d arrive didn’t have an option for ‘by air’ but did have some other strangely worded option.

Each time I clicked through to the next screen, it would revert back to Arabic and so I’d have to translate the page again. I eventually came to a screen where it wanted me to list every single country I’d visited in the last five years, along with the dates. Everything was so busy in the lead up to the trip that I never ended up finishing that application, figuring I could get a transit visa on arrival.

That wasn’t the case though. There were no transit visa options to be found at the self-service visa kiosks; I checked with an agent too, mentioning that I had a UK passport and she stated that I had to get a regular tourist visa which costs ~$105. That didn’t really put me at a disadvantage budget-wise and Greg and Nick had to do the same, but it’s a shame that the cheaper transit visa wasn’t an option.

Getting the tourist visa was simple though. It was a five minute process and didn’t require me having to list out all the countries I’ve visited since 2019 and when (whew!).

Back to right now, at the time this publishes I should’ve just boarded my flight out of Madinah on to Asia. Which city will I end up in first? Stay tuned here and on Frequent Miler’s Instagram account.

Tuesday November 12

Yesterday resulted in a fairly early start as I was up and out of the Hilton Charles de Gaulle by about 8:30am. Although the hotel’s location was very convenient and it seemed to be in better condition than when Tim visited a couple of years ago, the breakfast wasn’t great as all the hot options were, in fact, cold options.

At CDG I hopped on a short Air France flight to Amsterdam and was impressed. Despite it being such a short flight, they served a sandwich and a drink to everyone in economy. Unfortunately, I once again struck out with the sandwich choice. I don’t like cheese and on the Virgin Atlantic flight to the UK at the start of the trip that meant I couldn’t eat the cheese sandwich for lunch or the salad covered in cheese or the cheese and crackers. Sure enough, the Air France snack was a cheese sandwich.

I was very impressed by the cabin crew though as the AF flight attendants were friendly AF. All of them were extremely warm, smiling, hard working and personable. The economy seat was also wider and more comfortable than the Air Europa flight I’d been on the previous day.

My layover at Amsterdam airport was only due to be just over an hour and the flight out of Paris was a little delayed setting off, so I was initially concerned about making it to my next flight in time as I wasn’t sure how far across the airport I’d have to traipse. Thankfully it wasn’t far and our flight still managed to land a little earlier than the scheduled arrival time despite the late take off, so along the way I had time to stop in at the Aspire lounge that’s part of Priority Pass. 30 minutes there gave me plenty of time to have some lunch before heading on to my gate which proved to be a life hunger saver.

That next flight was to Bucharest on KLM. Similar to Air France, the seat was slightly wider than expected, plus it seemed to be automatically reclined a little further than most airplane seats. That was fantastic as it made it easier to snooze on the flight without needing to actually recline the seat back towards the person behind me.

The staff on this flight were friendly too, but I once again managed to get the sandwich bad luck. Based on what was written on the sandwich wrapper, KLM serves either cheese or egg sandwiches on their flights in economy; guess which one they were serving that day Read More