Our $8 Vinnies throw away bag to hold our back packs to the UK
Having booked 24 nights for our walk starting on Sunday 14th May, I allowed a few days prior to go standby with the help of opur daughter Bonnie, hoping to fly either Qatar, Etihad or QANTAS to London, then train to Newquay to visit my brother John for a few days before we start the walk.
We had many plans but unexpectedly Plan E worked out perfectly
Plan A was our confirmed QANTAS premium economy flight from Brisbane to London return which I had booked months ago using QANTAS frequent flyer points but this was our back up if the standby business class didn’t work out.
Plan B was to fly QATAR on Tuesday 9th May from Brisbane to Melbourne then Melbourne to Doha on the 3pm flight, then connect from Doha to London. Bonnie did her absolute best to arrange standby Business Class but it was a busy time for outgoings to the UK and there were many last minute upgrades from economy to Business class for “Special Guests” that QATAR controlled behind the scenes from their back office and which were not transparent. So this flight didn’t happen.
Plan C was to wait in Melbourne for the 9pm flight but it was obvious this flight had no standby Business, so off to Sydney at 3.30pm for the next Plan D.
Bonnie’s carrot cake and coffee while waiting for standby
No business class Sydney to Doha but they gave us 4 economy seats
Plan D was to try for for the 9pm flight from Sydney which looked good on paper with 13 potential Business seats. When we checked in, the availability still looked OK, but at the last minute those seats disappeared to “unknown” upgrades.
Plan E was our last resort. The QATAR staff were most apologetice for events beyond their control when the Business Class seats disappeared but kindly offered us a whole row of Economy class to ourselves. Meantime, Bonnie had changed the Doha to London leg into a Doha to Manchester leg because it looked better than flying into London, and we knew there was a direct flight with Loganair from Manchester to Newquay.
A dilemma - take the 4 economy seats on offer or revert to Plan A and go QANTAS premium Economy. So we took the 4 economy seats believeing we could at least spread out more.
Actually, Plan E worked outmodes better than any other Plan A to D. The 4 economy seats allowed us to take it in turns to put up our feet up and was probably better than reclining seats in Premium economy which Bonnie was able to cancel with a full refund of all taxes paid and a return of all but 12,00 points. Better still, we scored Business Class on the Doha to Manchester leg which was amazing - 6 course Restaurant Class meal and a bed to have a snooze afterwards.
We arrived in Manchester at 1.15pm on Wednesday 10th May, and booked a hotel called the Budget Ibis just across the road from Terminal 2. It was very budget with just a double bed squished up against the wall and no room to sort our suitcase, but at least the shower was great. After a stroll around Manchester Airport through the travellators to find Terminal 3 where our Newquay flight departed from, we sat downstairs to have a cup of tea and the rest of Bonnie’s carrot cake as we were full after our QATAR lunchtime meal.
We spent the night chatting with Bonnie on the phone to re-think our return flights on June 8th from London to avoid the messy situation with so many QATAR Business Class seats disappearing from under our nose. We needed to find an alternative return journey as when the QANTAS premium Economy was cancelled, it automatically cancelled the return leg from London on June 8th.
Two hours later at midnight, Bonnie incredibly found a QANTAS Classic rewards flight in Business class from Gatwick London to Melbourne with Emirates which had only just popped up. Usually, those frequent fly Business Class Classic Rewards flights are never at a time that suits and always for just one person. But here was a flight on the perfect day, June 8th, with 2 Business Class seats available for only 320,000 points total which I now had because the original Premium Economy costing 440,000 points had been cancelled and the points returned. So I immediately. booked our return flights home.