Redeeming Avios in Club

As long as you fly once a year with your British Airways Executive Club number tagged to a flight, you gain the benefit of much lower taxes/fees on shorthaul redemption flights - BA call in Reward Flight Saver (RFS).  This means that instead of being Lufthansa redemption levels of taxes/fees - where the points price can be the same as the cash price - the flight will cost 17.50 gbp per sector in Economy, and 25.00 gbp per sector in Business class.

There's a well know trick to reduce the taxes/fees on the ex-EU sector by booking two singles.  For example an Economy seat from DUB to LHR currently costs 12.59 gbp (instead of 17.50) and a Business seat also costs 12.59 gbp (instead of 25 gbp).  So if you're booking a return ex-UK it always worth checking if it's cheaper to book as two singles, especially if travelling Business class (although there may be other reasons you don't want to).

I was recently looking up ex-DUB flights to Rome (connecting in LHR) on the Avios website, and it was charging the expected 41,000 avios, but requesting 100 gbp in taxes in fees.
I tried booking DUB-LHR-FCO as a one way ticket and FCO-LHR-DUB as another - but it still kept trying to charge me 50 gbp for each ticket.

This seemed strange, so I scooted over to the BA website, and for exactly the same flights they wanted 41,000 avios and 79.10 gbp
Booking it as two separate tickets (DUB-LHR-FCO and FCO-LHR-DUB) they wanted 31.26 gbp and 47.84 gbp - so no additional saving to be had !

Booking through the BA website, you also get a lot more choice on which connecting flights to take - with the Avios website, they just give a single connecting option for each initial flight.  This may not be an issue, but worth remembering if you don't like what's offered.

What I don't know is whether you would be charged the lower amount if you weren't eligible for RFS - that would be perverse ... but possible !

Preikestolen

as part of my trip to Svalbard ... i flew into StaVanGer ... and hiked up Pulpit Rock

last time i did it, we had a hire car - which ended up proving rather expensive, as the tolls for the road tunnels are rather high (and the car hire company added a service charge) !

this time we didn't want to hire a car, so we looked at public transport.

the ferry goes from the centre of Stavanger to a place called Tau - it's a very frequent service with ferries every 45 mins during weekdays

from Tau there is a public bus (number 100) to Jørpeland ... but there's no obvious public bus from Jørpeland to the base of the Pulpit Rock hike - although there is a special service four times a day during the summer

that left us with two different private companies:

Tide - will sell you a combined ticket for the ferry and their bus.  in advance it is 320 NOK per person, or 350 NOK if you buy it at the ferry terminal, on board the ferry or on the bus

Pulpit Rock company / Boreal - sell tickets for their bus for 190 NOK in advance or 200 NOK in person (more during high season), and then you buy your ferry ticket directly for 56 NOK each way - so a total of 312 NOK

whilst the ferries go every 45 mins - the two companies seem to alternate which one they connect with.  since the difference in price is so small, we just went with the company which matched our preferred departure time - which was Tide.

the tourist information office in Stavanger helpfully sold us the tickets - so we got the "advance" price.

in the evening the gap between departures from the Mountain Hut parking lot start to spread out - and we missed Tide's penultimate departure by about 5 mins (we saw the bus pull out).  whilst the tickets aren't officially interchangeable, we thought it was worth trying our luck on the Pulpit Rock company bus that departed next.  possibly because we had purchased our tickets in the tourist office, they didn't have any company branding (or maybe our driver wasn't too bothered), but we managed to get away with it - which was much better than hanging around 40 minutes for the final Tide bus !

if i do it again, i will definitely buy tickets in the tourist office, in the hope that it gives the chance of some flexibility.

for completeness - the Puplit Rock company also run a weekend morning departure which picks up from hotels and drives around the bay (avoiding the ferry) - but it doesn't give any flexibility, and i can't tell you the price, as it seems to have stopped running for the year !
unless you're staying out of town (and the "tour" bus collects from your hotel), i would suggest taking the ferry for the extra flexibility - especially as hiking times vary enormously from person to person, and you may want to time your departure based on the weather forecast.

LYR trip - finally

i've written a few times (actually four) about planning a trip to Svalbard ... so i thought i should explain how i actually finally executed it !

after using the "book activities" section on the Visit Svalbard website to check out potential excursions ... i reckoned that we could see the main sights in just a few days ... and the way the flights worked, that's what we ended up doing.

incidentally, the tourist office in LongYeaRbyen has a couple of computers for tourists to book their trips - and then you can use the booking number generated on the website and make a payment in the tourist office (including by Amex), rather than making payment through the website.  the lady was very helpful, explaining the trips, and calling up a couple of companies to check details.

but back to the journey ...

i used Avios to book a British Airways flight to Norway ... and had a few days in the south doing non Svalbard stuff ... including an incredibly good value ferry journey with Fjordline from Stavanger to Bergen - where the 20 minute bus from Stavanger city centre cost half the price of the 5 hour ferry journey.  just make sure you book it in the correct direction - the website isn't the best designed !

from OSLo to LYR i managed to get a 66 gbp flights on Norwegian (plus 15 gbp for 20kg bag and seat choice).  check in at OSL with Norwegian is completely automated - included printing your luggage label, putting it on the belt, and scanning the label - once a bloke came along to click ok on the screen - which only have norwegian language text !  and the machine accepted my 20.9kg bag without complaint/charge.

transfer from the airport to accommodation is available with a "Flybussen" service - which was 120 NOK for a return.

we stayed in Gjestehuset 102 - which was fine.  i suspect Coal Miners Cabin would have been better - but it was full by the time i booked (less than a week before arrival).

the flight prices for the return journey were getting expensive, but i managed to use 15,000 united airlines points, and book seats on LYR-OSL-LHR and LYR-OSL-LHR-DUB (15k for each seat).  initially the United website wouldn't complete the DUB ticket (i actually ended up with two incomplete DUB bookings).  the first time I called United they claimed that they could no longer book AerLingus flights - and their website was incorrect (despite it showing loads of different EI flights).  the next time i called United, they were able to ticket the incomplete booking, without too much trouble !

United have a "late booking fee" which was applied to the LYR-OSL-LHR booking that went through without human intervention.  apparently they apply it to bookings made within 21 days of departure.  which i didn't know.

there was only availability on the 2.30am departure from LYR, which i wasn't keen on - but it turned out that with window seats, we both managed to get some sleep.  the seats on SAS short haul do not have the useful headrest "wings" that keep you head in place.  those blow up head pillows would have been particularly useful - if i'd known.

despite a few hour gap between flights at OSL, one of our bags went missing.  if i'd thought about it, i would have asked the very nice and speedy check-in lady at LYR to short check the bags to OSL and we would have collected them.  lesson for next time !

we were very lucky with the weather in LYR - we had one amazing full day of sunshine and hardly any wind, and the following day wasn't bad either (just not very sunny).  i think a few days is enough to get a feel for Svalbard - without completely bankrupting yourself.  we spent about 200 NOK/GBP per person per day on each of our two days of trips (you can't leave town without a gun), and we used the first day to make our bookings, and have a look around the settlement.

it's worth noting that despite the photos of polar bears in all the Svalbard tourism / arctic trip adverts - you really can't get anywhere near them.  we got to see from a boat, and it was small even through binoculars.  if you're used to african safari walks, it will be a bit of a shock just how far away they are.

despite that, i would still like to go back in March to see it covered in snow (and maybe Northern Lights) !