Tips, Tricks and Hacks to maximise your travel. I make videos about the flights I take, the places I visit and the things I've learned along the way.
Hi, I'm Phil and I'm on a Grey Gap Year, because if it's good enough for middle class teenagers with their fancy ways, it's good enough for me :)
At the end of 2021 I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself out of work with a bit of a pay out and instead of investing it in a pension or something sensible I decided to invest it in memories, that will hopefully last a lifetime.
Solo travelling terrified me but I managed to overcome my fears and do it anyway and I hope that my videos will give you the confidence to get out there and travel. I'm a pretty ordinary guy, so if I can do it you can too.
I hope my videos and the information that they provide make travelling that bit easier and a little bit more fun,
Thanks for your comment, this flight was from Bangkok to Hong Kong one way, if you look for this in Google Flights you should see £475 or less a few weeks into the future. Hope you book it and have an amazing flight 😊
I heard people were selling their first class and business class amenity bags on eBay for $250 Aud. I have at least 40 unopened! Men’s and women’s. I need to start a business 😂
Re: trains. Recommend UBER over Trainline as they have been offering a 10% discount via account cregits. The downside is no split ticketing for now. Great video btw.
Thank you for your comment and support, welcome to the community. I could certainly experiment with some train travel, I did do a vlog from York in the early days and I'd be happy to do some more like that 😊
Thanks for this Phil, though as a single traveller how did you manage to get 2 litres through LHR? 😉 It was useful to know about the haggling as I often dont bother for the reason you mention. I also had two BA Holidays to the Iberostar Palmeraie last year with the missus and would of had a go in the duty free had I known. As for the 500 survey points, if it is anything like the e-rewards I used to do 5 or six years ago I won't bother, as the vsurveys took for ever to complete and e-Rewards were very slow to pay up, sometimes not paying at all.
Thank for your question Olly, the limit for duty free spirits coming into the UK is 4 litres per person, so no issue there, www.gov.uk/bringing-goods-into-uk-personal-use/arriving-in-Great-Britain Thanks for the heads up on survey points, I was tempted to try it for research purposes, but I suspected it would be a long survey.
Talking about BP points, I didnt go for a while, and then they just sent me a voucher through for 800 points saying "we miss you" so i filled up with £5, to get 800 points 😂
I'm mining as much avios as possible, using Amex, buying through BA shop, now revolut offering points too, it does slowly add up, I'm even doing surveys through avios app, all thanks to you sharing your wisdom, very much appreciated
My best avios deal from this last 12 months was avios with uber. They offered 10% back in uber credits and then 500 bonus avios per booking if you booked uber premium or a train booking, this was up to 6,000 points. The cost of obtaining those points was £40, using normal travel I would anyhow. I did need to buy an imaginary ticket though to gain the last 500 points and booked a £2.34 fair from stoke to stone to get those points.
What a deal, is that still running? Book a £2.34 ticket that they can't possibly check if you used and get 500 bonus avios? Well done mate, that is stunning.
Be aware that there can be some bargains in the airport in the liquor section as some are not available on the high street and also be aware of the size of the bottle as there tends to be a lot of litre bottles as opposed to 70cl
You make an excellent point re: duty free, there is often an outlier price hiding in plain sight, Stoly vodka at £15 per litre in Istanbul is probably my best bargain (didn't video it though). Thanks for your comment, Phil
Good video Phil. In some instances there is a markup on the shopping portal from, for instance, an app. IHG is an example where the rooms are cheaper on the app than on the BA site.... you need to weigh up if you want the avios etc...
Great tip @rickreid8572, I didn't know that, thank you and @abusasha478 thank you for confirming, always good to have that. I'm going to do some research I think. Thank you both, Phil
Travel Insurance is one thing I've noticed that may have a mark-up of £20-£30 over booking direct. Suppose if you were paying the extra £20 for 4k Avios bonus, and could use that effectively for say a £200 flight from LHR-BER, then it's worth it. 3 Avios per £, yielding around 300 Avios, probably not. I do tend to check the website of the company, BAEC, Virgin, TCB etc. before diving in. Hotels do vary. Looking at the Crowne Plaza Times Square, Manhattan, Fri 26th July. Non-refundable king room. IHG direct: £277 (ignoring any status benefits, earnings etc.) BA Avios hotels: £261.16 with 3925 Avios. Same night, Grand Hyatt, San Francisco airport. A chain I have zero status with. Pretty much the same price direct or via the BA app at £288 (bonus Avios until tomorrow to make things perhaps a bit sweeter)
@@mygreygapyear Not to diss the scheme- you are right you can get some good points from it- but you need to be careful- Trainline for instance mark up on their train tickets- but you do get avios- but you have to pay for it...then again, if you don't go through BA then its the same price...but without the Avios.....
Yeah you are now definitely best voiceover man. Just taken out a Barclaycard Mastercard which is good for when Amex isnt accepted. I tried to get one a few years ago which offered a 5000 avios bonus when £1000 was spent using it within 3 months. There were many hurdles to a actually getting it and they only gave me a credit limit of £200 which was useless and obviously made reading the £1000 spend impossible so I gave up. My new application is been very smooth and the App is excellent!
Thanks for your comment, glad your Barclaycard application went ok, I think if I was going to keep just one card it would probably be that one after the BA fees and spending requirements were increased.
Thanks. My wife and I each have the basic - non fee - Amex card. We are happy with getting 2 for 1 vouchers and happy to just fly economy. the Barclaycard upgrade voucher is of limited to for us. With having Silver status the business check-in, security, early free seat choice and lounge access ‘feels’ like a business class experience especially for day time flights - there is only so much food and alcohol you can comfortably consume on a flight! As we are retired our previous return overnighters from Miami etc are now replaced by transatlantic repositioning cruises or Amtrak sleeper to NY for the early morning daytime fight back home. We have chosen Qatars early morning departure from our upcoming Kuala Lumpur to give us day time fight back to U.K. With careful planing we are able to avoid the one great advantage of business class - the flat bed. My wife and I really enjoy your videos.
Thank you, Phil, for sharing! I very much appreciate it. I will be flying first class (Heathrow to SF) and can access this lounge and the Concorde Room. I am not much into food and beverages, especially before a long-haul flight, where I will eat again. I am more into peace and quiet. Does the Concorde Room have quiet areas, or should I head to the B Gates lounge, which tends to be less crowded?
Thank you for your comment and question, it has to be the Concorde Room all the way for me, it is a very quiet space and has a terrace like the F lounge which has the low rumble of the main departures (which oddly I do like as though it's white noise). Of course you can always leave and travel to the B Gates lounge if it doesn't take your fancy. My review of the Concorde room is here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3HyGxAhuZrg.html Thanks Phil
I primarily stick with Sainsbury and auto-convert 800-1200 Nectar points, on average, every Monday evening. Easy 500-750 Avios a week there for spending a few £ on the bonus offers for day to day food shopping. Do use the BA e-store for IHG hotel stays. Usually 3 Avios per £, but better when it's double that. Quite often earn more Avios for a cheap Holiday Express night than 2 x MAN-LHR ET returns ;) If AirBnB worked with the e-store, I would have many 1000s more Avios, but 100% non-tracking there. Did try one of the survey sites recently, but a constant "there are no surveys available at present". Having used one years ago, crediting elsewhere, it started well, then kept telling you that you weren't eligible any more whilst half way through and you got nothing or a negligible token "reward" rather than the 200 points+ you were expecting.
Thanks for your comment, I've always thought the BA Shopping portal is the best Avios collecting option (and I still do) but there are a couple of commenters mentioning that sometimes there are inflated prices on the shopping portal, so we all need to be aware of that.
So the idea is due to the coffees bitterness you j have the date with the coffee :) compliments it very well. But Arabic coffee by itself, I am not the biggest fan 😂
And this is what I love about making videos, kind people like yourself offering me new insights, I obviously didn't know that but I will look for that next time I'm either flying with Emirates of just enjoying time in the region, thank you.
I agree re: the Q-Suite. BA Club Suites are just as good IMO. QR’s 789s are fine as well. I think when it first came out it was ahead of the crowd but now the crowd have/are catching up. EK’s food is better, too.
Cheers for this amazing tip Phil. I'm a few years away yet from my grey gap year but never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be able to experience this. Quick SkyScanner check today (June 2024) and yep,£460 1st or £273 Business. Awesome.
Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed the video. You can book separate classes on the Emirates website, so you may even save a bit doing that over two one way fares.
Totally agree, the crew are not very forthcoming and on my previous flight I found them actually quite miserable. I wasn't a fan of the Q Suite, I like to see what everyone else is eating! Im just too nosey.
I got a qr909 -> qr161 -> finnair leg -> qr908 Thanks for the review, gave me a lot to know what to expect! Hopefully their a380s are a little bigger and more spacious + lucky me i'm flying in july. Hopefully it wont be busy then since the excess of 45ºC heats will put people off
Thanks for your comment, if you can get a seat upstairs on the A380, those economy seats are apparently more spacious and window seats have storage bins.
@@mygreygapyear Yeah I'm looking at that but i'd rather dodge the $252 p/p fees, so I am booking my travelling companion on an aisle and me at the window, to put off people using the middle seat, so hopefully we can get more space. Otherwise if they have a double on the upper deck i'll take it at check in
$252 each, ouch. If you have status then the empty middle seat has a better chance of working in your favour, if you don't make sure you each join their flying club and add your membership numbers to the booking, this has helped a friend in the past. When I'm travelling with a companion we often book two aisle seats opposite each other. We can still chat but do have the additional space being on the end. Hope you have a great trip, Phil
@@mygreygapyear Thanks, I'm with VOZ Gold so i'm adding that for lounge access however it was easier to book through qatar for a multi stop international, i'll just make sure to act the SECOND seats are free ;)
we here in kerala, india, love your simplicity and humility and love your episodes. ignore the nasty guys comments, those nasty comment finger fighters guys are still trying to figure out why people like you keep smiling. You are awesome. Keep going mate!
