Seeing the World

Recent weeks have seen me go from nil painkillers to occasional painkillers.  Memories of last October when I was routinely varying which pharmacy I was attending to buy daily supplies of cocodomal and ibuprofen remain history, and a supply of prescribed tramadol and naproxen remain unused, but my back and pelvis have niggled occasionally in recent weeks.

For a few days in New England I hit the naproxen and paracetamol.  And while that pain has gone away I now seem to have twisted my lower back a little.  Hopefully it’s a twist.  The obvious panic is that the tumours are returning.  Just a little game I’m destined to play in my mind until they eventually do.  Today means more naproxen.  More paracetamol.

I do get free prescriptions in the UK.  One of the perks of a nice dose of the big C.  But they’ll only prescribe paracetamol 100 pills at a time.  Within two weeks they’re gone.  And while I’m pretty confident my GP will prescribe anything I want that’s legal, I have to negotiate a phone call in a narrow time slot to book a triage call with a GP, answer my phone when they make that call – to be told it takes them two days to write out a prescription.

So Walmart became my friend while I was in the USA.  I’ve returned with 1,000 paracetamol (or whatever brand name the Yanks give it), 500 ibuprofen and a similar number of naproxen.  These will form the basis of my occasional pain relief between now and the cancer returning.  Fewer medical calls.  Convenience for me.  And a small cost saving for the NHS too.

Yes, I’ve used my own cash to get what’s free back in Blighty, but it simplifies a small part of my life and let’s my GP practice put their feet up for an extra 90 seconds a month.

The alternative of paying over the counter for basic medicines dispensed in packets of 16, limited to two packets a time, looking furtive in the pharmacy, really doesn’t appeal.

Horrendous Jet Lag

Flying west to east always does for me.  Every USA trip has ended with me crumpling in a heap.  At least this time I’ve not had to work.

But despite a sub-six hour flight home in the extreme comfort of my first class “suite”, and a Thursday night sleep that crossed eleven hours and provided a convenient 9am wake up, my body is all over the place.

At present my body wants to sleep. It’s 2pm in New England so why on earth would my body think it’s sleep time?  It makes job sense!

I’ve returned meal consumption to uk times so I suppose I just need to let my body adjust.  At the moment this one is tougher than much longer flights home from Denver and Phoenix.

May it stop soon

Sudden Panic – It’s Only Three Weeks to Chile

Yesterday I planned to do everything.  Jet lag, however, convinced me to do virtually nothing during daytime.  I wasn’t fit for purpose!

Last night I committed to my Chile file.  Checking the dozen flights are properly timed.  Reviewing the hotels and car hire.  Identifying which ones won’t feed us.  Working out which airport lounges to head towards.

Despite ample luggage limits for travelling business class, we’re restricted to 20kg for over three weeks of travel by my decision to use Flybe as a positioning airline.  I’m yet to work out how I’m going to achieve this when we’ll be in dry desert, Pacific island warmth and rainy winter on the same holiday.  Worse still I don’t own 23 pairs of socks and undies!  Some interim washing arrangements needed overseas!

I’ve looked at Milan and confirmed we’re staying five minutes walk from Centrale station.  €13 each way per person on the Malpensa Express.  It looks like £40 each way for a taxi from airport to Santiago.  This trip has two return journeys to make.  £160 in taxi fares makes me shudder.  Oh well.

I’d already booked car hire for the trip from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama.  Trying to add on Chris as a driver I managed to inadvertently cancel.  Their system has only let me rebook this morning.  Chris now drives!  Unfortunately I thought I was paying in sterling but it seems like I’ll be charged in US$.  Annoying, as the card I’ve used will charge me £9 extra for that.  At least the cashback is c£27!

Our hotel looks better than I realised when I booked.  Pool and hot tub.  Breakfast included.  Good dining options.  Trip planning service.  48% discount for booking late!  I booked five months ago!

I reviewed other hotels later in the trip. Some in the middle of nowhere with no food on offer.  Paper dishes, plastic spoons and a box of Rice Krispies with milk it is then!

Easter Island car hire still remains unresolved.  My hotel will sort it, but haven’t replied to my latest emails.  I hope they remember to collect us from the airport.  Tripadviser says the wifi is rubbish there.  Three days of no wifi!

All that said, the basics of this trip are long ago sorted.  What to do in Santiago?  What to see in the Atacama?  Where to chill in the Lakes?  How to get around on Easter Island?  Where to wash my undies?

These are the challenges that remain …

The Employee Share Schemes Come Home to Roost

These things cost me rather a lot of money when the Credit Crunch hit.  Shares tied up in them became worth 98% less than they had been.  Options which were worth double the cash saved value became worth just the cash.  Future opportunities were halted.

Not only had my employment hit “at serious risk of ending” as a result of the HBOS collapse my projected savings in company shares took a £40,000 hit.  And that was small fry compared others I worked with.

As the newly formed Lloyds Banking Group saved my job (notwithstanding damaging my pension along the way) they gradually opened up a new set of share schemes for employees to benefit from.

Despite my earlier big hit I reasoned that it was a once in a lifetime loss event and the time to buy in is when prices are low.  So I did.

Indeed I’ve already realised gains since 2009.  Now redundancy, rather than resignation, means that I keep all the freebies that I’ve accrued since.  Better still , I don’t have to wait for three to five years to access this money tax free.  I can have my shares, the matching shares and the dividends accrued now and blow the lot on women and holidays and give HMRC nothing.  The rest I’ll waste.

I can even throw more money at a Sharesave scheme to get bigger returns in six months time.  So I’m expecting a cheque for £10k next week and another one for £5k before Christmas.  Unless the firm dies again.

It’s not all gains, a fair bit of my own money has gone into that, but if I do live longer than average it will come in very handy.

And despite the big losses of the Credit Crunch I’m still a fair bit up on these schemes over the career.

Trip Over, So How Many Points Did I Earn?

This trip, as I arise from eleven hours of blissful jet lagged sleep, was never meant to be about earning reward points.  Quite the opposite in fact.  It was all about travelling in the best way possible while spending my accrued Avios points before the cancer gets me.

272,000 points on a undeniably good first class flying experience (cash value £8,000) to be precise.  I doubt I’ll do it again.  Business class is good enough for my level of snobbery.  But at the time of booking my frame of mind was all about getting rid of the points. They can’t be transferred to somebody else and they can’t be inherited.

Since that moment I’ve somehow managed to accrue 69,000+ more Avios and will earn c60,000 from flights to Chile and Qatar.  And even a trip which was all about spending my points has earned a few more.

Hotels.com now consider me a Gold member, triggered by the eleven nights booked with them in New England.  That doesn’t really mean a lot to me, other than discounts for destinations I’m not that bothered by, more marketing email and a priority helpline if things go wrong.  Still, better than nothing.

I also estimate that Topcashback have paid around £60 in commission on those eleven nights.  Around five were paid in advance on my Amex Platinum card earning a modest 500 points and contributing towards 30,000 bonus Avios for exceeding a spending threshold on that Amex card.  One night was a freebie accrued from previous Hotels.com stays.  The others I paid for on arrival with my soon to be redundant Travelex Supercard.  Linked to a 1% cashback credit card there’s another £5 or so I’ll see in October.  Oh, and an extra free night for staying ten.

The first three nights were cash stays in very expensive Hilton hotels.  700 Avios from the Platinum card booking.  £45 from cashback sites.  15,000 Hilton points achieved by utilising special offers mean I now have enough Hilton points for three nights in lower value hotels.  More likely, that’ll just be a night somewhere I actually want to go!  Not to be forgotten is an extra 650 Avios from Hilton in addition to their own loyalty scheme.

The car hire has chipped in too.  952 Avios from Avis.  £6.40 Topcashback.  320 Avios from my other Amex card.  I believe the trip will trigger a free three day European weekend hire too (I’ve still got one to redeem).  And I move up a status level with Avis Preferred which implies they’ll be even nicer to me.

Thats not to say it hasn’t cost me.  The USA is expensive for a Brit at the moment and while cheap eating is an option we’ve not exactly sought out the bargain Buck eateries or Subway six inches.

But overall I reckon the trip has earned:

A free hotel night, value £80, from hotels.com

A free hotel night, value £100, from Hilton.

£111 from Cashback sites for booking hotels and car hire.

c3,000 Avios, nearly enough for a one way flight, from several places.

Triggered 30,000 bonus Avios for spending on the Amex Playinum.

Around £15 cash using the Supercard for much of the spending.

I’ll take that as a decent effort!

Windspeeds Hit 150 Knots to Shortern First Class Flight

I fell asleep in my first class seat full with chicken from a late night in flight meal. I’d assessed the BA breakfast menu and was really looking forward to their “traditional British breakfast with Irish bacon” when I awoke.

Alas, the wind was behind us and our flying time only five and a half hours. Sleep crammed in between episodes of Blackadder Goes Forth, the dinner and waking up realising I needed to pay a visit was only three hours. An hour left until landing.

Alas, a rare feeling came over me. I didn’t want breakfast. Even more radically, I didn’t order breakfast. Despite the comfort of the seat we both left the plane tired, unfed and particularly unhungry.

Progress from drop off point to security to lounge was, despite the distance covered, swift. Back into the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow. A perfect cup of tea. But no desire for food from either of us.

Sleep deprived. Jet lagged. And then a delay of over an hour announced for the short flight back to Manchester.

We couldn’t ask to be in a better place than this lounge for such a delay, but, despite having enjoyed the whole experience, ending it in Manchester’s rush hour traffic isn’t ideal.

And I’m surrounded by far ee D food I don’t want to eat.

British Airways Lounge – Boston

A slow queue to drop our bags off, despite the designated “First” signs.  A slow queue through security despite the designated “Priority” signs.  This is what you get when you turn up a few hours early for your flight.

Eventually we made our way to the brand new British Airways lounge in Boston’s Logan Airport.  Suddenly the service became very personal.  Names used.  Explanations of the exclusive First Class dining section, enabling us to look out across the marauding riff raff of mere business class customers.  We chose the preferable alternative views of sun, Tarmac and planes from Qatar, Japan the UAE and the delivery firm UPS.

Drinks were offered.  Chris ended his law imposed USA prohibition with a Pinot something or other.  I went for the Grand Siecle champagne which retails at £110 a bottle in the UK.  The offers of top ups were regular and welcome.

A limited menu with lots of long words.  Three exceptionally tasty courses selected which, stripping out the posh words, were scotch egg, steak and coconut cheesecake.  The presentation impressive.  Less successful was getting a proper British cup of tea.  Although served in crockery to the table I got the distinct impression it had come from business class DIY machines.  Milk had to be requested.

After a fair old time enjoying the service, we retired to a private area with comfortable chairs, charging points and Chris brought over some M&Ms.  He then went for a shower but returned immediately as the unit was already occupied.  I then realised I’d forgotten to take my cancer drug.  Dangerous game.  Side effects on a plane won’t be welcome.  Still, better to take than not to take …

A walk around the rest of the lounge revealed pleasant calm, comfort, a fairly extensive buffet for mere business class travellers (and Silver card holders) along with an inferior champagne (based on retail price).

An earlier plane than ours allowed customers to board directly from the lounge.  Alas, our 777 isn’t a clever enough shape to do that and later in the evening we will have to queue with the proles.  Or more likely ahead of them.  As that’s how this works.

We have time to kill.  We’re comfortable and the lounge isn’t crowded.  Compared to the Escape and Aspire type lounges my Priority Card gets me into, this is rather classy.

Despite having got here first class a fortnight ago, I am still exceptionally excited about the flight to come.  Even if I will sleep through most of it!

The Chipped Windscreen

Provincetown is where the Pilgrim Fathers landed first.  A month later they cleared off to Plymouth, having realised that decent supplies of fresh water were a good idea.

But the story gives the current residents of this small town a bit of pride.  And in 1902 they erected a big tower out of granite to recognise the fact.

All this information is new to me.  Yes, I’ve heard of the Pilgrims.  I vaguely knew that they wanted religious freedom and Henry VIII wasn’t too keen on that.  Cutting a long story short, you could argue that Henry VIII is to blame for Donald Trump …

Anyway, an expensive car park and an outrageously priced seafood lunch later we headed for the impressive Pilgrim monument.  Another $12 each to walk up it.  So we did.

Magnificent views of Cape Cod.  Blurry ones across the bay to Plymouth and Boston.  Sea, boats, jettys, sand.  All good stuff.  It’s just a shame that they have to cage us in at the top.  Mind you, I was too tired to care!

Another Trip Draws to a Close