Tier Point Run to Hawaii/San Juan in Feb 2014: Day 1 – Prep

Well just days to go now, and I’m getting prepared for my long trip. Itinerary has been printed; flight bookings printed; hotel bookings printed; maps to get me across London, and across New York city printed; and I’ve got my ESTA, Global Entry and travel insurance details printed as well. All nicely wrapped up in my travel pack. Heaven knows what would happen if I lost my travel pack!

So, I am really excited about my next TP run – only a couple of days away! And it’s going to be a double TP run – a Brussels-Heathrow/London City-New York JFK/Newark-Los Angeles-Honolulu trip with a nested Honolulu-Los Angeles-Miami-San Juan trip. I really enjoyed my last TP run which you can read here: Grand Cayman – Tier Point Run! So, I had to come back for more, and this is the big one.

I’ve wondered what I could do differently this time with my trip report. I am sure we are all fairly bored of pictures of planes, aircraft interiors and the food, so what could I do that will make this trip report different? I think I need to apologise now because I am almost certainly going to resort to those sorts of pictures anyway, just to break up the text.

This one is special since it’s my GGL qualification TP run. I’ve got a Holiday Strategy (don’t laugh) which outlines my approach to maintaining BAEC status, taking advantage of the benefits that status offers, and building up a crock of Avios that my wife and I can dip into when we have retired. I have submitted it to the wife for approval, and she is currently considering it. Meanwhile I am cracking on and putting it into action. Achieving GGL status is the key goal to allow us to use jokers and go to the fab places in F that are either impossible to get via normal redemptions, or are never in the sales (SYD and CPT to name a couple).

I sometimes wonder whether spending a week on my travels without my better half is a good thing or not. However, whenever I start talking about it with the Mrs, she quickly gets my case out and starts packing stuff for me. I think that says it all. So I am not going to feel too guilty about going on an adventure on my own.

So, this post is the introduction to my TP run with live updates. I’ll post a few more details about my trip later tonight.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Hawaii/San Juan in Feb 2014