TRIP REPORT: Older Yes, Wiser? No – A Day Trip to Switzerland with British Airways

Older Yes, Wiser? No – A day trip to Switzerland with British Airways

Or. You wanted a cross-Switzerland Adventure, didn’t you? You didn’t… wellllllllllllllllllll…

• Age is a social construct. Frequent flyer programmes, doubly so.
• Morning coaches. Coach Fun and comedies
• British Airways Galleries North Lounge, Heathrow Terminal 5 
• BA772 London Heathrow to Zurich (Eurotraveller)
• Into Zurich
• Experiments in photography: The Canon EOS R50
• Back to Zurich Airport and a dreaded Text message
• IC3 Zurich Airport to Basel Hbf
• To EuroAirport Basel and The Queue from Hades
• The Skyview Lounge, EuroAirport Basel 
• BA749 Euroairport Basel to London Heathrow (EuroTraveller)
• Little Britain at its worst
• Older yes. Wiser? Dear deity… of course not!

Editors Introduction

Well, with a nice long Chicago trip done and dusted, it’s time for something a little more short haul, a lot more stupid and a bit of fun.

Although British Airways threw more than a fair number of spanners in this trip – to put it bluntly.

Welcome to my annual trip to get out of the country because age tells me sitting in the flat is not a valid thing to do. There are other reasons too – but we’ll go through them in a bit.

I might be older, but wiser – I doubt. Therefore this trip report has my usual rules in play to go with the flow and have some fun.

Whilst I might have gotten older, it has meant I lean on tools such as  Grammarly a lot more than I should (having dyslexia is a pig and gets me most days of the week), my usual detractors who moan about my spelling and grammar can read this press release I wrote a few years ago about this inconstancy and how I deal with it. As well as them.

Age is a social construct. Frequent Flyer Programmes, doubly so

Honestly, birthdays can get a person down. They can be a demotivator some days, whilst others can get joy from it – I just see it as an excuse to bring a tub of chocolates to the office and try and get some peace and quiet for the rest of the business day.

Over the past few years (2020-2021 excluded), I’ve made the effort over the past few years to be not sat at home or in the office – but to get my fat backside out to do something in the world.

It seems Switzerland has returned to my travel list – I’m not sure why, to be honest, other than some of the best get-up-and-go fares are in that direction. (and when I say best we’re talking £133 return. This compares with destinations like Frankfurt at £250, Berlin at £200 and so on).

In terms of payment, unusually for me – this is going to be a cash trip, rather than using cash and points. In normal circumstances, I’m a great believer in not paying out of pocket for European flights where possible (when Reward Flight Saver reduces the costs heavily).

However, my requalification programme has been in shambles for most of the year – primarily due to a few health issues which killed a lot of my planned travel over the summer season, as well as a lack of decent fares. Those health issues are still there, however, I’ve chosen to get on with life, rather than be constrained by them.

Thus, with just under three months to hit the requalification requirements – I need to get my backside in gear.

This part of my requalification campaign will focus on the requirement of four BA flights needed to maintain my Silver Status. I had two segments in the bag – however, my most recent Chicago trip didn’t count as it wasn’t on BA Metal or booked via them to qualify. Nor do redemption trips.

I need to earn that annoying requirement, whilst looking at a big Tier Point run to get the numbers I need to get over the finish line for 2023/24.

To meet this requirement, a return BA flight was needed. I had a look at some European flights that varied in length, with Barcelona, Munich and Zurich coming out on top. I then went through a process of elimination with timings and such – with a return trip to Zurich coming out top.

Even though I’m a BA Silver, rules change when it comes to Hand Bagge Only fares are in play(a pox on their house), so I paid out for the middle fare which included basic niceities.

And I’m still not paying for Club Europe on a cash fare – even if the points are still attractive. Even the upgrade prices presented…

I’m sorry – £405 to upgrade to Club Europe and 30 more Tier Points is not worth it, no matter how much you try to justify it to yourself. I can get transatlantic fares for that price some days of the week with little effort.

I booked with enough time for reasonable exit row assignments (and since I’m off the walking stick, it’s more than viable now).

Getting to and from Heathrow is the last part of this thing. I toyed with the idea of driving and paying for Pod Parking (and it was high on the lift for a while). That was until Amazon – with their partnership with National Express came through, offering a 75% discount when used with Amazon Pay. That took the normal £55 Heathrow return bus fare to £13 all-inclusive. 

I can’t drive down to Heathrow for that price, let alone consider the cost of parking.

With all the jigsaw pieces in place, we have everything we need for a day trip for the hell of it.

The first shoe drops.

As I was finishing up another day at the chalkface, my phone started going mad with messages going off. I peered over, and British Airways had chosen to cancel the inbound flight.

That’s a pain, to put it mildly. It seemed that the storms that were expected, with the high winds had forced Air Traffic Control to put controls in place.

Sadly, when it hits British Airways, the first casualty normally is the short-haul programme the airline flies.

This had the makings of a fun day trip, and maybe an early bath –  because with a planned arrival of 17:00, there was no way I was going to wait 5 hours 40 for a coach home.

All I had to do was hope that there weren’t further changes along the way.

Oh, summer flower. What is this comedy you dream of?

Next:

That was my first mistake. Hitting Snooze on the alarm.

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