Nickbots visit SE Asia on SK, LH, EK, TG and (last but not least!) SQ

[nickbot]

Well, firstly this is my 1,000th post on SQTalk so I thought I'd better mark my Solitaire PPS Club status in style with a Trip Report

Apologies to those who have been nagging me to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) - I only hope that I can do justice to what was a fantastic trip and repay all of the SQTalkers whose reports I've enjoyed immensely over the past year and a bit since I joined the forum. This one will still take a little time in coming I'm afraid, but please bear with me, I hope it'll be worth it

So,...where to start? I've had writer's block for the past week or so, but chatting to SQ LPP just this afternoon has spurred me on. When I was discussing how I might start this particular story, he suggested "Once upon a time...", so here we go

[nickbot]

In the beginning

Once upon a time there were two SQTalkers (well, one plus one who is afraid of the internet, but that's another story!) who lived in middle England. They had flown SQ in Y a number of times and had always enjoyed themselves and experienced excellent service. Once, back in the mists of time, they had upgraded to (what was then) Raffles Class on an LHR-SIN-SYD trip for their honeymoon, and this was now engraved on their minds as the pinnacle of air travel from that day forward.

But, all was not well with the nickbots, for unbeknownst to them, there was a plan afoot to sour their opinion of Raffles Class,...forever! An evil genius (who, before mutating, went by the name of CGK) had plotted to join the innocent young couple on their flight to Australia last year, and open the proverbial Pandora's Box that is SQ First Class (queue dramatic music and thunderclap)

From that day forward, neither Y nor J were good enough for the intrepid pair - it was all about F! The trouble was, the nickbots didn't have enough magic beans to spend on First Class fares, much to the amusement of the evil CGK, who cackled loudly and, with a flash of his cape (exposing newly purchased leather leiderhosen from Switzerland) was gone in a puff of smoke

As with all good fairytales, all was not completely lost for the poor couple, for they were fortunate enough to have two guardian angels in the shape of SQFlyergirl and KeithMEL, who instilled in them the teachings of BD and KF redemptions,...and thus a plan was born!

[nickbot]

Planning and itinerary

[/fairytale mode] (!)

Relying heavily on SQFlyergirl's advice, we were able to piece together an itinerary that would get us from LHR (well, actually from Nottingham), to Thailand and back in style. Lacking sufficient KF miles for a round trip in F, we had to make the decision between a round trip in J on SQ (LHR-SIN-BKK-SIN-LHR), or go for something a little more interesting with the addition of some BD miles. Of course, a round trip in J isn't to be sniffed at, but when F was within our grasp (albeit, by convoluted means), we decided to go for it

I often lament the position of being a married couple (bear with me...!) with seperate FFP memberships, who don't travel as often as they would like, hence having insufficient miles in any one account to redeem for two seats. It seems the single frequent traveller has it easy in this respect

AnyhoW, as a relative latecomer to the BD party, I had in my posession some miles from opening a BMI credit card, to which we bolstered the account by purchasing some miles, such that it was showing a balance of 50,000. This, according to the teachings of guardian angel No. 1 (SQFG) was sufficient for a one way Zone 2 to Zone 8 redemption on LH in First Class, i.e. ARN-HKG. 50,000 miles plus £340 plus taxes (took it up to circa £550 IIRC) secured us seats from ARN-FRA in J and FRA-HKG in F with Lufthansa. Getting to ARN in the first place was a relatively simple matter of booking a cheap Y ticket with SK from LHR.

SQFG then pointed us in the direction of the Hong Kong Emirates site, and the cheap J deals they have for travel on the HKG-BKK route (feeder route for their BKK-DXB route IIRC) - crappy timings into BKK, but at £135 each we were sold. Duly booked,...so now the nickbots would be in BKK, but with no way of getting home (maybe this was CGK's evil plan hehe!)

Then, swooping to the rescue, comes our favourite airline...but not without putting us through the mill a little first

[nickbot]

Planning and itinerary II

I had enough KF miles for a one way redemption in F between Singapore and London, but mrs nickbot was lacking the necessary miles, even if the online 15% discount was applied. This resulted in frantic scraping round of PriorityClub points, transferring them to her account and from there into her KF account - a nailbiting 10 day period ensued, during which we had tickets to get to Thailand, but no way of getting home! During this time, I was constantly checking the redemptions booking engine on singaporeair.com, and thankfully 2 seats were available for the BKK-SIN-LHR flights that we wanted. I'd produced an Excel spreadsheet detailing all of the possible flights that we could take from BKK-SIN and then SIN-LHR, including the number of award seats available - thankfully, the availability status didn't change at all during the nailbiting period (maybe the guardian angels were at work!)

Unfortunately, with 1-way F redemptions (actually, probably all redemptions), you're not technically allowed a stopover. We'd been promising to visit upright man when we were next in SIN, so I definitely wanted to spend at least a night in town. On the plus side, SQ will let you spend up to 24 hours without it being classified as a stopover, so this was our target. The online booking engine, however, would only offer us pairings of flights from BKK-SIN and SIN-LHR with connecting times of 2 or so hours, or alternatively with an overnight stop, but crucially forcing us to travel in J between BKK and SIN. Now, I know many will argue there's not a lot to say about F on that route, but if the nickbot's were doing SQ F, we were DOING SQ F

Finally, the day came that mrs nickbot's account was showing enough miles for the one way redemption (albeit requiring the 15% discount), so we sat down in front of the computer, picked up the phone to KrisFlyer, and crossed our fingers. We desperately needed the 15% off, but also were worried about booking redemption seats from two accounts, in case one of us was successful and the other not (yes, I'm a natural worrier ). We could have settled for the pairings of flights offered online, and indeed this was always our fallback position, but we thought it worth a chance to speak with KF direct and see if they would help us.

I explained the position to the agent (Singaporean sounding, so not the Indian call-centre AFAIK) and she promised to call me back. Five minutes later, the phone went and I anxiously answered - the girl from SQ, she say YES So, we were booked and ticketed together on the flights we wanted, deducting miles from our seperate accounts, with the 15% discount being honoured. Phew! We had thwarted the evil CGK once again (actually, I suppose we hadn't thwarted him, because it was his intention that we travel in SQ F,....I'm all confused now )

So, this is what the itinerary looked like:

Nottingham-LHR [F, East Midlands Trains]
LHR-ARN [Y, SK]
ARN-FRA [J, LH]
FRA-HKG [F, LH]
HKG-BKK [J, EK]
BKK-SIN [F, SQ ]
SIN-LHR [F, SQ ]

...plus a fair few internal flights within Thailand on TG in Y

Added to this, we'd be staying in some kind of a youth hostel (!), three different IC's, two different HI's, and spending one night on the floor, but more about that later!

[nickbot]

Nottingham to Stockholm Part I - Getting to LHR

What I didn't mention previously was that the trip was pulled together only 60 days before departure - ok, I know that's two full months, but for F redemptions on LH and SQ I feel that we were perhaps lucky to secure seats. Suffice to say, we were very excited about the trip, and the 60 days went surprisingly quickly. Soon it was D-Day...

Okay, first things first, we had to take our cat Nibbler to kennels on the morning of our departure - we're never happy leaving him and feel like bad parents (!), but at least we know he's well looked after

Prisoner No. 14845, Cell No. 3, Nottingham Cat Prison



With a long 21 day stretch ahead of him, I half imagined the little inmate might have learned to play the harmonica and have a "special friend" by the time we picked him up, but it transpired that neither came to fruition

mrs nickbot plus luggage, awaiting taxi to the station



As with most of our trips to London, we had booked First Class Advance rail tickets from Nottingham to St. Pancras; if you know fairly well in advance when you're going to be travelling, these can be picked up for next to nothing, and mid-week First is pretty good. Not many pics to show of the journey apart from my customary platform shot:

nickbot exhibiting defensive body language,...actually, arms folded to cover bulging gut!



Our train was due to arrive into st.Pancras at just after 16:00, and our flight to Stockholm was departing at 19:05. To most SQTalkers, this would seem like plenty of time to make the connection, but I did say I'm a natural worrier We were intending to take the HEX from Paddington to LHR, but after arriving a little earlier than scheduled, we decided to make the journey by tube - this turned out to be a good decision, and saved us a reasonable amount of cash. For those that haven't travelled this route, it takes approximately an hour from Kings Cross to LHR - I think our timing was pretty good, as we avoided the rush hour and thus had a relatively comfortable journey (apart from carrying luggage from St. Pancras to King's Cross)

Quick pause to photograph to underground walkway between LHR T1-3 tube station and T3 - getting excited at this point!



The outside of LHR T3 - actually pretty nice (apart from the smokers )



We went straight to check-in and there were hardly any queues at the SAS desks. Obviously, travelling in Y we joined the Y queue, and there was only perhaps two or three people in front of us; when it came to our turn, we started to walk towards the check-in attendant and a man and his wife briskly pushed past us from the J check-in queue (to the LHS of the photo below) as he must have been tired of waiting in the J line (again, only a couple of pax long). The check-in lady caught our eye, and it was obvious that this chap was a PITA - luckily an agent at a spare J desk also saw this and beckoned us over, so karma was restored.

SAS Check-in desks, LHR T3



We had previously selected seats 14E and 14F (well, I say we'd pre-selected, but actually we completely forgot to check-in online, so had to call a friend from the train to choose some seats for us,...if we'd have thought about it sooner, we'd have probably gone for the pairs of seats together on the LHS of the aircraft, but for such a short flight we weren't too bothered - especially as more luxury awaited us later in the trip )

I was concerned that they might have made me check in my Tumi (on her first trip!), as it was pretty heavy, but these worries were completely unfounded. Check-in was seamless, as was security thankfully (no shoe removal necessary!). I was selected, however, to have my LAGs tested - this consisted of an officer asking me to squeeze out a small quantity of toothpaste into a sample pot, which was then tested with a strip -this was a first for me, but wasn't particularly inconvenient and we were soon on our way towards passport control.

After passport check, we took the time to register for iris after being so impressed with it at MAN when my brother breezed past us all at immigration, and then proceeded towards the main area of T3 to do some window shopping and grab a bite to eat as we wouldn't be getting fed on the plane.

It's times like these I wish I was *Gold!

[nickbot]

Nottingham to Stockholm Part II - SK1524 (LHR-ARN)

I know there's a reasonable amount of chat about ARN these days, as it's a cheap tactical startpoint for tickets - I'm still not particularly well versed in such matters, but other reports out there helped me a great deal (along with Guardian Angels No.'s 1 & 2 ) during the planning stage of this trip,...I hope that the information given in the next couple of sections will add to the knowledgebase for the LHR-ARN sector of the journey, and also the facilities at ARN itself. In particular, SQFlyergirl asked me for some photos of the J class seating on SK, and lounge shots at ARN - I hope I can tick these boxes to repay in some small way her invaluable assistance.

SAS, flight No. SK1524 [LHR-ARN]
Dep. 19:05, Arr. 22:30 [2h 25min]
McDonnell Douglas MD-80 (or MD-82, I have no idea of the difference!)
Y Class, Seats 14E/F

After grabbing a cup of tea and a sandwich in the terminal (and a couple of snacks for the plane), we made our way to the gate. Boarding passes were barcoded, thus a quick scan and one retained the whole pass -not a particularly inspiring BP, but for a hoarder such as myself, one for the collection.

Boring SK BP



We then waited for a short while before boarding due to the incoming flight being delayed - this only represented around a 25 minute delay in total. There was a tarmac view from the gate, although it was obscured somewhat by the aerobridge arrangement, so instead of seeing the aircraft properly, we were treated to a view of the deplaning pax. Once boarding commenced, I was able to take a very quick shot of the aircraft which won't win any prizes, but always a necessity to take a before and after shot!

MD-80 (or 82!), on the tarmac at LHR, ready to take the nickbots away from the UK for a few weeks



Boarding was pretty busy, but I had in mind a promise to SQFG to get shots of the J seats - I did my best, sorry they're not fantastic, but hope they serve the purpose. Typical intra-Europe J class seating, blocked centre seat on the RHS of the aircraft and only one occupant on the LHS as shown below:

J Class seating, RHS



J Class seating, LHS (note single occupancy, only one pillow laid out)



A little blurred (rushed by pax behind me and nagging mrs nickbot), but hopefully showing typical J pitch -plenty of room for SQFG toe shot!



We then walked down past the Premium Economy section (actually, not sure SK call it that, but it basically gave slightly larger pitch and some refreshments) towards the cheap seats. The eagle-eyed amongst you may spot the small tag on one of the headrests to the LHS of the shot (from the German flag, up about 10 mm, left about 20 mm) -this denotes the end of PE seating and the start of Y.

Premium Economy and Economy seating - would prefer RHS of aircraft in future when travelling as a couple



Another customary shot,...yes, the legroom view



I have absolutely no idea what runway we departed on (sorry!), but the taxi was reasonably short and we were soon on our way.

Wing shot, climbing from LHR



Being in discount Y, no refreshments were included in the fare, hence our quick snack at LHR prior to boarding - we did decide, however, that it was wine o'clock and thus treated ourselves to a couple of small bottles of red wine, accompanied by chocolate tiffin!

First food shot of many...



I have to say, the flight was perfectly comfortable for a short hop, and the service was efficient. We had a pleasant seat-mate on the aisle side of us with whom we chatted - she was off to Stockholm to celebrate the summer solstice with relatives, as apparently they make a bigger deal over that than Christmas. Certainly sounded interesting and perhaps a visit another year. We were soon descending into ARN, and despite it being relatively late (circa 10:30 local time), it was still pretty light.

Approach to ARN



We'd made up some of the delay in the journey, so landed (from memory) about 15 minutes later than scheduled. The terminal at ARN afforded me a better view of the plane as we headed towards baggage collection.

Many thanks SAS for an efficient and cheap start to our holiday



Baggage was through on the carousels pretty speedily, and we were soon wheeling our way to the main "Sky City" terminal building (to the LHS of the above photograph) to find our overnight accommodation. Overall, we were pleased with the SK service and wouldn't hesitate to use them again; I only found out a few days before we departed that Sterling European fly from our local airport (East Midlands/EMA) once a day, so perhaps that's an alternative for us if we fly this route again -however, my status as a worrier suggests that I'd probably prefer SK from LHR because they have multiple daily flights and thus offer me more security!

[jjpb3]

If this were a show, we'd have been treated to a very grand entrance; the actors are on stage; the music has paused; our expectations are way up; and we're already smiling with anticipation.

on an auspicious start.

[fumitani]

Good start and make it pixs galore

[nickbot]

If this were a show, we'd have been treated to a very grand entrance; the actors are on stage; the music has paused; our expectations are way up; and we're already smiling with anticipation.

on an auspicious start.

You're too kind! If I were you, jjpb3, I'd sneak out right about now and buy some drinks and popcorn,...the show might just have to pause for a little while whilst I regain my strength

Good start and make it pixs galore

Thanks fumitani - sorry, I know this thread is worthless without pics (waits for SQFan to strike ) - will add a token photo in a moment to whet everyone's appetite!

[nickbot]

Post #5 updated

[SQflyergirl]

Can I respond now?

[nickbot]

Can I respond now?

Of course you can,...was merely staking out a little real estate

[SQflyergirl]

Of course you can,...was merely staking out a little real estate

Ah ok. please treat this as a kind request to get over your writer's block, cause i'm impatient

[nickbot]

Ah ok. please treat this as a kind request to get over your writer's block, cause i'm impatient

Sorry I promise to add some more this evening (including the seat and lounge pics you requested!)

[StarG]

Excellent TR so far, can't wait for the next part!