intact

Sometimes I forget how much of a grown-up I am (or, at least, appear to be). Then someone calls me "sir" or has an umabiguous air of deference about them (towards me) and I'm like WTF? Really? Oh shit, I'm 47. 

And then I think about what at 47 year old man looked like to me when I was 15. Or 20. 

But I digress. Being something of a peter pan in my 20s I worked in the travel industry. Mostly corporate travel, mostly in NYC. OK wages for awesome travel benefit (thus the trade-off). Moving to Vancouver meant similar wages with a lower cost of living, and similar travel benefits. Though the wages stagnated and the travel benefits were increasingly clawed back. That was before the internet yanked retail travel right onto its arse.  

I got accustomed to the travelling though. So as I made more of living wage I continued to priortize travelling over responsible things like buying a home. Or RRSPs. In a communist hotbed like Canada you can such sorts of things: making shitty money doesn't mean getting shitty healthcare. However, since I was now paying "retail" prices for travel, I fully exploited the knowledge I acquired as a corporate travel agent when it comes to points. Frequent flyer points. FQTV in the industry, dontcha know.

I continue to exploit this knowledge. One of the ways I do so is subscribing to email lists from discount agencies. 99.8% of the time theres' nothing of note; last wee there was.  KLM put on a seat sale from Canada to Moscow, Warsaw, Copenhagen or Istanbul: approximately $900 return from YVR including taxes and fuel surcharges. I was like, WTF, and the internet was like, 4 realz, yo.

Here's my decision-making rubric, which proves the inherent value of 22 years of formal education:

Options:MOW, WAW, CPH, ISTL
Flight time from AMS*: 3 hours, 2 hours, 1.4 hours, 2.5 hours
Been there done that: No, No, Yes, Yes
When been there to do that: Never, Never, 1982, 2005
Connecting flight on KLM (rather than codeshare): No, Yes, Yes, Yes
Cheap hotels of a good standard available: Fuck No, Yes, Sort of, Yes
Has hosted the Eurovision: Yes, No, Yes, Yes
Budget carrier to other kewl places: Yes, Yes, Yes, No

*since the flight YVR-AMS was the same regardless of final destination

As you can see, WAW, or Warsaw as its know to the great unwashed, rose to the top--even without ever hosting the Eurovision.

A persual of the calendar narrowed down the dates 11 November - 21 November, inclusive. WAW is served by Air Baltic, a Riga (Latvia) based budget carrier. Air Baltic's second hub is Vilnius Lithuania. And so I worked out the final itinerary:

11 Nov: YVR-AMS (red-eye)
12 Nov: AMS-WAW (2 nights)
14 Nov: WAW-RIX (Riga, 3 nights)
17 Nov: RIX-VNO (Vilnius, 2 nights)
19 Nov: VNO-WAW (1 night)
20 Nov: WAW-AMS (1 night; free stopover on KLM)
21 Nov: AMS-YVR

The most expensive hotel is €55/night: most are €40-45. All include breakfast and free in-room wifi.

The paradox? If I were a member of KLM/NorthWorst's FQTV plan I'd earn about 3000 points on this fare; because I'm on Alaska Air's--which gives 100% of mileage on L or N fares--I'll earn about 11000. So my Alaska account will have enough points for business class to Europe on Icelandair--including a free stop in Reykjavik!

I still nee to book a trip to get the final 500 miles I need to keep my AC/Star Alliance gold card though....