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If you follow me on Twitter and have seen some of my tweets in the last 48 hours you’ve probably noticed that I’m traveling (again!)….but this time I have Joanna with me. This is a trip should generate a few cool reviews which I’m looking forward to posting on the blog but, in essence, the trip is all about Joanna.
Joanna has been incredibly supportive with Traveling For Miles and, if I’m being honest, puts up with quite a lot! I travel quite a bit more than most people so I’m away from home for large parts of the year and, when I am home, the blog takes up an inordinate amount of my time….there are a lot of late nights at the keyboard!
When I wrote about some great First & Business Class fares between Dublin and the US in November last year it occurred to me that I could use them as part of a trip to say thank you for all her support….so I started booking.
I got lucky with the great fares from Dublin in four separate ways:
- The best deals were for flights to Vegas – somewhere Joanna has mentioned she’d like to return.
- First Class and Business Class fares could be mixed – I wanted to book at least one First Class flight but I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay for two….but I did anyway 🙂
- The great fares weren’t limited to roundtrip travel to Vegas – I could book an open jaw ticket which would allow us to return to Europe from a second destination
- It was possible to book an afternoon departure from Dublin meaning that we could position to the Irish capital on the morning of the main flights – no overnight stay in Dublin required.
So what did I end up Booking?
Well, I can’t actually tell you….at least I can’t tell you all the details.
To add a bit of mystery to the trip and to hopefully make the trip a little more special, I decided that I wouldn’t tell Joanna where we would be flying. So, although we’re in the middle of the trip right now, she still doesn’t have all the details and has no idea where we’re flying to after Las Vegas….and I’d like to keep it that way 🙂
What I’m going to do is list out general details of our trip and then reveal specifics (on this page) as Joanna finds out what we’re doing. I’ll also try to write some reviews as we go along and I’ll link those on this page too.
Joanna’s Mystery Trip Itinerary
- Sofitel Heathrow Terminal 5 Review
- British Airways A319 Economy Class (Heathrow – Dublin) – I’m not going to review this flight as I’ve done a few BA A319/A320 reviews recently.
- Dublin Airport Executive Lounge Review
- British Airways A319 Club Europe vs Euro Traveller Review
- British Airways Galleries First Lounge Heathrow T3 – I’ve reviewed this lounge already this year (HERE) so I’m not going to re-review it this time.
- British Airways 747 First Class (Heathrow – Las Vegas) Review – Part 1
- British Airways 747 First Class (Heathrow – Las Vegas) Review – Part 2
- Aria Resort & Casino – Las Vegas Review
- The Club at LAS Lounge Review
- Virgin America First Class – Las Vegas to San Francisco Review
- Grand Hyatt San Francisco – Hotel Review
- Grand Hyatt San Francisco – Club Lounge Review
- Cathay Pacific Lounge San Francisco Review
- British Airways First Class Lounge San Francisco (SFO) Review
- British Airways A380 First Class San Francisco – London Review – Part 1
- British Airways A380 First Class San Francisco – London Review – Part 2
Final Thoughts
If anyone else reads this and thinks it’s something they’d like to do for their significant other be warned that the hardest part is keeping things a secret once you reach the airport – until you actually attempt to keep a destination secret from a traveling companion you don’t realise how many opportunities there are for them to accidentally find out.
Between check-in agents and boarding pass checks at various points in the airport I had my work cut out making sure no one mentioned our final destination out loud while Joanna was in earshot – it was exhausting!
On top of that, the departure board became enemy number one once we were in the lounge at Heathrow – Joanna had a reasonable idea of the weather she should expect (although I did throw in a lot of red herrings!) so that, combined with the departures board, really narrowed down the list of places we could be flying to. I’m not proud of the number of lies I told in that lounge!
Still, it was all worth it because, right up to the point we walked up to the gate Joanna didn’t know that her first stop would be Las Vegas….so I’m calling that a job well done 🙂
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