Pinball around Italy - a segment run in a day
by JFC AdminThe term ‘mileage run’ is often used on frequent flyer sites such as FlyerTalk, a mileage run is when someone books an itinerary for the sole purpose of earning frequent flyer miles, usually to reach a higher level of status in the programme and to gain the associated benefits from this. Some frequent flyer programmes such as Flying Blue also allow you to earn status based on the number of segments flown rather than the total mileage flown. This is the ideal way of earning status for those who regularly fly short haul flights. Every year my travel patterns get me enough segments to reach gold level comfortably but I usually fall a few segments short of reaching platinum. This day trip to Italy was designed to fix that.
To reach silver in Flying Blue you need to fly 15 segments in a year, gold is 30 segments and platinum is 60 segments. The past few years I have been between 48 and 52 segments, this year I was expecting to reach 56. Therefore so close to platinum I might as well try and reach it. The cheapest way to earn these segments in Europe is to fly Alitalia, with a bit of skill you can book a day trip around Italy for fairly low prices. If you do this in a day like I had done you won’t see much of Italy, but if you have more time on your hands you could stop over for a few days in the city of your choice. For £139 (inc tax) I got the following itinerary:
AZ227 - London, Heathrow - Milan, Malpensa
AZ1019 - Milan, Malpensa - Rome, Fiumicino
AZ1269 - Rome, Fiumicino - Naples
AZ7008 - Naples - Milan, Linate
AZ2109 - Milan, Linate - Rome, Fiumicino
AZ210 - Rome, Fiumicino - London, Heathrow
This was all in the course of a day, my first flight would depart Heathrow at 6am and I’d arrive back in London just after 11pm with enough time to catch the last Heathrow express back to the centre.
In the spirit of mileage runs I wanted to get the largest benefit for the lowest cost so I got the bus to Heathrow airport as the tube doesn’t run that early. I was aiming to get to the airport by 4am so I could be one of the first to check-in and miss the queues for security (remember there’s no fast track in Terminal 2). The N9 night bus runs a fairly frequent service from the centre of London to Heathrow Airport. I used the TFL journey planner to work out the bus I needed to get. As there’s hardly any traffic on the road at this time of day it means the buses can run to time and I was at Heathrow central bus station about 03:45, after arriving at Terminal 2 I was surprised to see how long the queue for check-in already was even though the desks hadn’t opened yet. However, the queue for the business class check-in (which silver, gold and platinum members can use) only had one other person in it. The notice stated check-in opens at 04:15 so I decided to walk outside for a few minutes.
A large banner hangs from Terminal 2, mentioning the plans to demolish this terminal and build sometime better in its place. Terminal 2 was actually the first terminal built at Heathrow and its age is showing, the check-in area is particularly cramped and has a low ceiling, the current check-in area used to be part of the car park at one time! Anyway, back to the check-in counter and I was still second in line for the business class counter and the desk opened approx 04:15 like was specified on the sign.
The online check-in didn’t work for such a weird itinerary so I didn’t get my seats allocated until I was at the airport, no problem there, I was given my preferred choice of aisle seat for all the segments and was seated near the front for all but one flight. Obviously for a day trip I had no luggage to check-in. I think the person in front of me at check-in must have gone for a coffee as I was the first in line for security. The bad thing was security was not yet open. In fact it did not open until around 5am, by this time the queue was huge, as there’s no fast track in this terminal I was glad I was at the front of this long line.
Security was the usual nonsense, but as I wasn’t carrying much then it was a painless procedure. I was the first one in the Alitalia lounge which just can’t compare with the KLM Holideck lounge in Terminal 4. Still, it had orange juice and that is exactly what I wanted that time in the morning.
The first flight to Malpensa I can’t remember very much of, I think I slept through most of it. We took off a few minutes late but we seem to have made up the time, international passengers connecting to another flight in Malpensa have to go through a security checkpoint. The previous time I had to do that in this airport as a disaster, the queue was over an hour long and people were keep cutting the queue, this time it was quicker and better organised. I had a bit of time at Malpensa to take a look at the Air France lounge in the Schengen area before departure of my next flight to Rome, it’s pretty much a standard Air France lounge, slightly more comfortable than the one in Heathrow. This is the only Air France lounge I’ve seen with draught beer, but I didn’t notice the type it was too early to think about beer.
The flight to Rome was on Airbus A321 (I think), all Alitalia domestic flights are operated as a single class of service. On the A321 the seats are adjustable and the front section of the aircraft is also economy. I was sat near the front on this aircraft. Sleep was still the order of the day on this one, I had a lot of sleep to catch up on. The leg from Rome to Naples was on an MD-80, these old aircraft are not configured with adjustable seating, instead they have nice wide comfortable seats in business class in a 2-2 configuration. As Alitalia does not do business class on a domestic flight it means the first few rows on economy can benefit from these comfortable seats. This was the shortest leg of my trip but it was the most comfortable.