I fly too much

Last year, two of my longest standing friends got married.

Only I now live on Madeira, and I needed to fly to the wedding. No problem.

I was on my 18th or 20th or so flight with EasyJet that year by then, and I'd rinsed them on EasyJet Plus that gave me a free cabin bag, free seat choosing (yes, right at the front), speedy boarding and premium check in. I was an expert, or so I thought.

Enter. Maderian winds. The airport was in chaos. People were sleeping on blue mattresses, crowds were mobbing round check in desks or any sign of a staff member.

EasyJet put us on a next day flight but crucially, the day of the wedding. It was still a bit delayed, we arrived to this wedding at 9pm, when most people had gone home.

However... the the flight back - EasyJet cancelled the flight completely while we were at the airport, leaving us with a refund and a rapidly diminishing set of options. They heavily pressure you to accept the next available flight with their airline, which for us was 5 days later. We spent an odd 4 days living in Gatwick Airport Hilton living off M&S and Greggs picnics. We made the most of it by grabbing the train a few times to see people. I grabbed a USB keyboard and mouse so I could work off my iPad, and I am now incredibly grateful for password managers.

We took the train to see people. We made the best of it. But it made me realise: my "always orange" flight hack wasn’t the clever little loophole I thought it was. I realised I would have qualified for Star Alliance Gold by now if I’d flown differently.

So I switched to TAP. It means going via Lisbon every time, but with more options and contingency. I also now build in a Lisbon layover for any trip that really matters.

Which felt indulgent, until this week.

We're travelling to Iceland via Oslo. Our flight to Lisbon was booked two nights early to leave margin for error. And, again, the winds struck. This time our plane wasn't delayed by wind—it was late from an earlier leg and got cancelled. From our view, the cancellation was clear to us, but the system hadn't caught up, so I was on the phone to TAP.

Simon was watching Google Flights in real time, watching options evaporate as other disrupted passengers were pushed onto remaining seats.

Only... we've booked the flight with miles. not cash. We'd used miles then added a 80 EUR bid to up it to business class, which was accepted. So when I call to TAP, they say that all miles purchases are handled by their (Star Alliance) Gold helpdesk. This means you (accidentally) get someone with a lot more power to help! So the person at the helpdesk just needed a screenshot from the app, or the airport, to authorise moving the booking.

The person on the phone was clearly stalling for time until their computer system caught up rather than fobbing me off the phone. Only, we get rebooked automatically. It comes through. Flight next day in the afternoon. They've managed to keep our business class bid too! And the contingency of two nights in Lisbon means a much more "one in a lifetime" sort of holiday has not been wasted (we did check the travel insurance, even if we did claim the max we would be overall down). The TAP helpdesk person gets this news maybe 15 seconds after we do, he explains we've kept business class, which is something we had no guarantee for. And we've checked the flight code - the history looks like this is an extra capacity flight code that covers situations like this.

So things I've learnt the hard way:

• EasyJet plus is great value for money for regular travel - you need 4 trips a year for it to make its money back (unless you're one of those flight hack people who fly light on purpose).
• For Madeira - London, and vice versa, EasyJet isn't bad: daytime flights, avoids Stansted and sometimes cheaper than TAP or BA with baggage added.
  • I specifically say London here, as Bristol, Manchester et al are much stricter on average for that "free personal item"
• Flag carriers beat budget airlines in disaster scenarios, even if EasyJet pay for 5 nights in a hotel.
• If you are checking in a bag anyway, volunteer to check a cabin bag at the same time and that will be free - useful for getting some marmalade through...
• Non-budget airlines reward frequent fliers. As soon as you do one long haul flight per year, you're better off being away from EasyJet, Ryanair et al for the short haul flights. The air miles for free trips add up quickly.
• Miles bookings can be extremely powerful with TAP, which contradicts the experience of US frequent fliers using miles.
• Once in a lifetime trip? Add layovers and stagger the "getting out" portion of the travel. Layovers with hotels are cheaper than ruining it.