I wrapped up 2017 reflecting on my travel for the year, noting that I had little idea of what was on the cards apart from a couple of visits to London and likely trips to Sweden. Indeed, after a busy 2017, the beginning of 2018 saw little travel at all. It wasn’t until the end of February that I attempted to take my first trip of the year, only to find that the beast from the east stepped in to destroy my plans. A hasty replacement – a flying (and unexpected) visit to Bath took place in early March instead. As I noted at the time, I was surprised at the availability of keenly priced fares with just a few days’ notice and really pleased to find that this was a route that could operate smoothly, making door-to-door travel from Edinburgh to Somerset really quite speedy. This remained the case during the rest of the year: my best value travel purchase this year has to be the £45 paid for a one way ticket just 3 hours before departure. However, the route has the potential to go wrong too – and when it does it does so with gusto. I have received EU261 compensation on two different occasions this year on the Edinburgh-Bristol route, with substantial delays incurred.
In fact, this year was on where I enjoyed a range of luck in terms of punctuality. On a number of occasions when an on-time arrival really was essential, but the itinerary felt dicey, I was fortunate to have plans stick. However, I was a recipient of involuntary denied boarding compensation for a trip in July which had the rather odd result of SAS effectively covering all my travel costs. Storm Ali in mid-September also put paid to a day trip to London – regrettably only once I was in the capital. I was relieved that my travel insurer covered the costs of unexpected overnight accommodation and replacement travel on this occasion, as trees on the line saw my plans fall apart.
In a reversal of the trends in 2017 when I travelled extensively on the ECML but didn’t make it to London, whilst making fair use of the WCML, in 2018 I didn’t make it to my old stomping ground of Greater Manchester even once, while I did several trips to London by daytime rail. These were all southbound (my only scheduled northbound trip got scrubbed by Ali). I enjoyed the more relaxing rail setting, and it provided an opportunity to work that travelling by air does not offer. However, the ride quality is not great at times – especially when trying to concentrate on work – and the journey times are extensive. The slower journeys almost feel intolerable – one Sunday night service I travelled on took more than 5 hours! That being said, the catering is appreciated. While others are excited about the impending arrival of LNER’s new rolling stock – the Azuma (currently delayed) – I’m not holding my breath. I had the chance to try the corresponding stock being used by Great Western during the summer and it was nothing to write home about – I sincerely hope we’re not stuck with them in four decades’ time!
I flew to London using Ryanair once following their infamous cancellation of an entire winter schedule between Edinburgh and Stansted during the preceding winter, without issue and for the bargain price of £12. I also flew to and from London City on multiple occasions using Avios redemptions. Several of these were in Club Europe due to availability issues, but truth be told there was little point given that the Embraers used by British Airways to LCY are wonderfully spacious and service remains strong in Economy. In contrast, I flew back from London on one occasion with BA in Club from Gatwick and was highly impressed at the lounge offering in the terminal and on board – especially for a cheap Avios redemption.
The Caledonian Sleeper saw me five times in 2018 – all going north from Euston. Originally, the final two bookings were to have been on new rolling stock – including an outing in the club room with a shower. Due to delays with the manufacturer, the launch has been postponed until the middle of 2019. Ostensibly, service remained the same – other than a few tweaks – and I remained happy. Indeed, since the change allowing passengers to board the sleeper from 10pm at Euston, I find the experience of travelling has improved significantly. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the new product arriving. (The less said at this point about the heavily delayed Crossrail, the better – its launch date had been in the calendar too!)
Further afield, I spent just over a week in Canada in late May and early June, visiting Toronto and Regina. I reflected on my experience of travelling to Saskatchewan here, as well as how to catch the bus in the Queen City. For reasons of logistics, I needed to be in Helsinki (I wrote up my reflections on Helsinki local transit here) two days after my final day in Toronto which meant that I ended up travelling with American Airlines and Finnair via New York. While I haven’t yet had time to write it up here, I was all too happy to pay a very reasonable upgrade fee from JFK to HEL to try out Finnair’s long haul business class product. On the whole, I was impressed by my experience with Finnair – I also found their short haul product from Helsinki back to Edinburgh was up to scratch. I can only assume that the outbound economy flight with BA to Toronto from Heathrow was fine – although I remember nothing about it!
Travel to Sweden over 2018 was smooth and unremarkable, making use of a combination of Ryanair, EasyJet and Norwegian. I didn’t run into difficulties, and with the exception of one extortionate ticket bought with SAS (flown with Lufthansa, as explained above), prices remained reasonable. I had a lot of fun returning from Gothenburg to the UK using a combination of Brussels Airlines and bmi Regional back in May, not least for the nostalgia kick of flying on one of bmi’s Embraer 145s.
My travel highlight of 2018 was undoubtedly in October when I visited Copenhagen before travelling home by rail. I outlined the journey in three parts: Copenhagen to Hamburg, Hamburg to London part 1 and part 2. The whole return journey covered multiple items on my travel bucket list. I was thrilled to finally make it onto the Copenhagen to Hamburg direct train using the Rødby-Puttgarden ferry. The new Eurostar rolling stock from Brussels to London was also a delight. (And I haven’t even mentioned Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg!). It might not have been as cheap as flying direct with easyJet, but it represented excellent value for many, comfortable hours’ train travel – I’m very grateful to my enthusiastic travel companion who did most of the intricate legwork and planning to ensure we travelled in comfort and style.
Closer to home, much of the first half of 2018 was spent preparing to move home and settling into a new area. The result of this has been lots of exploring of new travel options in a new part of the city. One exciting day in June I got to visit the Port of Leith for a guided tour. I wrote about the launch of MyTaxi, a new app, back in May – things didn’t quite work as I had hoped. It remains the case that finding a taxi in Leith can be quite a challenge, and I continue to seek out the best solution without success.
Most travel takes place on the basis of convenience and cost. I was very pleased to secure various hotel rooms in London for well under £50/night during 2018. I made use of the hotel booking app HotelTonight several times during 2018 and was generally pleased with the results: under £50 for a good B&B room in Bath booked on the day of arrival and under £100 for a night in the London Malmaison booked at 8pm rank as highlights.
However, points and status did play a role at various times. My personal highlights included the Radisson Suite Hotel at Toronto Airport, which was a very cheap points redemption where I received a full 4-room apartment. I was similarly chuffed with the bargain redemption offered by the Hampton by Hilton at Bristol Airport. I was very pleased with perks offered at the Four Points by Sheraton in Regina, where my status secured me a good room and generous breakfast credit. The absolute winner for status-related perk has to go to the Doubletree by Hilton in Greenwich, which provided an upgrade to the top floor with floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the city of London to the west, along with 2 glasses of wine per guest and the requisite hot cookie on check in. While the location is a little left field, I really like Deptford and will try to stay there again. In terms of travel redemptions, I was most pleased with a late redemption in 2018 for LNER credit via Nectar, which represented excellent value – in addition to a great value redemption of my SJ Prio points 10 minutes before departure for a train from Lund to Halmstad.
So, what does 2019 hold in store? There is slightly more in the diary than last time. At least a couple of impending trips to London along with the likely outings to Sweden are lined up. In early June I will be visiting Vancouver – I’m looking forward to my first visit to the Pacific northwest and trying out BA’s A380 economy product for the first time in 4 years. A trip to Italy is also likely – and perhaps a few surprises. And who knows – if Brexit leads to a travel shutdown, I might get around to writing up my outstanding blog ideas from late 2017 and 2018.
TransportIan 