Comfort or no travel
For some, travel can be quite
stressful, and I can understand how that can happen. When I decide to leave my
home on a journey, the needs for comfort and ease are paramount in my mind. The
journey is as important as the destination and the purpose of the journey,
there is no point in leaving home if part of that experience presents distress,
discomfort, or suffering.
Having been a keen traveller for
decades, I have stuck with certain brands and built a kind of loyalty account
with them that has benefits. Things like priority check-in, for instance,
mean I do not have to languish in long queues, fast-tracking through security
or passport control, or cooling off in the lounge, which suggests one is relaxed long
before boarding the flight.
In praise of loyalty schemes
There are indeed more affordable
options for booking flights or hotels, but you do not get to build a customer
profile that earns loyalty bonuses in the long term. I have booked accommodation
with hotels.com for almost 10 years. For every 10 nights booked, you get a reward stamp equivalent to the average cost of those nights to offset the cost of
a future booking. I have redeemed over 50 nights and have over 10 in hand.
This has saved me over £1,500 in accommodation
costs. Sometimes, a very expensive room in the high season is halved in cost
using a reward night.
Obviously, loyalty schemes are not for
everyone, but if you do something often enough, it might well make sense to
enter their loyalty scheme if they have one. I have flown KLM + AirFrance for
about 20 years, and the frequency of my travel has earned me a platinum card that
opens doors of privilege that I use well.
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