Booking tickets around the world using our substantial collection of British Airways points should have been easy, but it wasn't. We have been collecting miles for more than 14 years, but in the last year BA has re-jigged the game – especially with its OneWorld partners – and the opportunities to travel, especially in Business Class, have diminished to a trickle.
I became frustrated as well as irritated, despite being six months out from our proposed departure date, it seemed there were no tickets to be had. I decided to contract out what appeared to be the impossible dream to upgrd.com award experts.
Miraculously, after much back and forth e-mailing, a round-the-world travel agenda was organized on our behalf: Detroit to Bangkok on Royal Jordanian Airlines, with a 10-hour layover in Amman Jordan. I did the math – 14 hours to Amman (one stop in Montreal to pick up more passengers), a 10-hour layover, and then another 9-hour flight to Bangkok: total travel time was over 34 hours! This was clearly too much even for seasoned global travelers like us to bear.