no fly nöel is finally here in 2017
December 11, 2017
This California in December thing seems to be a trend now that NPS works for a silicon valley company. What that means is a week-long delay in the start of our annual no fly nöel thing.
So how did 2018 stack up? Well the tripometer was up year over year after many years. And most of the travel was international. This year we visited:
- London (twice)
- Inverness
- Stuttgart
- Neuremberg
- Tokyo
- Kyoto
- Oslo
- Sardegna
- Malta
Lots of time outside the confines of the broken United States and its Orange Caligula of a “President.”
Here’s the graph.

The annual tripometer. Trips are up for NPS.
Because of all of the international travel, we had some interesting impact on loyalty programs. It’s not even clear we’ll make inner circle this year at Kimpton (horrors)!
See what happens when you spend more nights in foreign countries than in the US @Kimpton?? Woe is us!! pic.twitter.com/U3Gx8zRz9T
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) December 12, 2017
On the other hand @VirginAmerica gold status was straightforward to earn this year pic.twitter.com/tQpvVrYAaU
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) December 12, 2017
And accidentally making platinum on @united. Who woulda guessed?!
1.661 million miles pic.twitter.com/YRv9ZKujD2
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) December 12, 2017
Other than the “not really Virgin America” we have no loyalty anymore for any airlines. Treat them all the same and let the chips fall where they will. Use money to “upgrade” by starting out upgraded. My my how things have changed.
A direct comparison of international business class shows United has the best service. Here are two examples.
Delta
United
Anyway, time to stay home by the fire for a while.
Sunday morning newspaper time pic.twitter.com/OEWYlMp2Sv
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) December 10, 2017
Filed in tripometer, we are not really sure
Tags: delta, flying, international business class, international travel, kimpton, loyalty programs, travel, tripometer, united, virgin america