I’ll never forget the day when my dad and I were eating Harveys before our flight from Toronto to Vancouver. He looked at me and said with a pause, « this food cost more than our flight ». It’s true, our $15 meal was more than the $4.32 for each of us to fly from Toronto to Vancouver… and we flew in business class.

Dating every destination

Growing up and having a mom who works for an airline completely changes the travel game, and I played it to its fullest benefit. I mean all I wanted for my 12th birthday was to go on a plane by myself, which I did… in business class. I treated planes like buses, an easy and efficient way to get me where I wanted to go, all for the cost of a Starbucks latte.

Of some of the more notable trips, in the 4 flights I took from Toronto to London Heathrow while studying abroad one year, 3 out of the 4 were in business class. I also managed to travel London to Toronto to Calgary to Vancouver to Seattle in the span of 25hrs and for about $100-150. Every summer growing up in high school, I flew out to BC to visit my friend Hayley for her birthday, for a long weekend, again at only for like $20 each time. And, a favourite from my friends is the time I flew to Paris and spent about 22hrs there and then flying back. I had joined my mom on a layover flight, I commend her honestly because that trip was exhausting!!

Every love has its flaws

Now, I won’t lie, I got a taste for this good life. I mean, who doesn’t love essentially-free flights?? And having standby privileges as the dependent of an airline employee was a great one. Sure it came with its challenges – the airline dress code, which almost got me kicked off a flight because I was in running shoes (forgot to change into my flats) and yes, I was so tired from travelling overnight from Argentina that I did cry and the flight attendant didn’t know how to respond so we just moved on… or not knowing if you’ll get on a flight. Tbh it’s a weird adrenaline rush for me and I’m oddly pretty calm with it, except for the one time I was almost stranded in Chile. Lastly, waiting and waiting for a flight, my personal best aka the most time I’ve spent waiting to get on a standby flight was 16hrs trying to get back to school in Vancouver from Toronto.

Hermes and I in New Orleans, Sept. 2022

A new kind of love

So, needlessly to say when I turned 25, I could finally rent a car but I not longer got free flight privileges. Apparently, you’re not dependent on your parents at that point according the terms & conditions but I BEG TO DIFFER. Now, I can fly standby still but I’m at the bottom of the list of seniority always, so yes when I have flown standby recently I’m that awkward person to comes on dead last and everyone assumes you were running to the plane.. not the case! I don’t write all this to say woh is me, cause that’s not the point. More so, that I’ve grown accustomed to this travel-at-a-fraction lifestyle and I don’t want to stop! Airgo, at 30 years old I discovered miles & points…. Game changer.

Anyways, I’m about a month into what I’m calling my « miles & points » class (title to be reworked). If you’ve ever been interested in travelling on points, feel free to learn along with me! I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned in month 1 in another post soon. Standby until then!