American Expats in BA - Look at the Bright Side

[Dudester]

Well, I have a solution for making Airline travel agreeable again. Get into the mileage game/credit card thing heavy duty and then use your miles for BUSINESS CLASS. I started to do this on long haul flights (West Coast USA to Europe/SA/East Asia) after 9/11/2001 because it was just nearing a point of ... very unpleasant on the edge of painful. On shorter flights (5 or 6 hours or less) I just take Roger Waters/Pink Floyd's advice and become "Comfortably Numb" in Economy class with the help of my Doc and some wine (also always bring your laptop with noise cancelation headphones and a couple films/concerts on DVD + iPod of course. This goes for all flights anywhere).

Business class is around double the mileage - on AA Europe and Southern SA are 40,000 low season and 60,000 for high season (check website for exact dates) in Economy and 90,000 all year round for Business class. (with Delta/Air France/KLM it's 50 all year round for economy and 90 for business). Or you can buy an Economy class ticket and upgrade to Business with 40 or 50 thousand miles. Delta uses Amex and AA uses Citibank Visa and Mastercard - only way to go IMHO. It works !! Dudester

 

[amandela]

Greetings and salutations:
I was so pleased to find this website! Let me add a few tidbits to the mix. And do forgive the randomness of my thoughts here as I am writing as much from the heart as from the head.
I am planning a visit to BA over the summer in large part because I have simply grown weary of life in the US. Having spent the better part of half-a-decade living as an expat in Eastern Europe during the mid to late 1990s, my return to the US in the late 1990s has by and large, proven deeply unsatisfying. I have never felt truly at home or at peace since my return, and given the sorry state of life stateside, diminished expectations and all, I really don't see things improving .
Like Dudester, I find that it is becoming increasingly "impossible to pleasantly live in this place (the US)". So once again, and perhaps for the last time, I am revisiting the question of whether to opt-out, and how.
Let me note that I am gainfully employed, blessed with a superb pension package and enjoy the benefits of tenure in the academy. And yet, despite my material comfort, uneasiness prevails. Day-in, day-out, I feel increasingly out of touch with my fellow citizens and the petards that run this place.
In this light, let me note that I found everyone's collective disdain for GWB and his policies and what they have meant for the US very refreshing . Let me add that the alternatives to GWB don't seem all that promising. The democrats are self-destructing, McCain appears to be nothing more than a confused fool content to borrow pages from GWB's playbook, and neither side has offered anything in the form of creative solutions to solve a myriad of national problems (a weakening dollar, the collapse of the housing market, a major credit crisis, the crumbling national infrastructure, i.e., roads, sewers etc.).
By way of contrast, judging by what I read on the BA/expat blogs, life in BA isn't perfect, what with the pollution, the population density, the increasing cost of living, and especially for women, the machismo-driven sexism. Having lived in the Balkans for four years, and having spent the better part of a year living in Russia, I have learned that the allure of the expat lifestyle isn't in finding an ideal "better" place to settle down in; such an animal doesn't exist for most of us (I am African-American and know of what I speak on this point).
Rather, the key is to find an environment that presents an acceptable set of compromises, admittedly imperfect, and to stake one's claim in that place. So the question I want to pose is this: do each of you find that life in BA beats the US alternative given that life in there necessarily involves a series of compromises both large and small that each of you must live with? In other words, do the benefits outway the negatives?
thanks for your thoughts.
Amandela