I went to the Gold Coast again last week for the Problogger conference. Astute readers might remember I wasn’t a fan of the Gold Coast last time round. Well, it turns out I can totally be bought and I will forever have a VERY soft spot for the Gold Coast. For a few reasons, but mostly because this happened:
Yes, you read that right. I won 500,000 frequent flyer points to use on Virgin Australia and their partners. This is pretty much the absolutely ultimate best prize ever that I could win, for me. If someone had given me $10,000 instead, I would have put it towards the mortgage and felt guilty for spending much of it. But half a million frequent flyer points? Well, obviously, they have to be spent on flying. This is PERFECT!
(FYI, Virgin didn’t ask me to write this post. Luckily, I always liked them even before they gave me these points. After all, they weren’t the ones who lost my luggage … so anyway, again I say: THANK YOU Virgin and Problogger. I’m so incredibly grateful for this amazing prize!)
My Instagram addiction pays off
You may well ask just how someone wins a totally cool prize like this. It wasn’t entirely luck – in fact, I like to think of it as the culmination of many years of travels, because my winning entry, posted on Instagram (and looking cool because of my fave site Canva), featured my travels in Finland, Russia, Tunisia and Malaysia – pretty much my four favourite trips ever.
How will I spend my frequent flyer points?
This has definitely been the question of the week. Before I went to Problogger, I’d been trying to find the time to book our semi-planned trip to New Zealand in January. It seemed to take forever to figure out the whens and wheres and I wasn’t able to get frequent flyer flights both ways (I had some points of my own before this big win) and in the end, after a flu knocked me out for a week just before my Gold Coast trip, I gave up on trying to book until post-Problogger. My husband and I had also started saying how we’d love to go back to Germany next year for a short trip as well, but we figured we couldn’t really afford the flights.
HELLO! We sure can afford those flights now. So, at the moment, we are planning to spend a few weeks in Germany mid-2015 sometime (as I type, my husband is on the phone to his family figuring out when a good time might be), including a trip to Berlin, plus my two cents is to spend a week at one end of the trip in … Iceland! I have a yearning to go someplace I’ve never been, plus our son is very keen to see some volcanoes and the internet tells me Iceland has something like 130 of them, so that should be easy. I know the landscapes of Iceland will be a paradise for my photography-nut husband.
The best part is that we will still have some points left over for another short trip somewhere, perhaps just within Australia or who knows – I’m extremely confident I will find a way to use them! Watch this space.
WOW go you! That is amazing and so well deserved what a great entry!
It was lovely to meet you 🙂
Thanks Elle! Lovely to meet you too. And yes I still find this totally amazing! Lucky me!!
Such a clever entry! Congratulations again:)
Thanks so much and such a pleasure to meet you Vanessa! Good luck with your TED challenge.
That’s is great Amanda! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. x
Aw thanks so much Louise!!
I’m SO SO SO happy for you! You deserve it. 🙂
Thanks so much Bethaney! I still won’t be able to keep up with your level of travelling but it will sure help!!!
Wonderful win! And you will love Iceland! We enjoyed our trip there a few years ago. 🙂
Thanks Susan – I will definitely be calling for Iceland tips soon!
Couldn’t have gone to a better person, well deserved xxx
Thanks so much Rae. And thanks for the celebration drinks! xxx
CONGRATULATIONS!! I’m so excited for you! How cool is it that you’ll be going to Iceland?!
Thanks Dannielle! I know … I still really can’t believe it! And Iceland has been a dream of mine for ages. So excited to really be able to get there.
Hi,
Congratulations on your Virgin points win.
Let me know if you want any advice on how to use those points in the most efficient way, or just a general chat.
We run a points management consultancy – and we help businesses everyday to optimise their points, and assist them finding and booking the seats – which can be tricky to find.
I love the freedom of frequent flyer points and created a whole business out of it, so I’m happy to help you pro-bono to get the most fun out of your prize.
Just google me – its a real business.
Cheers
Steve
Founder & CEO – iFLYflat
It was a very well deserved win and I’m so glad it went to the best roomie ever! Enjoy spending them … I’m sure you will 😉 !
It was great meeting you Amanda and I am so happy for you to have won those points! As soon as I saw your entry on Instagram, I knew it was the winner! Just really clever and fun, well deserved. Iceland, wow, that’s been on my bucket list for a very long time! I look forward to seeing your blog posts about it! Good luck with all your trips 🙂
Kerstin (the German with the slight accent;)
Oh thank you so much Kerstin, I’m still so excited! I’m very much looking forward to seeing Iceland and I’m sure it will produce a lot of blog posts!