BY ROGER WATSON

“Hello, I’m Roger and I’m an air miles addict.”

That is how I imagine opening the inaugural meeting of a new support group I intend to establish. Membership of AMA (Air Miles Anonymous) will be restricted to those with over one million air miles in their account.

It sounds like a humble brag, but it is true, I am an air miles addict. I have earned over one and a half million air miles with the Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club and refuse to fly out of the One World Alliance to which Cathay Pacific (and BA and Qantas and American Airlines and Qatar and … I could list them all but won’t) belongs. The thought of taking a Ryanair or Easyjet flight brings on palpitations.

Seen Up in The Air starring George Clooney? Well, that’s me (minus the extramarital sex) right down to cabin luggage only and knowing who not to get behind at airport security.

It all began when I earned my first Silver Card with the Marco Polo Club and entered a business class lounge for the first time. I vaguely recall feeling so inebriated when I left the lounge that I feared I would not be allowed to board my flight to London from Hong Kong.

Soon after, my Gold Card arrived, enabling me to entertain colleagues less fortunate than myself in the lounge. Unfortunately, one of them has also become a hopeless air miles addict. This is nearly the only topic of conversation when we meet for a drink. To the uninitiated or envious: be careful what you wish for.

Other Gold Card privileges soon followed, and hardly a flight went by without an upgrade to business or even first class. As a Gold Card member, I could order malt whisky – served in a proper glass – even when flying in economy.

However, the real trouble began when I reached the coveted top-tier status of Diamond Card, granting me access to first class lounges and the right to introduce two guests. I have held a Diamond Card for nearly twenty years, spending almost every waking moment scheming about how to retain it. Essentially, it represents over 100,000 miles flown annually, and my non-existent ‘carbon footprint’ is a minor concern.

My million-mile status means that I am well connected in the upper echelons of the Marco Polo Club. My wife and family almost always join me in business class, with access to the first class lounges, and Mrs Watson (also a Marco Polo Club member) has benefitted from several first class flights – including access to British Airways Concorde Lounges – to and from New York, courtesy of our air miles.

Our youngest daughter (another Marco Polo Club member), until she flew the nest and relinquished access to our bank and air miles accounts, was unaware that the seats at the back of a plane were not quite as nice as those at the front. The mystery of why some people choose to mill around in airport concourses rather than enjoy free champagne in leather Chesterfields has finally been solved. That, along with no longer being first to board the plane, has hit her hard.

At this time of year, for frequent fliers, it’s ‘squeaky bum time’ as we tally our air miles to see if we have reached the coveted number of points needed to renew our cards. I am nearly there and would actually be there already if British Airways hadn’t cancelled a recent flight from Athens to London. My wife and I had to divert, taking a rather dreadful couple of SAS flights via Copenhagen, which included an overnight stay before continuing on to London.

British Airways have compensated us, but the air miles to which we are entitled have not yet appeared in our Marco Polo accounts. Upcoming flights to Madrid, Milan, Istanbul, Hong Kong, New York, China, and Singapore before the end of the year should do the trick. However, there is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing that black Diamond Card appear in my iPhone wallet … and then I can relax (for a while)!

As I approach my seventieth year, I understand that all good things must come to an end. I have been incredibly fortunate, but two lucrative international contracts in the Far East and Middle East are finishing this year. The bulging bank account of our limited international consultancy company, managed by my wife, depends on those contracts and will soon become as limited as the company itself.

My memory is deteriorating, which is dangerous, especially when combined with jetlag, for a frequent long-haul flier. Even as I lie in my first-class bed, attended to by a lovely lady from Cathay Pacific somewhere over Russia, my old bones withhold their comfort in comparison to snuggling under my own duvet at home.

There will be no choice but to endure ‘cold turkey’ at some point in the coming year. That, and my AMA support group.

My extreme levels of travel also come with Elite status in both the IHG and Radisson hotel groups. But, please, don’t get me started on that. There’s only so much a man can cope with at a time.

Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.