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Yesterday, I received a very pleasant surprise from EL AL, the airline I have flown with more than any other. They gave me Gold membership for life. I was genuinely touched.
Then I discovered that my lifetime membership expires on 17 August 2076. I will be 101 years old.
This presents a serious problem. What exactly am I supposed to do when I want to travel after that? My carer and I laughed about it at physiotherapy yesterday. He had just pushed me the 500m or so in the wheelchair, and I am not a small man, so pushing me is already a substantial workout. We calculated that when I am 101, he will be 91.
By then, we will probably both require carers. If we decide to travel together, we may need some sort of twin buggy, preferably with extra legroom and access to the EL AL lounge.
For a long time, I held EL AL’s highest frequent-flyer status, Top Platinum. At the time, I regarded it as an achievement. Yes, I have seen the George Clooney film Up in the Air. No, it was never quite like that, although a few scenes resonated rather uncomfortably.
I have written publicly, including in my book Amazon link, about just how much I used to travel. In fact, I devoted an entire chapter to amusing stories from years of flying EL AL. Some were wonderful. Some were ridiculous. Some could only have happened on EL AL.
I learned to love the airline, including all its unique characteristics, both the ones that made me smile and the ones that made me want to do something just that little bit different.
Eventually, my Top Platinum status disappeared. This was hardly surprising. Airlines generally expect their most loyal customers to fly occasionally, and PSP has transformed me into a spectacularly unproductive passenger.
The timing of EL AL’s gift was particularly fortunate because yesterday I also managed one of the stupidest travel-booking mistakes of my life.
I decided to use points to buy my son and his girlfriend a trip. Everything appeared to be in order until his girlfriend made one very small observation.
I had booked the flights in entirely the wrong direction. Instead of booking tickets from Tel Aviv to the destination and back, I had booked them from the destination to Tel Aviv and back again. This was a fairly catastrophic flaw in my otherwise generous plan. For obvious reasons, they needed to reach the destination before they could fly home from it.
After decades of travelling, reaching Top Platinum status and becoming the sort of person who thought he understood airlines, I had apparently forgotten the most basic principle of aviation:
Start where you actually are.
Thankfully, Gold membership includes access to a VIP telephone number. I reached someone quickly, explained what I had done and the problem was fixed without charge. I then bought the correct tickets.
So my lifetime membership has already proved useful, even if I never board another plane.
That possibility is the serious part of this story. Since being diagnosed with PSP, I have made only two trips.
Both were last year, when I could still walk with a walker, something that is now firmly in the past. The first was a few days in Japan with my son. It was an extraordinary journey and one I will never forget. Travelling was difficult, but the experience was worth every bit of effort. It remains one of my most precious memories.
The second was a very short trip to support a friend after the death of his mother and to attend the funeral at the cemetery. During that visit, I fell over and covered myself in grass stains and blood.
Two journeys with PSP. Both hugely meaningful, one slightly more successful health-wise than the other. I look back on both fondly, in very different ways.
I do not know whether there will be a third. My neurologist has firmly advised against travelling. He also wants me to have a feeding tube. So far, I have managed to resist that suggestion too.
Part of me hopes there will be another trip. Yesterday’s physiotherapy session went particularly well, so perhaps one day I will surprise myself, board another EL AL flight and use some of the benefits I spent so many years earning.
But I also have to be realistic. Travel is no longer a matter of choosing a destination and buying a ticket. It now requires accessibility planning, wheelchairs, carers, medication, fatigue management and a healthy respect for the possibility that my body may simply refuse to cooperate. Then there is the small matter of travel insurance, which is another issue altogether.
This Gold card may therefore be a wonderful gift that I never use.
There is also a lesson in it that goes beyond travel.
For years, airline status felt like a badge of success. It reflected how busy I was, how important my work seemed and how many places I had been. But it measured something else too. It measured the extraordinary amount of time I spent away from home.
I loved travelling. I had remarkable experiences, met fascinating people and built a career of which I am proud. I would not erase those years. But if I could speak to the younger version of myself, I might ask whether every flight was really necessary.
I might remind him that status can be impressive without being important. I might remind him that no airport lounge, no matter how comfortable, is a substitute for time with the people you love.
Today, I am doing no travelling at all. Yet perhaps I understand the destination rather better than I did when I was constantly on the move.
So thank you, EL AL. I genuinely appreciate the recognition and the gift.
It made me smile, helped me rescue my son’s surprise and reminded me of an enormous chapter of my life.
I hope I manage to use it. And if I am still travelling after 17 August 2076, I trust EL AL will take a sympathetic view.
After all, a 101-year-old former Top Platinum passenger travelling in a twin buggy with his 91-year-old carer must surely qualify for some sort of exceptional-circumstances policy.
