In praise of loyalty schemes

Asserting Customer Loyalty

I consider myself an advocate for loyalty schemes, as I have participated in a few, some of which offered benefits I never utilised when I was unable to take full advantage of them.

However, I have found the best perks in the hospitality industry. The benefits and rights you receive as a loyal customer can greatly surpass those of a casual, unregistered user of a service.

One case in point was when I had the Accor Favourite Guest Card, which I lost almost 15 years ago. While visiting Berlin and checking into a hotel I had used many times before, a Mercure brand hotel, the check-in clerk informed me that the hotel was fully booked.

That was not what the Accor Favourite Guest Card guaranteed; I had a room in the hotel of my choice secured, no questions asked, and I asserted that fact. Their suggestion was to put me up in another hotel for one night and return to my chosen hotel for the last three nights.

I refused, stating to the clerk that I didn’t want to be moving around Berlin like a prostitute. I gave them twenty minutes to come up with a better proposal: a booking in another hotel of the same standard or better for the four nights, which they did, even paying for the taxi to transport me to a hotel suite in an even more exclusive part of Berlin.

The Tangible Value of Loyalty

Without my loyalty program, I would not have been able to negotiate that outcome. After leaving the Accor Favourite Guest Card scheme, I joined the Hotels.com rewards program, which gives you a monetary average of every accumulated 10-night stay as a reward night to help offset the costs of staying at hotels booked through that app.

Since 2013, I have saved over £4,500 using my loyalty reward nights, but they have changed the scheme. Aside from not understanding how the new system works, I feel it is not as beneficial. Additionally, I have secured some good deals through Booking.com.

Having once lived in the Netherlands, I became a frequent flyer with KLM, which later merged with Air France as part of the SkyTeam alliance. Over the years, I have earned statuses and miles that covered my return flights to India in 2011 and to South Africa in June 2024.

With this loyalty scheme comes priority boarding, extra baggage allowance, a choice of seating, an air mile multiplier for each Euro spent, depending on status, along with complimentary access to the lounge if you hold a gold status. For years, I had platinum status until the aftermath of the pandemic reduced it to just Silver.

Choose and Stick with It

In my view, everything must be done to maintain at least a minimal loyalty allegiance, rather than starting from scratch again. My frequent flyer miles and hotel reward benefits have been invaluable in saving upfront costs. Choose a brand carefully, study what they offer, and how it compares to the competition, then make a commitment.

It might be pricier, but your patronage amounts to something significant; there is value in storing loyalty rather than endlessly chasing the most affordable price from anyone offering a service. Being a creature of habit by adopting a loyalty scheme is not such a bad thing.

With loyalty store cards, you occasionally receive discounts from the retail price, which can be up to 50% or more. As one supermarket suggests, “Every little helps.” 

Rewards of privilege for loyalty

Comfort or no travel

For some, travel can be quite stressful, and I can understand how that can happen. When I decide to leave my home on a journey, the needs for comfort and ease are paramount in my mind. The journey is as important as the destination and the purpose of the journey, there is no point in leaving home if part of that experience presents distress, discomfort, or suffering.

Having been a keen traveller for decades, I have stuck with certain brands and built a kind of loyalty account with them that has benefits. Things like priority check-in, for instance, mean I do not have to languish in long queues, fast-tracking through security or passport control, or cooling off in the lounge, which suggests one is relaxed long before boarding the flight.

In praise of loyalty schemes

There are indeed more affordable options for booking flights or hotels, but you do not get to build a customer profile that earns loyalty bonuses in the long term. I have booked accommodation with hotels.com for almost 10 years. For every 10 nights booked, you get a reward stamp equivalent to the average cost of those nights to offset the cost of a future booking. I have redeemed over 50 nights and have over 10 in hand.

This has saved me over £1,500 in accommodation costs. Sometimes, a very expensive room in the high season is halved in cost using a reward night.

Obviously, loyalty schemes are not for everyone, but if you do something often enough, it might well make sense to enter their loyalty scheme if they have one. I have flown KLM + AirFrance for about 20 years, and the frequency of my travel has earned me a platinum card that opens doors of privilege that I use well.

Setting off for something

Packing neat not heat

I cannot at all understand where all my friends get the idea that I pack too much when going away. In my view, I pack what needs to go with me, for it is better to have more than you need than to be met with missing what you should have taken.

I am nowhere in the league of Donatella Versace who arrived at London Heathrow in one of those Airport television programmes and she was missing a suitcase out of 63. The airport staff were searching high and low for it, it made for interesting television viewing.

In any case, because I have a Platinum card with AirFrance/KLM, I have the standard quota of 2 pieces of checked-in luggage and one more. Since there were things, I was taking over for myself and for Brian, I utilised the full quota, even as my friends protested over the phone that I was going to overdo it, I am moderation personified, damn it.

Loyalty creates priority

Obviously, I had to call an Uber XL to carry 3 suitcases, a suit bag, and a rucksack, all brimming with goods, as one does. It meant I had to get a trolley at the airport to get my stuff to the check-in desk. There was a long queue for the standard check-in and just 2 people ahead of me in the Sky Priority queue.

At the desk, I presented my passport, then proof of vaccination, 3 jabs of Pfizer BioNTech and a Fitness to Travel Certificate, a negative result from a COVID PCR test, which is standard for any travel consideration and thankfully a lot less expensive compared to what I paid to the same test in December last year. The directors of that company are probably sunning themselves on their yachts in Dubai having made a killing in the pandemic. Disaster capitalists, all of them.

Far, a longer way to lounge

Then, I was through to security, the Fast-Track Lane as I displayed containers of liquid, electronic devices, then through a scanner where I had inadvertently forgotten a pound coin in my pocket and some creams were secreted in my rucksack. It’s been a long week.

Terminal 2 at Manchester Airport is new, and I had never been through it before. I cannot understand why the lounges are so far away, tucked away from the madding crowd and presenting an ordeal to get to if you use a cane or need some mobility assistance.

Once late, twice deflated

My flight to Paris was to take off at 6:05, the lounge had been open early and it was good to settle there for just about an hour before leaving to board my flight which left Manchester 35 minutes late and that ate into the time I would have had to shop and lounge in Paris, I had quite a short stayover, I had to go straight to the gate for my flight to Cape Town.

Now, I was expecting to be on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, that was what was advertised when I booked my flight, well, fancy ending up on a Boeing 777-300, cramped, noisy, no WiFi and well, let me not complain, I sip the champagne and lie down, it is a 10:40 hour flight to Cape Town. Savoir-faire.

Unexpected platinum rewards

The price of loyalty

As a frequent traveller, I have learnt to appreciate comfort and as a creature of habit, the renewed experience of modes of travel, places of accommodation or refreshment, and services that make for the enjoyment of home away from home inadvertently enrols you into loyalty schemes.

In a bygone age, I had memberships of too many kinds of loyalty scheme, store cards, credit cards, train cards, hotel chain cards, airline loyalty schemes and obscure services that were more spam generators than you could care to be distracted by.

With time, I learnt to retain the ones with value and discard others whilst consolidating my activities with broader service providers than individual and discrete offerings.

Staying for free

When it comes to accommodation, I have kept with hotels.com and only use bookings.com if I cannot find accommodation or a good deal. For every 10 nights booked on hotels.com, I get a reward night the equivalent to the average price of the 10 nights I paid for. In six years, I have collected 52 reward nights and redeemed 40 of them saving me about £2,500 in hotel costs.

When I lived in The Netherlands for almost 13 years, KLM, then the 2003 merger Air France – KLM was my choice of airline apart from when I went on package holidays. On moving back to the UK, retaining that service has meant a stopover in either Amsterdam or Paris, a little inconvenience, but it is an outsized contribution to my loyalty points.

Platinum-plated reward

Having acquired enough Airmiles to reach Platinum last year, I was on my return from South Africa in January 55 points short of retaining my Platinum status. It would have required at least 2 business class return flights within mainland Europe to remain level par by the end of May.

I remember, just 3 years ago, I was only 30 points short of Platinum moving up from Gold, but never go to make it up. The Airmiles programme is called Flying Blue and though we get miles for distance travelled in relation to the class of travel, the measurement for traversing statuses which were based on the number of flights has changed to XP or eXperience Points.

So, imagine my glee when because of the Coronavirus pandemic I received an email from the Flying Blue programme that the XP threshold required to maintain our status by the end of the qualifying period had been reduced by 25%. As my qualifying period runs until the end of May, my already earned XP was enough to retain Platinum. [Flying Blue]

Thank you!

Hotel life: Habits and loyalty

On loyalty and benefits

I would be the first to tell you that loyalty schemes and customer loyalty matter. This especially when you are a frequent traveller for business and for leisure.

Now on holiday in Gran Canaria, as is my custom when I have the time and the means, which I did more frequently before my encounter with cancer, I see that benefit even more.

On a broader note, it is only in exceptional circumstances that I fly on airlines outside the SkyTeam alliance, usually when there are no connections or I really want to save time on travel, as travelling out of Manchester always included a stopover in either Paris or Amsterdam. Being a SkyTeam elite member by reason of frequency of travel or the class one chooses to travel grants privileges of access and service that takes the humdrum out of the travel experience.

When it comes to accommodation, most of my bookings are through Hotels.com, with them, for every 10 nights spent in hotels, I get the average cost of the 10 nights as an award to use for another stay.

A hotel to show and tell

However, back to Gran Canaria, I cannot stay anywhere else but the Hotel Riu Palace Maspalomas, which sits as a white colonial-style edifice backing onto the dunes of Maspalomas. I first came here in September 2007 and I have probably spent over 200 nights at this hotel altogether, which a number of stays were up to 3 weeks at a time.

Too many things set this establishment out as unique, exquisite, exclusive and one of the top hotels to stay at in Playa del Ingles. On service, on location, on comfort, on friendliness, I feel so much at home here. I walk into the hotel and there is always someone that recognises me at the reception and I am known by name. I have never had to introduce myself after my first visit.

In all, I am welcomed, like family, well beyond just a returning guest. Firm handshakes, the banter, the laughter, and much else, signals to the new recruits at the reception or the restaurant, that this is a guest that is also family. The refrain is almost always, “Welcome Mr Akintayo, to your second home.”

Just what service is about

On the quality of service, I will just leave this here, I was last here in time, November/December 2016 with my best friend. Once we had dispensed with greetings, the Chef de reception went into the inner office and brought out an envelope containing a USB key that had been forgotten by my friend.

There are many observations to follow this, that they kept a seemingly insignificant thing that even my friend had no idea had been lost at this hotel, that they believed sometime in the future, I will return and that they immediately had the presence of mind to present the lost item even before I was checked-in.

Then, upon being given a room, I was not satisfied because it was on the first floor and the view obscured by palm trees. Without insisting, I just asked if it was possible to change my floor. One of the newer receptionists recognised I was a returning customer and had a chat to her manager. The next day we were moved to a top floor room with stunning views.

Whilst, I may have noticed some changes to the service I have been accustomed to, the quality remains high and the number of returning guests still maintains a high percentage. People might say hotels usually have a high attrition rate of staff, that is rarely the case with this hotel. I know staff that have been at this hotel since I first came in 2007. That is life at this hotel and a little homage to loyalty.

South Africa: Unplanned and unsettled

Upsetting all plans

I guess I can say that I was literally rushed off my feet with regards to my second visit to South Africa. It meant the many other activities I had planned to be part of in the UK fell by the wayside and was quite unfortunate.

I had not expected that anyone will make up their minds about this visit, this side of Christmas, I was just so messed around last year that it took over 6 months from conception to decision, I really should have presented a clear ultimatum as to when a decision had to be made before all bets were off.

The only red line I was not going to cross was to be in South Africa beyond the second weekend of December, I want to have my 50^th birthday amongst friends at home.

Little time to plan

I only really got to pack my bags a few hours before my flight, for an absence that would be over 3 weeks, there was so much going on at work, a delivery I was expecting did not arrive at two arranged times that I had to go the depot through football traffic to collect my order before racing down to London and back again.

There was also the small matter of a booster vaccine, everything taken together, there wasn’t much time to relax and plan, I had become an automaton of circumstances around me.

Get with the plan

My flight was via Paris and as I made to board my flight in Paris, I presented my boarding pass to the ground crew having joined the priority queue because by loyalty status and choice of ticket, I was eligible. Rather than view the boarding pass, she suggested I might be in the wrong queue, I did not bother to react, I let her review the boarding pass before giving her a withering look that ended in a smile.

The last time I was on the Paris – Johannesburg leg of my journey on the Airbus A380, I was sat beside a Motswana, what was the coincidence that I will be sat beside – well, I was this time beside a South African who was on holiday in Paris when the terrorist attacks took place last Friday. He wasn’t as engaging as the Motswana.

Humouring the plan

The flight was smooth and at one time as I returned from a toilet break, there was some turbulence and the air steward was already insisting I fasten my seat belt, long before I had settled down. It made me wonder as I was in the toilet when we hit turbulence whether it would not be sensible to have seatbelts in the toilet too.

Coming out at the airport, at my first pass, I did not see the airport shuttle to the hotel, I then attempted a second pass and there was sign where two letters had been dropped from my name. Mr AKINYO, it read. I could only shake my head at the humour of my second welcome to South Africa.

Thought Picnic: On the politics of adversity and the expectations I refuse to respect

Exemplary beyond words

I was listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme last night titled No Triumph, No Tragedy presented by Peter White who as the Disability Affairs correspondent of the BBC was born blind.

He was interviewing Melanie Reid who in 2010 suffered a fall whilst horse riding and the injuries sustained turned her into a tetraplegic. There were so many things she touched on the subject of life-changing adversity that I could relate to, that I thought I might write something in relation to my experiences.

One particular phrase she used was, ‘The Politics of Disability’, which I understood to be a particular thinking and mind-set that appears to create a community of people with a common experience and agitates to maintain or set a standard for how people in that setting should identify, project, speak or advocate.

The pressures to conform

As a tetraplegic and her stubborn desire not be defined by that condition, she had come against some opposition from others in similar situations who expected her to more accepting of her situation and a more vocal advocate of rights, positions and policies to serve that community.

Whilst, I have had my share of adversity and none as serious as the principals I have heretofore written about, the concept of politics is even broader than that of disability. It covers such areas as the medical, the economic, the social, the cultural, the religious and the familial dimensions of the person, their community and their society.

When you consider race, sexuality, long-term conditions, survival from cancer, attendant chronic conditions and adversity, there has always been some perception and thinking one has had to prevent from encroaching into what is essentially one's own personal story which is not entirely unique.

Expectations I refuse to respect

Yet, I find that from all those apparent groupings that have their loosely agglomerated communities, there are expectations and demands. That I am black, I am expected to identify with a political slant without questioning else I am a sell-out. That my sexuality is a private and not a subject for public discussion, I am considered either lacking pride or courage for who I really am, whereas, that is just part of who I am and hardly the whole.

Other matters on the issue of disease and the management of it, we've had cancer which in some cases is both politics and an institution beyond which it could even become a kind of lifestyle. A resignation to fate whilst the fight continues to survive and meet certain life goals. Last week, I was literally bullied into signing a petition to keep the NHS public, especially when I mentioned I was a cancer survivor, I got a good earful.

Knowing where your loyalties lie

Yet, I owe my survival not to the UK NHS but to the Dutch healthcare services that acted promptly on noticing that I had a serious condition, where they are more interventionist than reticent. A chronic condition discovered for well over two years now in our NHS has had doctors do everything but go for dealing with it. I have been observed and sweet-talked in the notion that the real damage is probably a decade away when we could address the condition now and be done with it.

It is unsatisfactory and it does make you want to find a pressure group agitating for quick decisive action rather than what looks lackadaisical almost to the point of uncaring with the hope that we expire before we cost the NHS anything for our treatments.

Reviewing this situation allows me know where my loyalties lie, knowing those who really did something as opposed to systems that pay lip service to situations they never practically affect in a positive way. In other spheres too, you begin to know that your loyalties must be borne of profitable experiences of humanity rather than have your loyalties determined by default to what pigeonholes you have been allocated.

Know your story and stick to your life

On the matter of adversity, the counts are numerous and only a few people know to any extent what the experience was, the losses were many, yet hope lives and thrives in ways that celebrate the resilience of the human spirit.

There are reasons to identify and conform, but in the end, you have to have your own personal experience written as your own story in your voice and in your time, extricate yourself from being a statistic or a number, not a patient, not a victim, not a mishap or an unfortunate reportage, but a person with a name, with a life and life they are living their own way.

Politics has its place, but the stubborn will to be different is the best story that can be told of any life that has lived on this planet earth. For that, I commend Peter White and Melanie Reid for teaching me more about facing life, not as a triumph or a tragedy, but as life the best way you can.

Thought Picnic: Pouring libations to our naked past

Secrets of loyalty

Two weekends ago, I had one of my incognito escapades where the planning and execution were literally revealed to no one. When I did tell my friend what I had planned, he was surprised because my planned trip to Amsterdam and Antwerp was both sudden and expressed in a way that seemed I was going round the corner from my home.

My recent trip to South Africa had boosted my air miles reward scheme status to enjoy a number of priority access services through the airport. I had garnered no less than 21,000 miles from that journey accumulated over 6 flights.

It meant I had fast track access through security regardless of the ticket I had purchased. As I did the typical security strip-tease without the music, the customs official engaged me in conversation about where I was from, where I was going and so on.

Maybe a coincidence

As it transpired, I answered, “I am English and my parents are Nigerian.” He asked what part of Nigeria and that got drilled down to the South West and Ijebu. He then responded that he was from Ijebu Imodi-Imosan.

That was quite uncanny because the traditional chief of Imodi-Imosan is also an Agemo masquerade and an uncle of mine.

He, however, was planning to return to Nigeria, to Imodi-Imosan where he said he was under obligation to offer appeasements to the animist traditions of his grandmother who apparently belonged to an Agemo masquerade affiliated lineage in Imodi-Imosan.

It occurred to me that this quite unlikely event of lives clashing on the improbability that we are linked by whatever degree by the familiar and yet strange coincidence calls for some reflection.

Not forgetting our ordinariness

For, no matter what the enlightenment of travel, exposure and schooling does to us, we are primarily human with the persuasions of the ordinary that goes far back before we existed, in genes that we bear or in the traditions passed down to us to return to the grottos of our ancestry where we take root having branched out literally beyond sight and mind of the roots that give us standing and sway.

The memorials are now in tombstones and fleeting memories, sacrifices and words now to be written on Facebook pages of those dearly departed too. We find imprints in the sands of time, weathered beyond recognition of frequency, but blown back like a leaf to obey the laws of gravity once the breeze settles.

For all the sense of culture we can muster, devoid of superstition and ceremony, we are essentially one step ahead of primitive, bound to things and secrets that rule our minds and decisions to walk into the future whilst keeping a keen eye on the past.

Travel: Denuded by cravat

A principle to keep

I always wish I have nothing to complain about when I am travelling. I appreciate the fact that my standards for travel can be exacting, this is because if leaving my home will not be more comfortable than my being at home, I have no business leaving home.

Once people understand that basic requirement, it is the end of all disputes. Now, my journey to Johannesburg is as circuitous as you can get travelling from Manchester.

Loyalty pays

Manchester is hardly a hub, and whilst budget airlines and charter flights can do point-to-point connections, if you are to travel by scheduled commercial flights, you will probably have to transit through London Heathrow if you are flying the Oneworld fleet that includes British Airways, through Frankfurt on the Star Alliance fleet which includes Lufthansa or either Paris or Amsterdam for the SkyTeam fleet which includes AirFrance or KLM.

My preference is for the SkyTeam because I have a longstanding loyalty scheme with them having lived in the Netherlands and really compared to other fleets, they appear to be much more affordable.

Besides, I believe in loyalty schemes for travel purposes, sticking with SkyTeam meant I had enough miles to fly to India in 2011 and when it comes to hotels, I now use Hotels.com for all my accommodation needs. In the past two years, I have had 5 free nights in various hotels, just keeping with one scheme rather than shopping around for cheap deals and consequently building no custom that could be nicely rewarded.

Stripped of my dignified appearance

However, on getting to Amsterdam after the first leg of my three-leg trip to Johannesburg, the transfer to my Amsterdam–Paris leg required going through passport control and security checks again.

I emptied my pockets, took off my watch, laid out my laptops and took my jacket and hat off, as we all do with the music-less striptease that has become the standard airport passenger routine.

That indignity is hard enough until the security personnel asked that I also take off my cravat. Take of my cravat? Well, the uncultured Philistine called it a scarf. It made me wonder if they were also required to take off their ties when navigating security.

In my 20 or so years of passing through Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, I have never ever been as publicly denuded as I did experience this evening, I was beyond exasperated in disbelief.

So there

I will not want to go into the mind of whoever or whatever informed this new security requirement. I obliged, throwing up my hands in perplexity and collected my things after they had been scanned.

I retired to the lounge licking my wounds, the thought that sanctity of high culture could be so contemned is a reflection of the world we now live in.

There is another 15 hours of travel to go.

Decade Blogs - Kola Akinola - My Friend

Decade Blogs

I have many friends, but Kola Akinola is one friend who in 2014 I would have known for 30 years. That is a generation coming on to a lifetime. The title I have chosen is as much him writing about me as it is my writing about him.

Whilst I guess I still have some secrets; sorry Kola, he probably knows the most about me, said and unsaid, he can read my blog like he is reading my mind, and he knows where all the bodies are.

A well-travelled man, self-effacing and utterly modest, he has proven himself a friend like no other, I cannot think of the number of things I have persuaded him to do or think, that he has done without quibble, ready to listen, ready to help, patient and longsuffering, he humbles me with his contentment and easy, yet wise approach to things.

Through thick and thin, his loyalty has been sure, his has stuck to me closer than a brother, probably been riled for giving me more leeway than I ever deserve, for which I am eternally grateful.

As uncanny as this my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series is, it was a blog that I wrote for him that brought me into friendship with the lady that wrote the blog about taking the leap.

Blog - Birthday greeting to a friend like no other

Blog - Decade Blogs - Monike Charles-Binitie - Taking the leap

Everyone must have a friend, a friend like Kola; grounded, honest, loyal, fighting your corner, loving you despite your flaws and being there when there seems to be nothing left of you, except that you just exist. Kola has been a lot more than that to me and I am so honoured that he allowed himself to be persuaded once again, this time to write to commemorate my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Thank you Kola, for being my very best friend, thank you.

Akin

I have known Akin for over 25 years. We first met in college in Nigeria where we became good friends. I subsequently after college came to the UK and Akin followed a couple of years later.

What can I say about Akin? He is a great friend. He is also generous to a fault. My brother and his wife, my sister and her whole family have stayed in his house, and I on numerous occasions have been beneficiaries of his magnanimity. He has a big heart, always seeing the positives in people. However, that does not mean he is a floor mat as those that have crossed swords with him will know. He is no respecter of persons or positions, and he does not do eye service.

Akin has faced a number of challenges in his life amid his many achievements, some of which he has written about through his blog. However, he has never blamed anyone for those challenging periods and always remained of a positive and optimistic disposition.

Akin is a master of the written word. I have not met anyone else who has a great ability to convey thoughts and opinions into a few paragraphs. I can’t keep away from his blogs and am just amazed at his ability to see things from a perspective that always brings a freshness to any topic or issue he is writing about.

Well done my dear good friend on 10 years of blogging. You have been a blessing to me and dare I say, countless others through your writings and I am privileged of having you as a friend.

Decade Blogs - Annie Emmanuel - Loyal To A Fault And Daring To Do

Decade Blogs

When I first asked Annie Emmanuel to write a blog for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging, she balked at the idea.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Yet, I am someone who believes we all have stories to tell, each story unique and each story significant because every singular experience is part of the life of the person completely distinct and different from others by reason of who that person is, what they have lived through and how it affects them.

A story can be as simple as that, it constitutes the building blocks of a blog.

So, we worked through her reticence, with private conversations on Twitter and eventually a long-distance call from Canada on my birthday that lasted 90 minutes.

I knew she could do it and for someone who hardly every writes, this is an example of someone who has stepped completely out of their comfort zone of presumed inability to do something that shows amazing innate ability that we never really discover of ourselves except through challenge, persuasion and application.

For this alone, I am grateful to Annie for taking up this task and that is before you have read this beautiful piece about loyalties.

Annie writes from Canada. She shares her random thoughts on Twitter with the handle @buddlies4real. I hope you enjoy reading this piece as I did.

Loyal to a ‘fault’

Sitting at my computer, trying to pen my thoughts in celebration of Uncle Akin’s decade of blogging, I grab a glass of hot chocolate, my favourite drink, pull my blinds and watch as the snow falls; I reflect on the series of events that have happened to me in the past couple of months. The issue of loyalty in relationships comes to mind.

I realized those that loved me and were loyal to a fault, they are ready to go the extra mile to ensure I am happy, sometimes do so at their own expense. They would stick out their neck for a friend, no matter what.

Even though I don't appreciate them enough, they are always there for me, loyal to a fault, a virtue I cherish a lot.

While growing up, I remember my mum would always tell my dad to be wary of the level of kindness and love he shows to people. “Very soon, you will give out both of your eyes and you won’t have any to see, then you will become a blind man”, she would say to him.

“You will be led by the hand, with no one offering to spare you any of their eyes”, she’d continue.

I think I inherited that level of kindness. Some people are loyal to a fault, just as my dad was kind and loving to a fault.

In the course of my lessons in life I discovered loyalty as a strong virtue and a strength which everyone would not always possess.

To acquire this virtue, we really need to be conscious of it, make it a part of us, and live it out in our everyday life. That's the only way it can become a part and parcel of us. The same goes for other virtues such as kindness and love.

An incident during my teenage years comes to mind. A friend of mine and myself agreed to excommunicate another ‘friend’ that had offended us both. Alas, while I was away on vacation, she resumed communication with her. When I got back, they had even grown tighter than before. I felt quite bad and as a teenager, I stopped talking to both of them for years! LOL!. Petty, huh? I remember telling my friend off and decrying her lack of loyalty to me.

Looking back at that today, I realize I have probably behaved in a similar way to people that love me and thinking about it makes me feel remorseful.

We cannot pretend to be loyal if it is not part of our daily life. Same way we cannot pretend to be kind and show love if it is not part of us.

Loyalty is like a bond, it could also have social angles.

Parents love kids who are loyal to them, spouses want partners who are loyal to them, the government wants citizens who are loyal to it, and even God wants us to be loyal to Him.

Loyalty is deep and complex. Its terms and conditions represent a covenant.

Though I am not always loyal, I consider myself a work in progress, working at that aspect of my life, something I believe some of us are doing as well.

I cannot tell you how many times, I have gone back and forth, how many conversations I have had with my friends, on this topic.

I have gained a wealth of knowledge and much experience in a variety of areas as a result of having a loyal friend.

I will also want to use this medium to tell my friend that I do love him and appreciate him.

So, is there some relationship between loyalty and love? Well, loyalty is a sense of commitment and dedication while love is a feeling of affection. I believe loyalty, same for love and kindness, needs to be reciprocated, for it not to become a sort of servitude.

I can say that I have experienced loyalty from a loved one. But on the other hand, I am probably guilty of not always being loyal to those that love me.

And if loyalty is not reciprocated, it induces dissatisfaction and fatigue, coupled with elements of deception and being taken for granted.

The good news? Almost anyone can learn Loyalty.

We can learn to be loyal, grow it to become a behaviour.

Loyalty keeps parties together and focused on the same goal.

And sometimes, I ask myself if there’s really any connection between love and loyalty.

If you love someone, does that make you automatically loyal to that individual and vice-versa?

I’m sure I will find an answer soon.

Loyalties - Bringing comfort back to travel

Using loyalties

I have always worked in the premise that there are rewards for loyalty especially when it come travel such that certain considerations go into what airlines I fly with and what hotels I stay in.

There is always a deal somewhere if you’ve done something long enough and been diligent to tot up the points, awards, miles, credits or whatever they might call them.

Hotel deals

For hotels, I frequented those of the Accor hotel chain or the Carlson hotel chain, the former offered very good deals in the UK and Germany, France just seemed to be overpriced compared to what one could get elsewhere, but after acquiring points over time having subscribed to a fee-paying loyalty scheme, the point could be exchanged for vouchers to defray costs.

The Carlson hotel chain offered a better value proposition that included free wireless internet access, discounts to services, late check-outs and points that could count towards hotel costs.

Airline deals

Living in the Netherlands, KLM was the airline of choice; though slightly more expensive accumulating miles of travels of a number of flights in a calendar year bumped you up to an elite status that allowed priority check-in, more baggage allowance, access to business lounges, possibly upgrades where available and much more.

I both acquired enough miles and flights to defray the cost of my trip to India last December that privileged status allowed me to check-in an extra piece of baggage on return.

Telling loss of status

On my last trip, my frequent flyer status had lapsed such that I had to be smarter about how to pack my bags. The weight limit is now set at 23kg because punier men than before handle baggage.

By the time my suitcase was weighed, it came to 25.6kg on the automatic baggage drop system, I then thought I might get it past a check-in attendant but I failed in that quest.

I was asked to move stuff from my suitcase into my hand luggage which was just a few kilogrammes short of the statutory 12kg. Now, I am only allowed one piece of hand luggage, however, if you do put your suits in a suit holder, you are allowed to two pieces of hand luggage just for the fact that one is not expected to pack suits in bag.

So, I moved two books and an external hard disk from the suitcase into my hand luggage and by sheer coincidence, luck or genius, the suitcase weighed exactly 23kg and the hand luggage exactly 12kg – we were good to go.

Other pleasures

I still have the mercy of one last loyalty card, the Privium Plus card which allows iris-scan customs control, access to their business lounge with a variety of drinks, food and snacks and now we are also given priority boarding.

In terms of loyalty, it is good to check what you frequently do and assess who has the scale and scope  - you do not want to use a hotel chain just limited to one country, likewise, it is best to join one of the major airline alliances like SkyTeam, Star Alliance or OneWorld they have more global coverage to exploit your loyalties and reap the benefits.

Incredible India: The Journey

Loyalty pays

My journey to India was wonderful, the morning started easy with the help of a friend who gave me a lift to the airport and his friend helping me ensure that I checked-in properly.

I could understand that many people like good flight deals but I have in most cases tried to build a sense of loyalty to one carrier or retain the services of airlines in the SkyTeam alliance.

I cannot say the alliance has the most exotic airlines but it offers decent global coverage if I do need to travel the globe. Most importantly, you accrue air-miles over a period of time that could come in useful.

Having more or less travelled around Europe a couple of years, I had accumulated just enough air-miles to travel in maximum comfort to New Delhi – basic lesson – loyalty pays.

Between speed and lift

This allowed me to have priority check-in, jump queues at the customs and then decide if I wanted to board early or late.

The aircraft was a 747-400 and somehow the seating plan on the website did not match the reality; I had booked an upper deck window seat towards the back but found that my seat was on the aisle in the front.

The window seat was not occupied, so I changed seats and caught a good view of events air-side.

We were to take-off at 11:00AM but there was a slight delay and a queue of 7 planes in front of us apart from the fact that we were taking the runway furthest from the airport, the taxi seemed to go on interminably.

When we finally took off, I was surprised to read the land speed was just 198mph (319km/h) to lift the jumbo jet off the ground. I had always thought a lot more speed was required.

New Delhi was just about 4058 miles (6530 km) for a journey duration of just less than 7 hours. The food was nice, the service very friendly, I started on the Steve Jobs biography and even got to watch the Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows Part I and almost all of Part II before we ready to land.

We are mosquitoes

The seat could recline to 170 degrees and really it was not as bad people made it out to be though there was a time I looked up and the flight tracking system showed an altitude of 0ft with almost a thousand miles to go, I did not think Boeing aircraft had altitude issues because that reading came up more than once.

As just before we got to India, we had to fill in forms and the cabin had to be fumigated which gave me such serious irritation that I almost coughed my guts out – this is a requirement for all flights arriving in India, I was on the verge of asking for oxygen as I gasped for air, but soon I was fine.

Easy through but waiting long

When we landed, I got a ride to the arrivals gate and by the time I got to baggage retrieval, my luggage was already on the carousel. Stepping out into the arrivals hall, I saw my name but I had to wait another 70 minutes for the other expected passenger before we left the airport.

My hotel is nothing like I have been accustomed to but it will suffice. We are in Incredible India.

The price of loyalty

Loyalties to pay for

In the broad scheme of things we tend to strive to keep certain loyalties and allow others to lapse. I used to gather all sorts of loyalty cards few of which really offered much benefit and one of which I had to pay for to enjoy the benefits.

I used to travel a lot and I tied myself to the Accor brand which features the Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Pullman, and a number of budget brands.

You got points that could be converted to credits apart from other benefits as bargain prices and late check-outs, then a couple of years ago the card was re-launched and we had to shell out twice what we used to pay for the cards without much different in benefits in my view.

I allowed that to lapse, by which time I was already using the loyalty card that gave me deals with Radisson, Park Inn and hotels in the group. I like the late checkout idea, though.

Free agent, firm agency

My supermarket downstairs sometimes throws deals at us but we can only benefit from these bargains if we have our bonus cards to hand. Interestingly, our cards are not personalised but it should not take long for them to link payment cards to loyalty cards and they will know if you have been loitering around the fruit counter or picking up the cheap hosiery.

As much as possible, I travel KLM or in general the SkyTeam Alliance because if I do 25,000 miles of travel or take 15 flights a year, I become an Elite Flying Blue card holder; I can check-in at the business class counters even if I am travelling cattle class, I can jump queues to board the plane; quite convenient, I’ll say.

It was almost a 20 minute walk to the gate that I only met the air hostesses and I was immediately recognised by name – that brings concern.

As a battering ram

Loyalty in some ways begets better service, offers greater rewards and exposes you to good deals. I know I have used my Accor Favourite Guest Card status to demand amends be made to ensure I did not end up spending 4 nights in multiple hotels because they had overbooked the one I originally reserved.

Yes, you can suddenly become driven and then I noticed that when I bought Private Eye and minced pies, yes food at Amsterdam’s Waterstones bookshop, the loyalty points accrued could pay for what I bought but I did not spend points.

The amount of untapped value in cards for different schemes might well be another bubble being created but rarely do you hear that what you have has suddenly appreciated in value not even with an error in your favour.

The race to remain eligible for the perks remains a very serious one.

Electric push-biking in Berlin

Expensive loyalties dispensed of

I have let my Accorhotels card subscription lapse and really I cannot justify that amount spent to retain membership against the benefits one seems to get for EUR 260 a year, there are other loyalty schemes that are free and offer very good deals.

The one advantage I had with the Accor Favourite Guest Card was the late checkout – giving me up to 16:00 hours on the day of departure. The problem with late checkouts is you vegetate rather than attempt to be productive with the time you have before going to the airport.

Novelty bikes and rides

I was out of the hotel by noon, stowed my baggage with the hotel porter and walked up toward Berlin Zoologische Garten when I decided to rent a bicycle instead and arranged to meet up with my friend at Alexanderplatz in the East.

I had the choice of a blood-and-guts pedal bicycle or an electric bicycle, I decided on the novelty of the latter and what a ride it was, by the second stroke the electric motor kicked in and it was a whizz. Berlin has a good few bicycle tracks, it is quite safe to ride without helmets – Tut! Tut!

Met, reclined and visited

We then decided to meet at the Brandenburg Gate, which after going off in some strange direction, I found my bearings enough to get back on course. We met just beside the luxurious Hotel Adlon and the reclined in the tiergarten for about an hour during which we visited the homomonument and the Global Stone Project before going for coffees and blackforest cake in the Moabit area.

It was a pleasant day and on pleasant days one should indeed hire a bicycle, we returned in time to pick up my baggage, checked in early at the counter and had a latte at Starbucks with the utterly creamy carrot cake – not good for the heart at all but wonderful to taste apart from the cream.

Now, I walk through to customs and wait to board my flight back to Amsterdam.

Yar'Adua memorial gathers the wreckers of Nigeria

The Preamble

Sometimes the simple reporting of news of an event contains a bit more than what people observe for their entertainment, so ThisDay reported this event.

One such event took place recently at a memorial lecture in honour of the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the elder brother of the current President of Nigeria, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

I must note that there is a Nigerian parlance used to describe sibling relationships where senior is used instead of the more correct elder and junior is used instead of younger – so as the report states, Shehu was Umaru’s senior brother.

One could almost say someone was out to cause mischief by inviting certain friends of the late Shehu, Tafidan Katsina (traditional title) to that commemoration.

Because that crowd included the erstwhile President General Olusegun Obasanjo, his vice-President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Tony Anenih – that post is now occupied by Obasanjo.

What brings these men together is the fact that Shehu Yar’Adua was in period between 1976 and 1979 the military deputy of Obasanjo and when the seeds of political governance were being sown during the military era, Shehu Yar’Adua was the leader of the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) the precursor to the currently ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Shehu Yar’Adua met an untimely death in jail having been incarcerated by the despotic Sani Abacha regime for insisting the military regime restore democratic institutions.

That gathering was to honour this man and reflect on “The challenges of Nation Building” with the guest of honour being President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Barbs of speech

Whoever created the programme of events was really courting mischief because first of all there was the opening prayer, a staple for any Nigerian gathering which called Anenih to the fore whose prayer included words to the effect – “Thank God for the President we have now. We pray that God will give you the courage, wisdom and political will to clear the rot you inherited from the previous administration.” - The head of the previous administration that held office for 8 years was Obasanjo.

Obasanjo then stepped forward to give a welcome address and said, “Some people stood by the late Tafida in his hour-of-need, while some chose to abandon him.”, referring to times when an Anenih clique clamoured for the despotic regime of Sami Abacha to continue amidst the suffering of Nigerians.

He went on to say, “Yar’Adua unites Nigerians even in death, because here today, there are people who, ordinarily, would not like to sit together,” and “If not for Yar’Adua, those seated here would not be here to talk of corrupting themselves or self aggrandisement.” - Signifying the relationship breakdown between all the men for which each man would have been culpable; the anti-graft agency had set its sights on some of them and none can really show transparently and honestly audited sources of their great wealth.

Then Abubakar had his turn to talk and said, “The late Tafidan Katsina would not use power to terrorise any body”, no doubt a reference to Obasanjo.

Conduct and decorum

In any polite gathering and society, one would expect that when people congregate to honour someone, especially, one who is dead at a memorial lecture, common courtesy would allow for the proceedings to concentrate on honouring the man.

One is ashamed that people who at one time held the reins of power in Great Nigeria and who should have progressed to the status of elder statesmen worthy of their calling and conducting themselves with dignity resorted to intemperate barbs, venting their enmity in public and consumed in malice, spite, rancour, pride and dissimulation.

However, this meeting clearly shows the problems that have plagued Nigeria for decades and they are not off the horizon of pulling Nigerian down into the dregs.

Partnership and loyalty

The first issue that comes to mind is the fact that too many leaders have started projects together for leading Nigeria to some Utopian goal.

Along the line, selfish and vested interests, self-preservation and an unprincipled goal of raping Nigeria and its resources rather than governing Nigeria to a place of world prosperity and power has beclouded the false ideals that brought the people together in the first place.

Loyalty only comes out of corrupting influence, patronage and nepotism, where these are absent there is no unity of purpose, because the core unity of purpose was to gain power and then abuse it.

Obasanjo as much as acknowledged the issue of loyalty, Abubakar highlighted the abuse of partnership and Anenih showed there were great divisions in that project they were all involved in.

Corruption

That is a topic that is already overworked but note the rot that Anenih indicates the government he was part of created, and Obasanjo’s acknowledgement of the malaise of corruption and the gall of people to show up as saintly politicians is no so much a revelation but the way things are.

Power tripping

The abuse of power is no better demonstrated than when some obese buffoon with unaudited sources of wealth bellows at someone else saying, “Do you know who I am?”

By inference, it indicates that the person is willing to terrorise, would employ the means of menace having an army of hoodlums who fall in line to his caprices to take the law into their hands and get away scot free.

They have abridged legal process, appropriated law enforcement and given themselves to the use of litigation to gain undue advantage with legalese that makes Nigeria a fierce jungle of big dog eat small dog, every time - the little man simply has no one to run to for justice, fairness and probity - all the avenues for redress have been clogged up by these power trippers.

These self-same rotten politicians have used every bad rule to retain power, frustrate process, disenfranchise the electorate and allocate Nigerian resources to their own selfish intents. If they fall into areas of leadership that demand the separation of powers, they undermine the other institutions that are supposed to give governance balance and hold each sector of power in check.

There could not have been a worse but also glaringly representative gathering of people who having no maturity should really be in line for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO) beyond which they should be committed to trial for the way they have raped Nigerian and refused to let Nigeria free from their rotten grips so that the country can progress.

Respect

The lack of respect for peers, the lack of manners in formal settings, the lack of respect for authority and the lack of respect for the dead are just some of the atrocious attitudes these horrible men displayed.

To crown it all, when the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria came to address the gathering Obasanjo refused to honour the President by keeping seated.

Someone should have gone to him, pulled him up and thrown him out of the gathering. There is only one President and Commander-in-Chief in Nigeria and all powers or potentates, no matter their previous office must defer to that authority.

It simply shows how Obasanjo handled his office with levity and does not understand the judicious use of power and authority to the greater good, it beggars belief that this man was once in the army because he would not have gotten away with such insurbordination to his military superiors.

Such pride consumes the whole body polity of Nigeria, people cannot defer, they cannot give way, they have to be heard, they have to be melodramatic and they cannot arrive at consensus for the good of the many.

Each has to create their own clique, each has to rival the other for ascendancy and it is all a fight to the finish or the death in many cases.

Expressing disappointment in Obasanjo cannot begin to illustrate my disgust, but that meeting just showed how the challenge of nation building would never be achieved in the lifetimes of these kind of people – It is all a shame, it is.