Now that I’ve wrapped up the 2025 flights, it’s time to do the retrospective! So now, it’s time to take a look back through the year. I use a webapp, BA97.com, to capture all my flights, some of which don’t actually make it onto the blog. In general, these are short flights in economy (such as those within California).
One of my favorite features of the BA97 website is the ability to create and view retrospective summaries. So here is what 2025 looked like for me:
I visited 24 airports over 53 flights and covered just over 94 000 miles across 8 airlines. About 30 of these flights made it onto the blog. I had a lot of work travel this year that doesn’t go on the blog, so these statistics may differ than what you’d expect. The new airports I checked out this year were: Belfast, Chennai, and Oklahoma City. Though Oklahoma City airport barely counts because it was an arrival only.
Of the 29 flights that made it onto the travel blog, 3 were in First Class, 20 were in Business Class, none were in Premium Economy (I should probably fix this lack of Premium Economy flights on the blog), and 6 were in Economy. The scores for the flights ranged from 10/25 for Aer Lingus’ economy flight from Manchester to Dublin and 13/25 for American Airlines’ flight from Charlotte to Oklahoma City to 23/25, which was achieved by 2 flights this year: JFK to SFO in Flagship First Class on American (which I will note also took a top spot in 2024) and LHR to Dublin on British Airways in Club Europe. Another flight came close with 22/25: First Class on British Airways from London to San Francisco.
28 flights is about enough flights on the blog to develop a few statistics to share. The most common score was 18/25 with 6 flights. The mean was 17.1/25 and the median was 17/25. The way that I do my scoring means that a 16/25 is the expected “base” value of everything being “fine”. Examples of flights this year that were just “fine” were my flights from SFO to LAX on Alaska in economy, Belfast to London on British Airways in Club Europe, and Chennai to London on British Airways in Club World.
The fact that the mode is higher than both the mean and the median indicates that although my flights tended to be “slightly better than just fine”, there were some bad flights that pulled down the average score substantially. As is often the case, a lot of the lowest scoring flights in 2025 were economy flights that I don’t have much control over and also don’t go on the blog. Some examples of mean/median flights from this year were Boston to LAX in Flagship First (which really set the tone for 2025 in many ways), Alaska Airlines between SFO and IAD, and JFK to SFO in DeltaOne.
2025 was an odd travel year for me because I didn’t have a ton of flights pre-booked going into the year, but the flights that I was most excited for (even if I didn’t have a ton of time to hype them up in my head) were British Airways First Class from London to San Francisco, the mediocre Boston to LAX in Flagship First I just mentioned (read the article for the story), and SFO to JFK in DeltaOne.
Of the 53 total flights, 29 were in ‘Business Class’, which is a remarkably broad category that includes Domestic First Class, International Business Class, Transcontinental Business Class, and European Business Class. Of these 26, 10 were the result of complimentary upgrades, 5 were upgraded with a certificate, 0 were upgraded with cash, and 5 were on award tickets. So, I only actually paid for Business Class for 6 of these. 2 of which were the extremely cheap upgrade from Richmond to Charlotte to Oklahoma City.
I took 3 flights in true First Class (i.e. on a plane that also offered Business Class): 2 domestic on American Airlines and 1 international on British Airways Airlines. 2 were using miles and the other 1 was the result of my Storm Blair rebooking.
My top airline by sectors was Alaska Airlines at 14 (followed by American Airlines at 13 and Delta at 12). My top airline by distance was British Airways (26 900 miles), which isn’t surprising since I flew them to India and back. Alaska came in at a close second at 25 600 miles, which is impressive since I only flew them domestically (but on a lot of transcontinental flights). All the Oneworld flying meant I was able to keep Oneworld Emerald status but now through American Airlines instead of British Airways.
Last year’s impulsive status match with Delta paid off big time. The upgrade vouchers scored me upgrades on 5 flights this year (i.e. 3 transcontinental flights), as well as 2 complimentary upgrades (even one to DeltaOne on a transcontinental flight). Like in past years, I didn’t fly enough with United to requalify for Premier Silver status directly but rather I retained it via Marriott Titanium Status.
2025 did not come with any new carriers unfortunately, but it was my first time flying Aer Lingus across the Atlantic, and I was very pleasantly surprised by it! Flying British Airways’ First Class was similarly excellent, but my best value flight was definitely my free upgrade to transcontinental DeltaOne, even if I didn’t get to use the lounge at JFK.
As is often the case, my longest flights this year were San Francisco to London, coming in at 5 354 miles, with the flights to/from Chennai coming in a close second. With my 5 longest flights all being with British Airways, it’s no surprise they took the top spot for distance this year. My shortest flight was from Manchester to Dublin, coming in at 164 miles. It’s not like there’s any other quick way to make that journey anyway. Leaving 2025 behind and heading into 2026, I’m hopeful that this year will have some interesting intercontinental flights. In particular, I’m looking forward to going back to Asia and hopefully flying new products (and new airlines!) this year.
Because of all the travel and managing my loyalty accounts, I’ll enter 2026 with the following airline statuses: American Executive Platinum (up from Platinum Pro); Delta Silver (dropped from Platinum); British Airways Silver (dropped from Gold); United Silver (retained).
I’ll also hold the following hotel statuses: Marriott Titanium (retained); Hilton Gold (retained/Amex Platinum perk); IHG Platinum (new Chase Sapphire Reserve card perk).
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