The EU/UK261 schemes don't work that well. Many delays in Europe are due to weather, French ATC strikes, ATC scheduling, ATC IT failures etc - all considered to be beyond airlines' control. They also only kick-in if the arrival is more than three hours late - not much use for an over-and-back bus...

I have about 50000 QF credits, from 30 years of heavy travel, mostly favouring QF and OneWorld (almost 100% in the earlier years), attaining Platinum in many of those years.Once I attained Lifetime Gold, 20 years ago, I figured that Lifetime Platinum was unrealistic and instead, once I had attain...