LONDON – The Harry and Meghan drama royally turned up another notch — when they spoiled Operation Adios Avios and burned through all of the Queen’s miles.
The body of Queen Elizabeth II, most famously known as the inspiration for the hit Netflix series The Crown, and a steady stream of memes was transported by train from Scotland to London on Sunday.
But the popular British public relations woman’s casket was originally supposed to travel on a British Airways flight with her family. Those plans hit a snag after Her Majesty’s British Airways Executive Club Avios points were drained by none other than Harry and Megan Markle.
“British Airways normally zeroes out an Executive Club member’s point balance once they pass away,” a British Airways source told The Takeoff Nap. “But we decided to make a one-time exception for the queen, who was once a very prolific traveler. She asked us twenty years ago if she could burn her points on a flight ferrying her casket if she died outside of London.
“’I don’t want to redeem my Avios points on any more damn magazine subscriptions,’ she told us with a snort. So, we agreed. It was hard to say no to the old lady. Especially because she got us pretty sauced before she made the ask. The queen made a fine gin and tonic.”
However, the casket ferry flight — dubbed Operation Adios Avios — was immediately scrubbed on Friday, shortly after Meghan Markle arrived in London.
It seems there weren’t enough Avios points left in Mrs. Elizabeth II’s account to cover the flight.
Ms. Markle apparently used the last of the Queen’s points for a first-class ticket to Heathrow Airport.
The Takeoff Nap learned exclusively from Buckingham Palace and British Airways sources that the reason former Prince Harry wasn’t at Balmoral Castle when his beloved grandmother died was that he was on hold with British Airways trying to score his actress-podcaster-former blogger wife Ms. Markle a super-saver award on a first-class British Airways ticket from Los Angeles to London.
“They’ve been using the Queen’s Avios account like crazy ever since they moved to that cesspool known as ‘California,’” said one of the Buckingham Palace sources. “We don’t know if Her Majesty authorised the traitorous little ginger and that woke woman to leech her points. She had, like, thirty-two million of ‘em or something. But those two buggers used every single one of them on first-class tickets.
“That’s why Harry couldn’t get there before the queen, God rest her soul, passed on Thursday. Her account only had 198,000 points left. A first-class ticket was two hundy. So, Harry had to spend some of his own money and buy an economy ticket and use the miles to upgrade. By the time he got all that figured out, it was too late to say goodbye.”
“But least Megs didn’t have to fly business class or anything lower,” the source sneered. “Oh, the horror.”
Another Buckingham Palace source lamented, “I kept telling Her Majesty to change her frequent flyer account password. It was ‘Corgi12345. Corgis were her favourite dog breed, you know. So, it wouldn’t be hard for someone — like an estranged, ungrateful grandchild and his attention-seeking wife, for example — to access the account and use it for themselves.”
The Takeoff Nap learned the royal family was loathe to spend money on a charter flight — and British Airways wasn’t exactly feeling generous.
“We’re an airline, not a charity,” said Martin Campling, British Airways’ Director of Charitable Endeavors and Royal Relations. “We went above and beyond for the queen when we honored her request not to wipe our her Avios balance. It isn’t our fault those two little [expletives] used her account.”
There’s no word yet on how the Markles plan to afford a trip back home to California.
The Royal Air Force Royal Flight is an undisclosed partner of BA Avios so this story is not so funny. The Queen had to step in and order the RAF not to bomb Russian special military operation forces in the Ukraine because she didn’t want the UK drawn into war despite that those flights would have earned her many more Avios points. This is why the King is so ungrateful, wanting to use those points and even making her a Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Treat when the Queen had an acute leukemia crisis. The Queen’s bruised hands is a sign of that leukemia.
Wow. And I thought I was dark.