Taking a flight to nowhere: My limited experience with mileage running

I’ve already been told that I’m crazy for doing this by almost everyone I’ve spoken to, so I don’t expect many of you to understand, but I’ll build my defense and see if I can’t change some minds in the process.

First, a little backstory. I travel a good deal for work. Usually about once a month I’m off to Phoenix or Puerto Rico (or a one off destination) for a few days to a week. I’m very lucky that all my destinations are served by American Airlines/US Airways. As a result I was able to achieve platinum status on American, which has some great perks. This year I mapped out my travel (both for work and leisure), and what airlines I would likely  be flying. For the most part it would remain American, with a few exceptions. The website MileCalc is really good for this, especially being able to add in many flights worth of data using the complex itinerary function (you just have to know the airport codes). Based on the numbers I realized that I would be within reach of Executive Platinum status if I added a some milage runs.

A milage run is when one takes a trip not to reach a destination, but rather to gain a predetermined number of miles at a target price (measured in cents per mile), on elite qualifying miles (EQM) which is what American uses to determine their loyalty tiers. To qualify for executive platinum one has to collect 100k miles (actual miles flown, not credit card miles, or bonus based on class of service), 100k points (based on miles flown and fare class), or 120 flight segments. I knew that I wouldn’t make it based on segments (don’t fly that often), or points (usually book in low fare classes which only earn 1/2 point per mile flown), so it had to be miles.

So why the motivation to get to executive platinum? For starters, higher status means more likely to be upgraded (which is pretty nice when you’re flying a few times per month), especially since it also comes with unlimited auto-upgrades. The second benefit are eight system wide upgrades (SWUs), which allow you to upgrade a class of service at the time of booking (which can be used internationally) as opposed to having to wait until right before the flight to upgrade. And the final reason is not a perk per se, but by getting to exec plat I would amass enough miles to use them to pay for business class tickets for K and I’s honeymoon next year.

Based on the benefits above, I calculated a value to all of them (plane tickets were easy, upgrades less so). Based on that number, I had a target, figure out if I could make it to that level of status without exceeding that dollar figure. My first first task was to calculate exactly how many miles I would need, and then start searching for fare deals which would give me a good CPM. Long haul flights on off days/off season and are on sale fit the bill perfectly. By trolling several sites/blogs/forums I was able to find two which fit my needs very well. An April trip to Hong Kong, and an October trip to Jakarta. Error fares are also great for low cost miles, but can be difficult to book. For example there was a recent round trip business class fare from DC to Beijing for under $450, not exactly something you see every day…

So, with all that said, the Wednesday before easter I packed a carry-on with two changes of clothes and set my alarm for early the next morning…

Trip report will be coming soon!

Cheers

-N