It's That Time Of The Year... For Mileage Runs

Ahh, December. The holiday season. Crowded stores. Getting annual cards from strangers, acquaintances and friends. Sending out your own cards to the same people. And mileage runs. What's a girl to do if it is late in the year and you have flown 41, 508 40,508 miles (on American Airlines) so far but Platinum Status only is given to people who fly 50,000 miles per year? The solution is a "mileage run," which is a trip taken solely for the purpose of earning enough miles to get to the desired frequent flyer level.

Mad Professah has done mileage runs before but in recent years (i.e. post 9/11) since the air travel experience has so profoundly deteriorated while (thanks to the stunning price increase in crude oil) air fares have continued to increase the issue has not come up. However, in 2006, after a trip to Havana, Cuba and San Juan, Puerto Rico all on American Airlines as well as at least four transcontinental flights, LAX to EWR (Newark, NJ) twice and LAX to DCA (Washington, DC) twice I find myself in the dilemma. Also, with inceasingly sophisticated airline websites and looser booking restrictions (No Saturday night stay required, 7 day advance purchase instead of 14- or 21- day advance) mileage runs have started to look more attarctive and be more do-able. And so I was faced with the question: To whore for miles or not whore for miles?

Hell, yeah.

Well, the decision has been made. Tomorrow I'm off to New York City (LAX to JFK, 2475 miles each way, 4950 total) for four days/three nights to spend time with the other half and then on Tuesday I'm off to Atlanta, ostensibly to visit my brand new nephew, but it's all about the frequent flyer miles! The miles accrued from LAX to ATL while routing through ORD (Chicago O'Hare) adds up to 4692 miles which, for a grand total of 51,150 50,150 miles flown for the year. Technically, these trips are not really mileage runs, although when doing the math of "is it worth $272.60 to go to New York next week" the value of the extra miles is decidedly an important factor.

By reaching 50, 000 miles this year and earning Platinum status, for every mile I fly on American in 2007 I will earn two frequent flyer miles. I generally fly to the East Coast 4 times a year, so if I continue flying at that rate (plus I intend to go to Cuba again next summer and Buenos Aires again next year) I will earn enough for at least one free domestic (and possibly international) ticket. Before you consider a mileage run you should think about whether the benefit you will gain will outweigh the costs. In my view, I have met this standard, even though I will be travelling nearly 10, 000 miles in an 11 day period to do so.

If you would like assistance in planning your mileage runs, I recommend checking out the weekly e-fares portion of your favorite airline website, as well as the Dream Maps section of Yahoo! Travel. Two other useful resources are WebFlyer.com and FlyerTalk.com which are for more hard-core (some might say obsessive) mileage runners but they have useful tools (like putting in airport anmes and calculating distances between them) as well as very active online forums and messageboards.