Well, as of today I have earned just over 50K AA miles by purchasing Kellogg's products. The thing I'm proudest to report, though, is that my total net cost for the 50K miles will be -- ready?...

About SIXTY DOLLARS. That's .0012 per mile! Yes, you read that right -- just over 1/10 of a cent per mile.

Wanna know how I did it?

Every single box was purchased 1) on sale and 2) using manufacturers' coupons. Plus, most of my receipts were sent in to eSave.com for rebates, which allows multiple rebates as long as you generate a new "shopping list" for each one. Here's the breakdown -

Before the double certificates came out, I got 5500 miles as follows:

4000 from 40 boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats. These had $1 off coupons printed on the box. Von's supermarkets, which doubles coupons, had the cereal on sale for $2/box, making the cereal free. I bought the first 4 boxes using coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled). All the rest of the boxes were free, using the coupons off the boxes. Net cost was $2.

800 from two 4-packs of Kellogg's Nutrigrain Twists. Purchased at Costco with the 2-for-1 coupon for $6.99. These were my most expensive miles per dollar -- I quickly learned to do better.

500 from 5 boxes of Kellogg's Pastry Swirls. I bought six boxes on sale at Ralph's for $1.69 each, less coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled) making the cost .69 each x 6 = $4.14 - 3 rebates of $1 through eSave = $1.14 net and one certificate left over.

When the double certificates became available, I really kicked into high gear:

3000 from 15 boxes of Kellogg's Pastry Swirls, using the same coupons and rebates as above. After rebates, net cost for the additional 14 boxes (remember, I had one left over from the earlier "campaign") was $2.66.

42000 from 210 boxes of Kellogg's All Bran, Extra Fiber All Bran, Complete Oat Bran Flakes and Complete Wheat Bran Flakes. These have been on sale for the past 3 or 4 weeks at Von's for $1.66 per box. I used coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled) for about 110 boxes and $1.25 off 2 (which doubled to $2.25 because of Von's doubling restrictions) for the other 100 boxes. I sent in 35 rebates to sSave for $2.50 per 6 boxes. Net cost for 210 boxes = ~$38.60.

I spent less than $10 on handling fees for the coupons and double certificates, which I got from the trading boards at MyCoupons.com. (I also traded a $25 gift certificate, which I had received as a gift and was never going to use, for 25 of the double certificates, but didn't end up using ten of them. I didn't count the gift certificate in my cost breakdown.)

I donated about 250 boxes of various Kellogg's cereals and about 15 boxes of Pop-Tarts Pastry Swirls to my local Food Bank. I will have to do some research to see if I can write these donations off at market value, since my cost basis was far less than that, but that will just be gravy anyway.

I earned UA miles for all purchases through Von's and WebMiles for all purchases through Ralph's (tied to their store cards). I also charged everything to my Delta SkyMiles Amex, so I earned double Delta miles on the purchases. (Of course, there was so little out of pocket that this is fairly insignificant.)

The 50K miles will bring both my husband's and my AA accounts up to the 40K level (my account started at about 7500 miles and his started at about 22500 miles). My initial goal was 25K for each of us, but the double miles certificates caused me to go for the higher level.

Would I do this again? Possibly, if only to be able to donate that much food to the Food Bank! It was a lot of work, though, because both Von's and Ralph's only allow you to use three identical coupons per shopping trip. This represents a LOT of trips to the supermarket, buying 6 boxes of cereal at a time (using 3 coupons, each good for 2 boxes).

I must say I am relieved to be done. I have gained a new respect for "Pudding Guy."

Congrats Cereal Girl.

What's the next food group: Soup Miles!

CerealGirl,

Will you marry me? You gotta love a woman who is obsessed with mileage!



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[This message has been edited by MileageAddict (edited 04-14-2001).]

I am just amazed! Congratulations. They made it much harder to do this, compared to the Healthy Choice promotion.

Unfortunately they don't do double coupons here in the Bay Area, but you did well. And probably made some charities very happy.

Well Cereal Girl meet the TWISTS GUY. I just finished cutting out 500 vouchers from the Costco boxes myself. After the double Publix coupons net cost .007 cents per mile,one sore back, and a lot of happy homeless people.

You go "free101" girl! That's a remarkable amount of airline miles for the monies spent, you are an inspiration to all.

Cereal Girl,
You have done the most amazing tracking of your purchases and miles. I was able to catch the Shredded Mini Wheats on sale at Ralphs weeks ago. I ended up with 50 boxes and had to stop as all five of my local stores ran out.I too donated the cereal to a local food bank. I, obviously was not the only one in town up on this deal. I don't think anyone will come close to what you have achieve. My hat is off to you! You go girl!

I like your style!

Where did you see the Kellogg's promotion?

I would be more than happy to do some additional giving to the foodbanks (although I don't think I could get my company to do a "matching gift" for it).

Well done, CerealGirl. I did about 30,000 miles worth, half for me and half for my mother-in-law's account, and it was a project. I was relieved when it was over, although I still keep my eye open for real bargains like the $2/box deal with Vons and Ralphs with doubled coupons. The food bank never tired of getting more cereal from me. I even took the Eet & Ern codes from inside the 20 oz boxes and sent them to Library Dragon, whose school uses the codes to purchase items for the school. The food bank said they'd take the cereal sans boxes, so that helped. And, finally, I put all the boxes in the recycling bin on garbage day (took two weeks to get them all in).
Now, if all my miles would post. None of my mom-in-law's have posted (I sent them in 4 separate batches). And fewer than half of mine have posted, although it's been 8 weeks already.

oops!
Newbie that I am, I should've looked through the AA posts, but I usually don't fly them and when I saw this, I was just too excited!

Excuse my overzealousness:-)

The girle with the "Most".

Ralph's at Lakewood and Galatin in Downey has the Mini Wheats with the 100 point AA certs again. I too worn out to do much more of this so go for it you people in SoCA,

While Pudding Guy's caper brought more miles, this coup is noteworthy for the cost of the points. Pro-rating the $60 to the $2300 (net) that P/G spent, this arrangement would have brought almost 2 million points. And if you compare it to the $3100 (gross) it would have brought over 2.5 million points.

Amazing!

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. It was certainly a fun challenge, at least until the end. I was starting to get sick of the sight of cereal.

Ken hAAmer's analysis is interesting (and rather flattering) but I'm not sure how viable a 1-million-mile goal would be with my methods.

First, keep in mind that I could only buy 6 boxes per shopping trip. This necessitated multiple drives around the "circuit" of five Von's stores in my area and/or multiple daily trips to the Von's near my home. (Of course, it would go almost twice as fast if you could recruit a spouse or friend to go on the shopping trips with you, since he/she could ALSO purchase 6 boxes each time, but my husband balked, and I can't say I blame him!)

There is the problem of the cereals being out of stock, particularly on weekends when supplies are not replenished (though I learned to get rain checks when the shelves are bare, and someday when the cereal is no longer on sale I may use those).

There was also time involved in acquiring the coupons and double miles certificates, not to mention pre-registering each "shopping list" with eSave.com and then sending in all the rebates.

The upshot is, it would require a significant expenditure of time and effort to get even a half-million miles with my method. It certainly would not be impossible, but earning miles this "cheaply" is also very labor-intensive.

As it is, I would guess that I've invested about 80 hours in this escapade. The hourly "pay" isn't even close to my consulting rates. But I've enjoyed the challenge. (Indeed, I have a sinking feeling I'm going to be doing this again, after I take a few days' break. It's like an addiction now.)

Still, if someone out there has the time to try getting 1 million miles with my methods, I say more power to you! :-)

Kelloggs reports they are extending this promotion until November, 2002. If there are any more doubling opportunities, I may just try to make the million mile mark between now and then. That is as long as AAdvantage still allows bonus miles to be counted towards the lifetime million mile status. 350,000 down, 650,000 to go.