I almost made SE last year, missed by 10K Q points, however, would have made it if they had not increased the qualifying to 100K.

I have always wondered if there is somewhere I could call and pleasd my case?

all comments welcome.

1D

It's already June...

My comment would be to pay attention to what you have all the time. Then do mileage run in December if necessary to ensure you are not in a situation like you are in now.

If you usually fly expensive international routes... Air Canada might consider upgrade you for this reason.

Thanks, that's some good advice. I just discovered the board so I thought I would ask.

I attempted a December run, YVR-YYZ, YVR-YYC, YVR-YXY, still came up short.

Another suggestion is to work out the travel schedule for the remainder of the year if possible, if you think you are short, you might want to do some mileage run now especially LHR is usually on every week's websaver, I am quite sure they will be gone when summer comes around and most likely won't be around in December as well.

Doing domestic flights for mileage run is really ineffective considering that you need to at least upgrade yourself to get more than 50% Q miles.

Yeah... the best way to run, other than MHD, is to go East.

Economy seats to HKG and TPE are going around $1200-1500 for 18,000 miles.

It's even faster with upgrade and status...

Economy seats to HKG and TPE are going around $1200-1500 for 18,000 miles.

Not anymore, AC raised the price to Asia. Unless you fly in the low low season (Oct, Nov), then you can get a HKG ticket for $1500. It's going for $1800 now for shoulder season and $2025 for high season buying from travel agent while AC is charging $600 more for the same ticket.

If you want to get all those miles at once and for a low price, I would suggest go fly on UA to SIN and then turnaround (since you are not a SE yet so no worry about being able to upgrade on AC), easy 20K Q miles for $1100 CAD with all those $100 off coupons floating around.

I have flights YVR-YYZ and frequently YVR-YEG via YYC (of course). Always Y or MOW, with u/g cert.

How can I squeeze more miles out of these frequent trips?

1D

Addendum to the above idea: If you have a Mastercard, book and buy on the UAL Canadian site. There is a 10k booking bonus in addition to the normal 1-2k (12k in all) for online reservations and purchases for tickets purchased by 25 June and paid using MC. If you buy 2 mileage runs to SIN (can complete travel through April 2002), you'll get over 20k in booking bonuses in addition to the flight miles and bonuses.

But you don't get those bonuses on Aeroplan, only Mileage Plus. But the crux of the issue is that for someone doing domestic travel, SE is very hard to attain without a couple of international trips to boost your total. A couple of trips in full J during the current promotion will certainly help you along. But it is too late to do this as a MHD, so the cost will be quite high.

If the objective of the mileage run is to make SE and also keep the cost low, then I would think that using UA to Asia is the best possible way to do so, put the points into your AC account and you'll still be getting those threshold bonuses at the same time.

jakpot: As Shareholder mentioned, it's really hard to make SE if you are a primary domestic flyer. However, as we discussed earlier in the year, it seems that the design of the Elite program seems sufficient for domestic flyers. However, it depends how much flying you have from now to July 10, you might want to consider paying the couple extra hundred dollars for J class now as you'll get 200% Q miles. Other than that, I don't think there's really any way to get more miles from those trips that you mentioned that you frequent.

I agree that it is quite diffucult to attain SE flying domestic only. I do go YVR-YEG return about once a week, always route through Calgary, usually get 2000 Q a week, or if I use u/g cert 2500 Q. This acheived Elite by end of March. Combined with some YYZ, YXY and SFO activity has me at 55K Q for 2001.

U/g to J for long haul to YYZ next week will go a long way towrds SE, I suppose, might have to break down and L class it to LHR for a weekend a couple of times to round it out.

I notice that midweek YVR-MEX-YYZ-MEX-YVR is cheaper than midweek Y Class YVR-YYZ-YVR today.

1D

jakpot: With the travel pattern that you described for yourself, I really don't know if you should be concerned about whether you'll make SE for next year. You are already at 55K for the year and there are still 6 months left to go. Since you are doing YVR-YEG once a week on Y fare, then that's 2000 Q miles per week and there are 30 weeks left on the year, that will give you more than enough for SE next year.

Since you said you always travel on Y/M class, I would suggest that you spend the money to top it up to buy J class from now til July 10 instead of going on any form of mileage run. For YVR-YYZ roundtrip, the difference between J & Y class is only $500 and you get 8312 in J class compared to 5611 in Y class under the current promotion.

Thanks Empress,

Although I go YVR-YEG each week, that pattern will likely change soon as a result of business. My concern is maximizing what I know I will travel in the short term.

I will take your advice and cough up the 500$ to get the J Class to YYZ.

What are the websavers to LHR going for these days?

1D


QUOTE]Originally posted by Empress:
jakpot: With the travel pattern that you described for yourself, I really don't know if you should be concerned about whether you'll make SE for next year. You are already at 55K for the year and there are still 6 months left to go. Since you are doing YVR-YEG once a week on Y fare, then that's 2000 Q miles per week and there are 30 weeks left on the year, that will give you more than enough for SE next year.

Since you said you always travel on Y/M class, I would suggest that you spend the money to top it up to buy J class from now til July 10 instead of going on any form of mileage run. For YVR-YYZ roundtrip, the difference between J & Y class is only $500 and you get 8312 in J class compared to 5611 in Y class under the current promotion.[/QUOTE]

Websaver to LHR usually goes for around $475 from YUL, YOW, YHZ and around $630 from YYC, YEG & YVR. There are no minimum stay requirement so you can go one day and return the next.