Hi all

I have a challenge for all you out there.

Let's say you had 25,000 miles or 30,000 km/points and you could have them on any airline's frequent flyer program.

What is the furtherest distance (as measured by actual miles flown) you could fly with those 25,000 miles - which airline's frequent flyer program and award would get you the furtherest distance? You can choose any program and any city to depart from and any city to arrive at so long as the award permits it. Changing planes is permitted so long as the award permits it.

This is quite a difficult question and I'm sure will test your general knowledge of frequent flyer awards and programs.!

I'll start the ball rolling with Ansett or Qantas's 30,000 point award which will get you up to 11,000 km in a single round Australia loop.

Can anyone do better than that?

cheers Peter

Ok, I know it is 'cheating' but I just can't resist:

I could get THREE LHR-SYD RETURNS as a BA Exec Club member, using the annual 'Shrinks the World' promotion and still have 1,000 miles spare - enough for a LHR - Zurich return which I would use to visit Rudi.

Nick

Hmmm

Additional rule - special promotions excluded - must be a regular award.

cheers peter

This is quite a challenge. It's amazing what I found:

On ElAl's Matmid club you get points instead of miles. Each type of flight credits you with a certain amount of points.

Let's say you fly daily Tel Aviv (TLV) to Larnaca, Cyprus (LCA). This flight credits you with 50 points. The mileage is 207 miles. So after 25,000 miles you have 120 flights (actually 24840 miles), which credits you with 6000 points.

Regular season roundtrip TLV - LAX "costs" 1800 points and the mileage is 8125 miles one way.

This gives you 3 roundtrip tickets TLV-LAX and a total of 48,750 miles!!! ... And you still have 600 Matmid points, which you can spend on a weekend in turkey (500 points, 1402 miles roundtrip).

Grand total = 50,152 miles for the equivalent of 25,000 miles. Quite amazing, isn't it?

Wow...

I hadn't expected that much...


cheers peter

I think the most you can reasonably get -- without going into contortions involved in the above schemes:

CO was offering roundtrip EWR-NRT for 25,000 miles when they first rolled out their service with 777s. No longer offered, I think, but it was a good deal.

Ok Peter, it's still 'cheating', but it's a regular award:

BA Exec Club UK: 1 * LHR-SYD-LHR = 20,000 miles, with the 5,000 left over I would make 5 LHR-Zurich returns to see Rudi!

Nick

I am happy to see you twice Merry (once the promotion way, second time the regular still cheated way)

me too please!

Continental Airlines Roundtrip Coach Award
Travel Area: Within or between the 48 contiguous U.S., Alaska and Canada

Standard Roundtrip (6/01-8/31) 25,000 One Pass Miles
Off-Peak Roundtrip (9/01-5/31) 20,000 One Pass Miles

SFO/FLL (connecting in EWR)
--A valid CO connection!--
[*]SFO/EWR 2565 mi[*]EWR/FLL 1092 mi[*]FLL/EWR 1092 mi[*]EWR/SFO 2565 mi
Total...........7314 mi

[This message has been edited by MRLIMO (edited 07-25-2000).]

St. John's NF (YYT, I think) to LAX on Air Canada/Canadian Airlines. You could conceivably do this on a series of puddle-jumpers right across Canada and then fly YVR-LAX (for instance, YYT-YHZ-YQM-YSJ-YFC-YUL-YYZ-etc. but I suspect that nobody would want to. Instead, it would be YYT-YHZ-YYZ-YVR-LAX and back.

On SK 30.000 EuroBonus points would be enough for this. 2 adults and 1 child from Scandinavia to Longyearbyen on Svalbard. If you start the trip way up in Sweden it would look like this.
KRN-ARN 1138miles roundtrip
ARN-OSL 500miles roundtrip
OSL-LYR 2540miles roundtrip

That would be a total of 4178milesx3=12534miles

I think the farthest origin and destination are Mexico City and Punto Arenas, Chile using 20,000 OnePass miles for COPA and Avant Airlines. Nonstop distance is 5280 mi o/w or 10560 mi. RT. (8500 km o/w or 17,000 km RT) Actual flown mileage MEX-PTY-SCL-PUQ is 5840 one way and 11680 round trip, or 94120 km o/w and 18820 km. RT.

For grins I checked out BOS-Barrow, AK with CO via IAH and found it was 3380 mi. nonstop, or 5572 mi. o/w via IAH and ANC

[This message has been edited by Viajero Joven (edited 07-25-2000).]

Mrlimo:

9 months out of the year, CO would only charge 20,000 for that flight, not 25,000.

Pacific people in the know:

Can you request Cairns-GUM-NRT-SIN as a 20,000 CO Asia/South Pacific award? It looks like 6990 miles one way, 11240 round trip (or 13980 km. one way and 22480 km. round trip).

The 30,000 mile off peak Biz Class reward isn't bad.