Quick question. Do you folks ever get funny looks or questions from airport personnel or FAs when making a mileage run? Earlier this year I had the same flight crew on a trip to and from SEA. I came in on a 1:00 pm arrival and flew out that night on the red eye. The FA thought I was nuts. Does security ever ? you when going int'l?

Each time I cleared customs in the U.S. for my Chicago-Singapore mileage runs last month and this month, I got some questions. The agents wondered why I didn't have any bags. I told them what I was doing. They were mostly amused. One of them asked me what the benefit of a mileage run was. Rather than bore him with a lengthy description of the many benefits, I just told him that it was an easy way to get free travel.

The flight attendants who I told were very amused, a little bewildered and a little impressed. If nothing else, it makes for a good story.

By the way, this is my 100th post!!!

PREMEX2000:

What do you consider good value on an Asian mileage run? I assume you went UA. Being out of Detroit area, I make most of my runs on NW and lately the Asia flights haven't been that cheap for the in and out runs you did.

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After 86 flights on TG in 10 days for the Baht Pass, the evolutionary process was suspicion at first, then mental health considerations, then a smile, then quiet laughter, then uncontrolled laughter, then calling over friends to share a ridiculous story about this crazy guy (with wife and kid on some of the flights) who flies for the purpose of flying. It makes me laugh too.

The flight attendants didn't understand when I got off of a US PHL-LAS flight @ 1210a and got back on @1:15a for a return flight. I simply told them I lost all my money!

FOOLISHRUNNER, SIN seems to be the most miles for the least dollars, at least on UA.

winstoda:

If you include immigration with security, I flew LHR-YYZ-LHR on AC and LHR-JFK-LHR on UA on successive weekends a couple of years ago. These were to complete 5 flights on 5 *A carriers for 5 pairs of economy tickets on *A airlines anywhere in the world (SAS Eurobonus).

All were 7-8 hour transatlantic daytime flights, all without baggage, both trips requiring overnight stays at airport hotels.

In Toronto, the immigration guy questioned my short stay and entered 'transit' in my passport. In New York, the immigration guy couldn't care less (I have a US visa). In neither case was I questioned at customs.

Again, arriving back at LHR Terminal 3, nobody was bothered, probably because T3 also has short haul flights. No problems at check-in either.

These weekends were probably my most rewarding ever. Apart from completing my SAS project, I also made 50,000 UA bonus miles on their *A promotion. Even the hotels (both Mariotts) gace me triple KLM points.

Two years ago, my girlfriend (who was Platinum with Holiday Inn) received a mailing for an insane promotion. They were giving 10,000 miles for each flight crossing the US/Canadian border or US/Mexican border from then until the end of that year. I didn't read it until a few days before New Years, so I quickly booked a flight for 2 days before New Years from home(U.S.) to YYZ with a connecting flight to Cancun which connected to the immediate turnaround flight which took me back to ATL and up to YYZ.

For New Year's Eve I planned 7 segs between YYZ and CVG. That morning I almost didn't check in because I was embarrassed about seeing the same people working the desk.

The day went fine going back and forth until the Customs agent noticed my 4 Canadian stamps in 2 days. He picked the worst flight too. It had been delayed out of CVG and there wasn't too much turnaround time. After being questioned by three people I gave up on making the flight. They put me in a room with nobody in it for a while and then some big guy comes in.

In short, I am a suspected drug dealer but after I mention I am doing mileage runs they say "Oh, OK." http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif They ask why and how much it is costing me and I reply that the benefits outweigh the costs to fly back and forth. After a while he takes my passport and in red marker wrote "V30JN1999" Valid til June 30, 1999? 6 month visa?

My flight had obviously left so I stood by for the next one. I now need to mention that my girlfriend came with me to YYZ....but after the day spent going to Canada, back to the States, to Mexico and straight back to Canada, she decided she wasn't going to spend another whole day on an airplane.....now she is converted though http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I made the standby flight to CVG so when I get there I ask to be put on the standby list for the next flight back to YYZ (my confirmed connection had already left). The guy says "There aren't any more."

What!!!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif


My girlfriend's in Canada!!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif


How am I going to get her? Since it was New Years Eve DL was running it as a limited service day. The schedule book didn't show it though so I didn't know.

In the end she made it back to the States. I met her at the plane that night and we went home.

But that sure will be the last time that I ever leave my girlfriend in some strange country! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I think I made over 115,000 miles in those 2 days. If I would have known about that promo earlier, I would have spent my whole holiday up there.

Regarding what's a good deal for a mileage run. I flew to Singapore because it offered the most miles at the best price based on dollars/miles. I've heard before that a good mileage run should not cost you more than 5 cents per mile. That calculation includes all miles that you get, i.e. actual miles and all bonus miles. Because United (which is what I flew) is offering a bevvy of promotions to win back people after the "Summer from Hell", I got triple miles. So my $850 ticket got me roughly 60,000 miles. That comes to, I believe, around 2 cents per mile. That's a good bargain in my book. Don't forget to also consider the value of upgrades you'll earn for flying the actual miles. I will get about $250 worth of North American upgrades for those miles. So, essentially, my ticket cost $600 instead of $850.

I agree that on UA, Singapore is the best value for miles. Next month I will fly a 19,000 mile RT to SIN for about $850, and earn 24,000 miles plus PremExec for 2000 and 2001, worth maybe another 70,000 miles to me. On another thread, Ozstamps asked why I was going to SIN instead of to OZland - here's why. UA charges more per mile to go to Australia than to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

These are UA's E-fares that I received today; note that LAX-MEL (15,840 miles RT) is more than twice LAX-NRT (10,908 miles RT) but offers only 50% more miles.

Chicago (ORD) Auckland (AKL) 1200.00
Los Angeles (LAX) Melbourne (MEL) 965.00
Los Angeles (LAX) Tokyo(NRT) 430.00
New York (JFK) Hong Kong (HKG)675.00
New York (JFK) Tokyo(NRT) 675.00
San Francisco (SFO)Taipei(TPE) 525.00



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"If you want to win the game, write the rules."

I'm about to do a SFO-PVG this weekend ($701 including taxes). I would have done SIN or HKG, but I'm running into problems finding H or V seats on the weekend to those destinations.

Anyone interested in Shanghai for 2 hours this weekend and turn on the same a/c. Plenty of NC seats available for 1K's and 12,302 miles roundtrip (we'll see if I need the visa I'm getting rushed for an extra $100 - oh well, if not, I can use it again next trip if I do PVG again).

Greg

Two years ago on an LAX-YVR mileage run, Canadian Customs basically detained me becasue I:

1) had no bags
2) had no friends to visit
3) had no business meeting
4) had no plan of where to go

1. Doing mileage runs on CO BOS-EWR-DTW-CLE-ATL and back. Flew from CLE-ATL, and then re-boarded back to CLE. The gate agent asked if I didn't just get off, I said yes for the segments, and she rather amusingly said "ain't nothin wrong with that," as she pulled my ticket. The FA thought I got on the wrong plane in CLE. Another time a FA tried to get me a more direct routing with a EWR gate agent, and the agent told the FA I was an elite flyer and I knew exactly what I was doing. I then talked at length about it with the FA, and she was amused.

2. At the MSP world club, they seemed very used to this. "People fly to SFO and then fly right back....I feel sorry for them," was what one agent said. But they seemed very used to the concept.

3. Flew BOS-YUL on DL for about $180 for the 10K intl bonus. Got stopped in customs because I had no luggage, and got sent to a "special area." They asked me where I was going, why I had no luggage, etc. I said I was going to a hotel for the night, and asked why they had sent me out of the regular queue. They said it may have been suspicious that I had no baggage, and they let me go.

Other times nobody (agents) say anything or ask any special questions. I prefer to use the automatic check in machines where available just to avoid any questions or strange looks.

My worst experiences on mileage runs have been :

a) My run-in with Delta's RPU nazis trying to ticket one last week.
b) A NW agent in MSP who mistakenly cancelled my itinerary because I flew standby on an earlier flight.

My best experiences have been :

a) The NW agent at DTW who bumped me up to F just because I was nice to her.
b) The CO F/As who had me on back-to-back-to-back sectors ATL-EWR-CLE-DCA and spent most of the flights chatting with me about the what and why of mileage runs.

The first year I made 1k, I was about 3,400 miles short. I discovered that the cheapest way to get it at the very end of the year was to take advantage of cheap fares from OAK to LAX. Over the course of a weekend, I flew to LAX 6 times. The a/c always turned @ OAK, so by the 5th or 6th time, the agents knew who I was, so they just brought my boarding pass down to me, a couple of times upgraded.

They thought it was a riot.

A friend of mine and I did a r/t to SEL from SFO, and we cleared 2 bottles of wine each on that r/t (No Dom, though).

Customs officials usually just cock an eyebrow and then let me through with no issue.

Greg

flew BWI-LAX-LAS-DEN-BWI in a day. When i arrived at BWI the agents there seemed quite accustomed to the idea of pax going transcon and staying in LAS for maybe one hour then going back...

"Customs officials usually just cock an eyebrow".

I like that one!



[This message has been edited by MolsonMiler (edited 11-23-2000).]

A couple of years ago I did a year-end MHT-LGA mileage run. The a/c turned around, and since it was a half-full 19-passenger Fairchild the whole crew recognized me. They had a good laugh.

Funniest one, though, was SIN-PER RT on QF for the OW continents bonus this past summer. My Australian landing card was a bit out of the ordinary: no address in Australia, duration of visit two and a half hours, purpose "other," and so on. The passport control officer asked me why. I explained. He figured I might be crazy but probably wasn't a security threat, so he let me in. Coming back the other way an hour later, the same fellow saw me from the far end of the passport hall. He waved a newspaper in the air and shouted out "Come on over here, so you don't have to explain it again to someone else!"

Can you imagine a passport control officer in ANY other country doing that?