Team,

I fully recognize that someone will probably flame me for this post, but given my noobness (new word?) I am hoping to be cut some slack.

I have never done a mileage run, but would be interested in your opinions on the best and most economical way for me to earn back my platinum status with AA. Also, is it even realistic to think Executive Platinum would be attainable if I had some serious flexibility regarding time before the end of the year? I had platinum status up until this last year where I did all of my travelling via RV and basically gave back my status.

Right now I only have 12,340 qualifying points/12,819 qualifying miles. Additionally I have 18 qualifying segments YTD.

To reach platinum I need 42 segments or 37181 qualifying miles.

I am based out of Dallas, TX. I could care less where I go as long as it helps me reach my stated goal. I would prefer to travel in 1 day or 2 day segments as I do have a family that I am responsible for.

Every weekend through the end of the year as well as most Mondays and Fridays are available. I hate to be so vague, but again I have serious flexibility to even travel mid-week should a great deal be available.

My budget would be around $2-3K with the obvious goal of going as low as possible with my expenditures.

Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions on how to accomplish this most efficiently it would be appreciated. Am I crazy to think platinum or even executive platinum is attainable given that I have so little points accumulated YTD?

Thank you in advance for all your help.

Good luck w/ your quest and welcome to FT. Have you tried farecompare yet? You can punch in DFW and see what kind of deals pop up.

http://www.farecompare.com/maps/compareDestinations.html?departure=DFW

Also there's a section on their site that lets you sort by PPM, carrier and destination and it might help too.

http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html?departure=lax

You should read the sticky (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=702660) and the wiki (http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Challenge) on Platinum Challenge. Good luck.

Hi & welcome to FT. I'd like to encourage you to press on to getting your AA Plat status back. I live in SAN and fly UA, so my experiences and limited expertise do not match your needs. But I think if you are serious you should be able to reach your goal. Certainly you need to study the sticky posts at the top of this forum. I have constructed and taken 3 MRs based on the lessons learned here. Even as a new guy to MRs, I have been able to get around 3cpm runs, sometimes even less. Since you only need 37171 miles before you hit 50k. If these were flown at 3cpm it would only cost $1115. Even if you flew them at 6cpm, it would only cost $2230.
As noted, I am not an AA pro, but I suggest that you can be your own best TA. Download Flying Fish and CoMETS and these tools will help simplify your quest. (Simply search FT for the links). Learn to use ITA and farecompare. All thoroughly discussed and dissected in the sticky posts.
Good flying my friend....

another option is to just can the 12k you have and book 50k in Jan and Feb. Then you will have Plat status til mar 2010 ;) BTW welcome to flyertalk

Just out of curiosity, why are you so interested in status if your flying is quite limited, as indicated by your YTD EQMs?
Welcome to FT, by the way!

Just out of curiosity, why are you so interested in status if your flying is quite limited, as indicated by your YTD EQMs?
Welcome to FT, by the way!
I only flew less this past year. In previous years I would always reach platinum, but executive platinum had always seemed out of reach due to the shorter nature of the flights I take.

I lost my status this year because I took a year off from flying in my sales territory to take my family with me via an RV. We now just had our second child and we don't feel comfortable taking the family now in case she needed to be taken to a hospital/etc.

In light of this I will now be switching back to air travel and was looking for advice on the fastest and most economical way to quickly ratchet this back up. I have read just enough of the pages here to be dangerous and was hoping to see if anyone here had better suggestions given my novice nature at this point.

P.S. My sales territory is New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Kansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.

10 rt's to any place in you're territory will get you the pts to satisfy the challenge.....good luck

Anything other than a Challenge will truly be throwing good money after bad. What travel do you have slated over the next, say, 6 months? Your current status is still valid for travel between now and the end of Feb., and even if you momentarily dip before regaining status, from a $$$ perspective, you will come out better. Timing things right, you can go from 0 to Plat in 48 hours.

another option is to just can the 12k you have and book 50k in Jan and Feb. Then you will have Plat status til mar 2010 ;) BTW welcome to flyertalk

Can't agree more. Requal in Jan and Feb, even if only partially, and get 2 years out of it.

Also, use a 3rd party booking tool for your business flights, like travelocity. Travelocity and others will put together 2 cheap one ways, where most (all?) airline sites won't.

I once flew LAS-ATL-ORD and ORD-CVG-DTW to get home from LAS, all to get the miles necessary to qual my first time as Gold. Those 2 O/Ws were cheaper than what airline sites were coming up with for LAS-DTW.

another option is to just can the 12k you have and book 50k in Jan and Feb. Then you will have Plat status til mar 2010 ;) BTW welcome to flyertalk

If you wait til Jan or Feb of 2008, your platinum status would only be til March 2009. As stated by many above the Plat Challenge sounds like your best bet if you can free up some time in a 90 day period. Good luck.

If you wait til Jan or Feb of 2008, your platinum status would only be til March 2009. As stated by many above the Plat Challenge sounds like your best bet if you can free up some time in a 90 day period. Good luck.

Not true. Jan and Feb 2008 mileage counts for tally for 2008 year. As such, official status is granted Feb 2009, good thru Feb 2010. However, AA gives it to you early, as soon as you qualify for it, which in this case would be a full extra year.

Not true. Jan and Feb 2008 mileage counts for tally for 2008 year. As such, official status is granted Feb 2009, good thru Feb 2010. However, AA gives it to you early, as soon as you qualify for it, which in this case would be a full extra year. Plus If OP put his mind to getting that 50k on say 6 MRs, he might even get to top tier by the end of the year on his regular biz trips. ^ PS I dont just talk the talk, I'm doing 100k in jan and feb on UA.

37K is doable this year but is it worth it? Only you can tell if PLAT benefits are worth the $ and being away from family for several weekends. I am not an expert mr but here are some suggestions. If you are going to do it, you could do at least 4 flights before November 15 to twice do the fly 2, get 1 (25k) from DFW. You may even be able to do two of these roundtrips in a day - 4 in a weekend. The 50k bonus for doing the promotion twice won't count toward qualifying but still a good deal. With the 4 West Coast trips and three weekend trips to Europe, you wll have your 37k.

Anything other than a Challenge will truly be throwing good money after bad. What travel do you have slated over the next, say, 6 months? Your current status is still valid for travel between now and the end of Feb., and even if you momentarily dip before regaining status, from a $$$ perspective, you will come out better. Timing things right, you can go from 0 to Plat in 48 hours.

~my dream, man, my dream.

at the OP: ah, sorry, i have no advices to offer (being another noobie myself) other than "dont try to get your status by segments";

That being said good luck and good MRs. From noob to noob. :p

To everyone who has replied I thank you.

It looks as if I should hold off on killing myself flight-wise until 2008. I can easily hit a platinum challenge then and it would seem to last the longest if I do it that way.

I must admit that learning the most economical and quick way to earn mega-miles is not an overnight thing for me. It actually is making me feel a bit dense. I am having a hard time finding good MR opportunities with AA out of DFW which is my home airport. I would love to be able to hit EXP, but my segments/mileage will never be enough to qualify without doing some serious MRs.

Anyhow, I really do appreciate the constructive feedback and will do my best to use the search function here to eventually get up to speed on how to best maximize my mileage. (I am pacing > 300K miles per year, but most of that is AAdvantage Dining, Hotel, and credit card miles.)

Timing things right, you can go from 0 to Plat in 48 hours.

From personal experience, I know this to be do-able. You feel like you live on a plane for two days, (well, because you pretty much live on a plane for two days) but it's possible.

To everyone who has replied I thank you.

It looks as if I should hold off on killing myself flight-wise until 2008. I can easily hit a platinum challenge then and it would seem to last the longest if I do it that way.

I must admit that learning the most economical and quick way to earn mega-miles is not an overnight thing for me. It actually is making me feel a bit dense. I am having a hard time finding good MR opportunities with AA out of DFW which is my home airport. I would love to be able to hit EXP, but my segments/mileage will never be enough to qualify without doing some serious MRs.

Anyhow, I really do appreciate the constructive feedback and will do my best to use the search function here to eventually get up to speed on how to best maximize my mileage. (I am pacing > 300K miles per year, but most of that is AAdvantage Dining, Hotel, and credit card miles.) And, you probably wont find any decent MR's out of DFW. So take a cheap flight to somewhere that has good MR opportunities, where AA doesnt have a stonghold, and start your MR's there. A-B (1st ticket) B-C-D-C-B (second ticket) B-A (first ticket) ;) Best of luck Giggy

I have to agree with Viajero Joven. Why spend the money and time unnecessarily? If you are going to be flying as much as you say, you'd earn the status in due course anyway.

The only thing I might try is call AAdvantage Customer Service and see if you qualify to enroll in Platinum Challenge. If you do, you only need earn 10K elite qualifying points in 90 days. At right fare that means flying 10k miles, but at cheapest fares could mean up to 20k flown miles, so something to watch for. You can start your challenge on the 1st or 16th of any month. It may be better to start it on or after 1/1, because then your earned status lasts longer. I am no expert, so please double-check all this.