MilesBuzz! - Your biggest mileage "steal"

Im just wondering what the most bonus miles you earned for flights. I flew the USAirways Shuttle LGA-DCA-LGA this year and flew 428 miles, I earned 6,000 with teh online booking bonuses and the tripple shuttle miles. Meaning I earned a little over 14 times what I flew, not bad for a Dirt Divident Miles member http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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DC-10's Forever!

The NW FFF2 promo saw me travel 5377 miles YEG-MCO in July '02 and wound up banking approx 25,000 WP miles or just under 5 times what I flew. Not bad ratio.

Through a fortuitous alignment of various specials, bonuses, etc: 28,xxx one-way, 55,xxx RT on a $350 non-stop domestic.

That's about 0.63 cents/mile

[This message has been edited by RichS (edited 12-28-2002).]

On Jan. 3 I will be flying Port Angeles to Seattle to Portland and back on the 5th on AS/Horizon Air. Distance approx. 300 miles

I'll receive 7,293. If I was MVP Gold instead on MVP I would get 8,293.

Not bad for a 300 mile trip


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"A day without Points is like a day without SUNSHINE"

If you're just looking for mulitples, I've received the old 750 minimum for the 23 mile, 8 minute hop over Lake Champlain.

LAX-SNA: 38 flight miles = 500 minimum miles, 500 EXP bonus, 500 online purchase bonus. 1,500 total miles for 38 flight miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Nah, I think the fair way is $$ per mile earned.

No fair deducting vouchers, and no fair counting "mistakes" like that $20 BA deal. Only cash value of a correctly published fare. Bonus miles including the 100% bonuses post-9/11, status bonus, or promotions count.

Personal record - TPE mileage run in which $$/mile came in at 0.89 cents/mile.

[This message has been edited by Plato90s (edited 12-28-2002).]

I would have to say the best "steal" was due to a little special AA was running in the summer of 2001. Fly 4 segments and get a 2500 mile bonus, 6 segments gets a 5000 mile bonus, 8 segments gets 7500 mile bonus, and finally 10 segments got a 10000 mile bonus.

So, for $110.00 each, I bought 4 PHX-LAX-SAN-LAX-PHX round trips. 370 to LAX, and 109 from SAN. Minimum 500 each leg, plus PLT 100% bonus, plus 1000 miles booking online, plus the above mentioned special they were running.

For 4 roundtrips, I travelled 3832 actual miles, but racked up 45000 miles, all for $440... which works out to $0.0097 per mile.

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preez mine da pratform gahp.

My personal favourite is still the LH Airrail available until end of march this year...using all available promos this one yielded up to 29000 miles (5000 of the counting for status) for a round-trip train-ride from FRA to ZWS (Stuttgart) at a cost of 139 Euro...comes to 0,48Ect per mile (2,7Ect per status-mile)...

Greetings - Dirk

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by onedog:
LAX-SNA: 38 flight miles = 500 minimum miles, 500 EXP bonus, 500 online purchase bonus. 1,500 total miles for 38 flight miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif</font>

I thought it was 36 miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif But your right, 1500 total miles for that flight is a great bonus to flight miles ratio.

Way back in 1976 or 1977 there was an Air Canada Aeroplan promotion. I was barely a teenager, and had to fly YYZ-YUL to pick up a Christmas present in Montreal and bring it back to Toronto.

The mileage was something like 350 for that route but AC gave 20,000! And my airfare was paid for by a relativeto boot. If they paid $200, and it might have been $136 it works out to 0.005 cents.

My first mileage run, and I didn't know it.

At the height of the post-9/11 mess I bought a o/w DL bizclass BOM-FRA-JFK for US$1,500 (such a deal) with a layover in FRA and got the following (in round numbers):
-- Base miles 7,900
-- Double for BOM-JFK: 7,900
-- Double miles PM: 7,900
-- DL Amex purchase: 1,500
-- DL Amex double miles: 1,500
-- Class of service: 1,975
-- Web ticket bonus 1,000
TOTAL 29675

I think there was some other bonus, because my recollection is that I ended up with 31,000 miles. In any case, it was enough for a free domestic ticket with a few miles left over. Total cost: about 5 cents per mile.

similar to onedog's short hop:
LAX-ONT 500 miles minimum, 500 miles 1K bonus, 500 miles UA double miles promo (for me it was Oct-Dec) 500 miles on- line purchase and 500 miles Easy Check-In. Even got seat 9B-C all to myself on the EMB.

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JerseyJoe

According to the spreadsheet I kept back then, between 4/13/2002 and 8/3/2002, I flew 25,104 base miles with NW, netting 86394 miles, and paying $854. Along the way, I received two bump vouchers for a total of $600.

Before the vouchers: 0.99 cents/mile
After the vouchers: 0.29 cents/mile

The clincher is that I didn't have status - all of the bonuses were for Memphis double miles (6/8/02 - 8/8/02) and for Turbo Miles (I think 4/1/02 through 8/31/02 or something like that).

As a US flyer who 'Got Out' a few times, I scored 52,825 miles on a ALB-SAN-ALB same-day turnaround for $218. That works out to about 4.1 cents per mile. Also accrued about 38K status miles for the trip!

How about the best awards one has redeemed?

I redeemed 2 business class tickets USA-Singapore on JL for 110,000 TWA miles. I also redeemed 2 coach USA-Europe/Middle Ease tickets (I used both of them-this was allowed) for 50,000 TWA miles.

Good things must come to an end. Look at TWA.

Remember the 9/98 NWA strike? I remember flying MKE/DTW/SEA/ANC/FAI Roundtrip, about a 9000 mile run, but with 2x Gold and I think 2x poststrike bonus ended up with 36,000 credited miles for a $500+ fare.

I managed 16250 UA miles for AUD$136.24 (~USD75)

10000 for new Australian members first roundtrip
4000 online booking bonus
1000 actual status miles (SYD-MEL-SYD)
1000 bonus miles (double miles system wide)
250 premier bonus

Came to about 8/10ths of an Australian cent per mile (so just over half that in USD).

600.000 FD miles for 14500 actual miles flown
(all on CO) thanks to the great KL -match your miles- promo.

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Viele Grüße

Oliver

I flew LAX-FCO a year ago on US & got over 65K miles for $393. This ticket put me over for Chairman's on US and I saw the Pope (at a long distance from the Spanish Steps) when I was in Rome. Got the upgrades on all the legs which made it very nice!

My favorite and most enjoyable was about
4 years ago I got a R/T from LAX to HNL
for $236 in V class and upgraded to BF with
mileage but earned
4000 first time internet booking
2550x3 Amex triple mile bonus outbound
2550x3 Amex triple mile bonus return
Total 19,300 miles earned

Spent 17,500 on the UG out and negociated
a non elite $125 UG on the return
That deal will never be repeated!!!!!!

Mine was a piddly little RNO-LAX-LAS flight on AA earlier this year. For $160, I netted about 13,000 miles - and almost got away with a $400 bump voucher, to boot.

Of course, unless we're talking about the amount of miles netted off of GoldPoints/ValueMags last Christmas... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Mike

DL Amex "We'll Match Your Other's Airlines Miles" Promo from Oct 2000. Signed up for an Amex and earned around 73000 miles from about $12000 in spending. A little over 6 miles/dollar. Cost - $85.

Every Hilton CNTU-type run I did was a great deal.

In late 2000, I did a STL-ORD-CDG roundtrip for around $340 that earned triple miles plus a 3,000 mile online booking bonus. Even scored an Op-UG on the way home. That one netted around 30,000 miles - a very good ratio for a Europe trip.

(Trying to think out of the box and come up with a rental car promotion...) For a while back in 1999 or so, Budget was giving away double Perfect Drive points on all rentals AND they had all redemptions 20% off. In the early stages of Perfect Drive, the redemption opportunities were really good: you could get the current year's Callaway clubs, free rentals, sunglasses, hotel stays, cruise discounts, among other things. You were able to effectively "spend" about 20 percent of your total rental bill on goodies. Then in 2001 or so, they hacked and slashed the program to pieces and I went back to Hertz...

netted 450+ miles per dollar with the ValuMags promo.

Redeemed 35K on CO for 2 coach RT to GIG.

For redeemed, for 70,000 miles I flew from AUS-EWR-BOG-PTY-SJC-IAH-AUS in all first/BusinessFirst. Best miles ever spent!

6 times the miles promotion on USair shuttle. 6000 FF miles from DCA to LGA costing $120!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by LemonThrower:
netted 450+ miles per dollar with the ValuMags promo.</font>

Ok, I can beat that! I did the DL Amex Skymiles Double Miles thing with savings bonds. Ok, nothing original there, except that I used one of those annoying 0% on Balance Transfer for 8 months credit card solicitations that always seems to be cluttering my mailbox to fund everything.

In the end, even after I pay First Bank of Spamville their $50.00 Balance Transfer Fee, I am going to clear 20k miles and 25-50 in cash on the interest. :-)

5285*8 = 42680 miles + 8 upgrades converted to 20,000 miles, plus 1000 miles booking bonus for a grand total of 63680 for $434.50.

1,013,000 LatinPass miles for about $3000 including hotels. Other FT'ers did it for less.

The US Airways GOM program is unparalleled in the ability to rack up miles.

Many folks got 4x and 5x miles owing to US's blunders.

25,000 for a simple transcon trip was rather common.

OAK-LAX-JFK (on the outbound portion of a $150 ticket)

JFK-LGB (on the outbound of another $150 ticket)

Was going to return the same way, but was bumped in LGB ($300) and ended up getting a nice agent to change my ticket so I just went home LAX-OAK instead. I was mistakenly credited miles for my return to JFK from LAX (where I'd been sent after I was bumped). I also called a customer service rep who gave me double miles for that, too, since I was missing out on the LGB promotion by going out of LAX.

1000 x 2 online booking
500 (OAK-LAX)
2475 (LAX-JFK)
2465 (JFK-LGB) x 2 (double miles promo)
500 (LAX-OAK)
2475 (second LAX-JFK flight that I didn't take)
2500 (Customer service bonus)


Cost: $315 (airfare + parking)
Before vouchers = 2.04 cents/mile
After vouchers = .09 cents/mile

I'd have to say the 12K DL miles just for signing up via the Yahoo promotion and then giving my DL number when checking into a hotel was pretty good - and free to boot.

I routinely fly BDL to JFK prior to flying to the west coast. (not sure how to calculate the cost per miles on this leg, BDL/SAN RT is $188 when at it's best)

Miles flown: 111
Minimum Q miles: 500
Platinum bonus: 500

So, for each round trip or 222 miles flown, I earn 2000 miles, or more than NINE TIMES miles flown.

Boy, do I feel good about myself now. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


I forgot all about the 1000 mile book on line bonus. So that's 3,000 miles on 222 flown. I feel even better!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Thumper (edited 12-31-2002).]

How about getting mileage on an award ticket!

Booked Air Canada between ORD-YYZ. Wanted to change to earlier flight. AC's award codes are booked in D for Business Class redemption.

The flight I wanted to take was operated by UA. As it was an e-ticket, UA had to reissue the ticket and they did as a D class ticket.

Gave them my Miles and More FF number for 'status' in case of bumps etc.

After the flight, LH gave me miles for that sector as D in UA earns mileage on LH. I received 2000 base miles plus 500 status bonus miles.

I think I'll try the same for the return!

I dont have any wonder deals, but I do remember the 'double miles' deal AA ran after 9/11.. that netted me 29000 miles for each of my trips LGA-ORD-LHR-BRU (when I felt like the additional effort)

If I wasnt travelling in J, this could easily have been earned for $400 a pop

I'm far more interested in the cost for Q-Miles rather than total miles.. and the best deal I see so far for AA is :

$1060 JFK-NRT-SIN : 20000 Q miles
$50...Parking and gas
$0....Hotel
$10...Breakfast at Chani airport http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
Vacation days : 1.5 - About $300

Total door to door cost : $1420

Total miles incl. bonuses : 45000 this time 45000 next and 50000 the third

CPQM: $0.071
CPME: $0.0316

Now this may seem a little high until you compare it to a similar $600 fare with a 6 day minimum stay..

JFK-NRT-SIN ....: $600
Parking and Gas : $80
Lodging ........: $400
Food ...........: $80
Shopping : .....: $???? (WAY too much)
Taxi ...........: $40
Vacation days : 4 - About $800
total: $2000

CPQM : $0.10 (Assuming same bonuses)
CPME : $0.044

So to me the most efficient mileage run is actually available almost all year round.. 5 of these and I'll be EXP again..

Besides the LatinPass run for about $2,500, I'm surprised no one mentioned the CO double & triple miles plus AMEX triple miles bonuses. My wife and I flew from DTW-EWR-HKG for about $900 each in April, 2001. She got 150,000+ miles and I got 172,000 miles because I was Gold elite.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by cab747:
I thought it was 36 miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif But your right, 1500 total miles for that flight is a great bonus to flight miles ratio.</font>

I must have been adding in 2 additional miles since they made me run from one end of the terminal to the other to catch my connecting flight!LOL http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pinniped:
...Then in 2001 or so, they hacked and slashed the program to pieces and I went back to Hertz...</font>

Way OT, but Budget really screwed up their frequent renters program. They must also have told the Perfect Drive agents to quit being nice and to start being really snotty to their regular customers because Budget SJC really went to the dogs. The last straw for me was one day when my flight arrived about 30 minutes early before my scheduled car pick-up time at SJC and the Perfect Drive agent (replacement agent, not the regular lady) wouldn't give me a car. She insisted she didn't have any cars to give out and that I would have to wait. When I asked if there were any cars available immediately at the inside counter she said she didn't know and I would have to go inside myself to check. When I went inside, the counter agent told me (in a very snotty voice) that the outside Perfect Drive agent had alreay called her to tell her that I had been told that there were no cars available. On the spot I called Hertz #1 Club and made a reservation. I never went back. Good thing that Budget is in BK and hopefully will be liquidated.



[This message has been edited by onedog (edited 12-31-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Skylink USA:
How about the best awards one has redeemed?

I redeemed 2 business class tickets USA-Singapore on JL for 110,000 TWA miles. I also redeemed 2 coach USA-Europe/Middle Ease tickets (I used both of them-this was allowed) for 50,000 TWA miles.

Good things must come to an end. Look at TWA.</font>

The Mrs. and I redeemed two AA awards for travel in C on South African Airways for 75k miles each, LAX-JFK-Johannesburg...Capetown-MIA-LAX. The AA Platinum agent was great and told me that if I waited until after September 15, 199x (I forgot what year we went), the mileage required was increasing to 90k each. Nice of her to save us 30k miles! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Let's just say that during the huge bonus days in 2001, our family took a weekend trip to Asia. We EACH earned about 80,000 miles on our individual tickets costing about $600 per. AND it was an upgradeable fare, allowing us to travel in style and comfort with miles to spare, and earn lots of status miles. Translates to about $0.0075 per mile. We took a few like this that spring.. All in all, on that particular airline, in 2001, Mr Fish flew about 110K miles but earned about 675K. Sigh, all this reminiscing makes me long for the good ol' days..

Edited to add: Actually, it was much less than 110K that year; I took that number directly from his "elite miles". Same airline gave him 500 minimum on short hops AND had a double "elite mileage" promo for 3 months. So it was substantially less than 110K.

Robin

[This message has been edited by Fishbait (edited 12-31-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Fishbait (edited 12-31-2002).]

I would have to say the Oneworld promo of 1999 is my favorite mileage earning steal. My neighbor and I did the necessary 20 segements to get the 4 X 100,000 mile bonus on AA, BA, CP, and CX. Total cost for each of us was $1,750.

The routing was:

STL-ORD-LHR-MAD-PMI-MAD-MUC-HEL-TMP-HEL-MUC-MAD-LHR-ORD-STL-ORD-YYZ-YUL-LGA-YUL-YOW-ORD-STL

actual miles: 17,308
bonus miles: 400,000
Total miles: 417,308
per mile = $.0042

Beyond the incredible value we received for our miles (I took Concorde this year using my BA miles), we had a great time. He's 75 years old and I worried at first that he wouldn't be able to keep up or that it was too much money for someone on a fixed pension, but I think he enjoyed it more than me. Quite a challenge.

Latin Pass 1,000,000+ for $1200. This works out to about $0.0012/mile. I've not heard it done cheaper.

I'm sure there are some KLM folks who took advantage of their matching status and points to earn multi-million bonuses for a few cheap flights.

USAir BWI-PHX with Get Out More -- Ticket cost of $288 == 55,512 miles with 27,756 as status miles. My family each got 56,974 miles, 35,905 toward status. Their tickets were $228 each.

Total cost $972
Total miles 226,434
Cost per mile -- $0.0043 (four point three tenths of a cent per mile!)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tfjim:
we had a great time. He's 75 years old and I worried at first that he wouldn't be able to keep up or that it was too much money for someone on a fixed pension, but I think he enjoyed it more than me. Quite a challenge.</font>

That is just precious! Bless him (and you for taking him with you).

maybe it is not the biggest thing ever and it is for european residents only, but it is still on :

25.000 miles for any 8 segments flown can be quite a deal if you play it right.

http://www.britishairways.com/morerewards

FASTEST way to 25,000 miles.

Fly the 45 minute LAX-LAS RT in F ($425) and pay with a Visa during United's '3 Perfect Days' promo back in '99...earn 25K bonus per RT with no limits on number of RTs during the 3 month promo.

1 mile for under 1 cent !

I've had 2 great promotions :

1 - a London-Orlando business Elite Round trip on Delta for around $2.200 got me over 110,000 miles !! Cant' remember exactly how many miles I got, but I have only flown once on DL and I have over 110,000 miles . It was an Amex promotion for selected members in Europe : fly one RT Business Europe to US and get the actual flown miles + BUsiness bonus + 80,000 miles as part of the promotion + 10,000 as a new member + 20 000 for something else.. Sorry can't remember all details but at the time I posted my experience on this site. Globally, 1 mile for 2 cents ! Was a great promotion.

2 -Also, another great deal was last year (2002) the Free flights promotion by B.A. in Europe : fly one business class return and get 50,000 bonus. I flew Paris to London in C Class for 450 euros and got the actual flown miles + 50,000 bonus miles = that's 1 mile for $0.008 ie. under 1 cent !!! and thanks to that promotion we were able to fly Europe-JFK with Concorde (outbound) and World Traveller + (return flight) for just $685 each return ticket (tax included) or Concorde outbound + Club Class on the way back for only $900 (tax included) !!! Was a REALLY great promotion.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FOOLISHRUNNER:
Besides the LatinPass run for about $2,500, I'm surprised no one mentioned the CO double & triple miles plus AMEX triple miles bonuses. My wife and I flew from DTW-EWR-HKG for about $900 each in April, 2001. She got 150,000+ miles and I got 172,000 miles because I was Gold elite.

</font>

I went AUS-IAH-EWR-HKG Thursday through Sunday 2 consecutive weekends in May of 2001 for 750.00 and received 190,000 for each RT-(various Amex bonuses-thank you JonNYC)and with no status to boot! Of course, 42 hours in flight over a 3 day weekend in coach was tough.

A long time ago, 1986, I guess, I spent a year commuting between Washington and New York. PA & EA were competing heavily for business on the shuttle and I flew 200 round trips that year. Here's what I earned:

Each round trip cost me $100.
2000 each way for the flight.
500 each way for the "Water Shuttle" between the Marine Air Terminal and Manhattan.
2000 bonus for a same-day round trip.
2000 bonus for more than 5 round trips in a month.

9000 miles a day!

1.8 million miles in a year. $20,000

[This message has been edited by bollar (edited 01-01-2003).]

flew family to london $320 a person on nw each person(4)given a free ticket to australia and triple miles.

I have a good one. 7,000 miles for $0.00

(Work paid for the ticket, I think it was $196 or $216)

MSP - MDW
Minimum credited miles: 500 * 2 = 1000
Silver Bonus: = 250 * 2 = 500
Other bonus miles: 5500

Actual flown miles: 344 * 2 = 688
Time spent in the air: About 2 hours

Oh, yeah I forgot this. If you want to include the other things, like car rental partner and the credit card miles, then it's much higher. Then it's about 8,000 miles for FREE.



[This message has been edited by travelnick (edited 01-02-2003).]

If everyone is going to add trips on here that were covered by their jobs/expense accounts, then we're in for a long series of uninteresting stories.

60 trips SNA-LAS on America West earning 5000 miles per trip (500 per segment X 2, 100% Gold bonus, 3000 online booking bonus).

I rarely paid more than $150, many times $102. At the lowest fare of $92, I was essentially flying first class for free out of So Cal's most expensive airport.

All good things got to come to and end (just the same with the Wildwood Weed :-) ) -- the bonus is now only 500. R.I.P., the greatest online booking bonus ever. I earned 100K's of miles and found a great airline to boot.

I complained to US Airways once with a legitimate letter of concern over a problem flight and sent back some vouchers they had given us. I thought were a pain to redeem in reality and so surely they could do better.

They gave me 10,000 miles on my suggestion of this nicer form of useable compensation. I liked that, and I like them better for it because I feel I have more choices as a customer. Someone once said I'd have a million miles if I could get one for every word I wrote. I suppose that could happen. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

The good ol days with the AmEx CO Triple and Quadruple miles of 2001! A trip to FRA gave over a 100,000 miles.

I don't get serious about trips with miles under 10,000 miles value. Those 500 miles only clutter up the mind like peanut shells on the carpet! Why get emotionally attached and side tracked with 'peanut' miles, when there are much bigger prizes out there to claim with less efforts or loss of sleep!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

R&R you are correct, go for the biggies whenever possible.

BUT travel and miles wanted is all relative, I think.

If one is just shooting for one free ticket, say Bos-Aspen, CO which is 25k on UAL, then 500 or 1000 miles may be something worth concerning themselves about in one case or another. Some do not fly as often as others so that could be their only ever free ticket. A good one at that, since the fare is usually about 5-600bucks RT.

Anyway, I have much more than that in many airline accts but I do recall the days when I too had nothing. To these people, one free ticket for 25k is the same thing as say, 3 free world tours in first class for someone who is exec platinum elite on 6 carriers...

It's all relative...
Just a thought.

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

monalisa:

The trip to London and Australia was in 1992? I forgot about that sweet deal!! My family of 5 enjoyed that year very well except London was a little cold and damp in February, but DownUnder was great in July/August.

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My biggest steal was only 3,000 miles. I booked a 5 star hotel in BRU via AA vacations. THe AAV cost was half as much as buying direct from the hotel or other sites. THey tossed in 3,000 miles to bood. Can't beet that.

I thought the LatinPass deal was going to be the best ever. When KLM matched my mileage balance from AA, I ended up with an upper six figure balance in their program. Total cost was about $1500 for the flights required to qualify.

I've got two:

BOS-LAS for $125 last November on DL. 5200 miles r/t. They were running 2x promo and I get 2x for PM status. Add 1000 for online purchase nets 16,600 for .0075 cents/mile. Wife had same. Plus we got op upgraded to first on the way back.

BOS-LGW in June 2001 for $425 using DL voucher money. They had a standard 2x promo along with a BOS-LGW new route 2x promo. Add my PM 2x and you get 4x for a total of 26000 miles. Got B/E on the outgoing overnight leg as well as 52k miles in bank (wife matches) for $825 of DL's money http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif