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Old Dec 22, 12, 2:32 pm   #1
 
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Do you think i could do 1 million miles on MR?

do you think its possible to do 1 million miles on United on Mileage runs in 1 year?
I did the math, it would cost at least $30,000+ USD min if another cheap airfare comes up and about 2 months in the air. I wonder if anyone has tried this? Tom stuker did it in one year of course not in MR, but I wonder if it possible..but i bet he spent more than $30,000 dollars. Wonder what his spend was..

Last edited by UA1KPHL; Dec 22, 12 at 2:38 pm..
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Old Dec 22, 12, 2:37 pm   #2
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$15,0000/1,000,000 = 1.5 cpm, no way -- at least no 1M BIS (no vouchers, ...)

With your edited number it will still price out at 3 cpm, which I doubt you get for a period of time long enough to get 1MM. 4+ cpm maybe, 5-7 is more realistic.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Dec 22, 12 at 3:40 pm.. Reason: response to edit
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Old Dec 22, 12, 2:51 pm   #3
 
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if you did it, it would be amazing, like setup a blog with pictures, etc of where you were each day, the lounges, the planes, man I'd check 'er out every day...

that's what like 2740 miles a day in Y, TOTALLY do-able
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Old Dec 22, 12, 3:07 pm   #4
 
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All I can say is why? With the reduction in MM benefits what do you hope to gain from it? Basically all you get is Gold for someones or somethings life or until they change it.
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Old Dec 22, 12, 3:14 pm   #5
 
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You (we) are out of PHL. To keep things simple you could just fly 166 same day turnarounds PHL-SFO-SNA-SFO-PHL. At 6042 EQM per trip you make 1,000,000 in a year plus you'd have roughly every other day off (or to catch up on IRROPS and VDBs). PHL-SNA can be had for less than $300 and probably averages under $400 on a year round basis. Not a great cents/mile metric, but you'd hit your million for about $66,000.

Last edited by PHLGovFlyer; Dec 22, 12 at 3:42 pm..
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Old Dec 22, 12, 3:33 pm   #6
 
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I am sure it would be cheaper to pay the United credit card annual fee for the rest of your life...
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Old Dec 22, 12, 3:35 pm   #7
 
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ua1flyer also probably has the advantage of doing it on long, international flights. If you're doing it purely off MRs, you're likely squeezing in as many connections as possible and doing shorter segments, so you're going to waste a lot more time on the ground in between/waiting for flights.

Edit: Also, if you want to do so many miles at a low CPM, you're going to be at the mercy of IM in terms of how much space they release in the lower fare buckets. It can be hard enough to find inventory for a MR-type fare if you're only looking to book a handful of them. If you want to fill your schedule with a bunch of G fares that might be pretty tough.
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Old Dec 22, 12, 4:20 pm   #8
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Baze View Post
All I can say is why? With the reduction in MM benefits what do you hope to gain from it? Basically all you get is Gold for someones or somethings life or until they change it.
Do it for a few Years in a row and they'll probably name a plane after you! (Or, perhaps more likely, name a wing in the local mental hospital after you)
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Old Dec 22, 12, 4:31 pm   #9
 
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$40k-$65k the way I see it...

So let's see; 17,891 miles (SFO-SEA-NRT-SIN-NRT-LAX-SFO) cost me $1161. $.065/mile. I think that's close to a "floor" for predictable, repeatable long-distance flying. Yes, you can get half that when something "special" comes up, but those offers aren't going to get you more than maybe 1/4 of the way, if you're time constrained. So if we go with my $.065/mile figure, we're looking at $65k. Maybe $40k if you score a lot of epic MR deals.

By contrast, my normal travel comes in between $.10-.16/mile. That's flying with fixed dates & plans. $1600 SFO-France in July, a bunch of $400 transcons, a few $300 mid-cons (that come out to similar mileage for a transcon due to a couple of short-hop 500-mile mins).
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Old Dec 22, 12, 4:38 pm   #10
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A lot of BOS-IAH-SFO-SAN-EWR-BOS transcon runs @ $220 a/i would be one of the cheaptest outside of error fares. I think these ones are about 3.3 cpm.
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Old Dec 22, 12, 4:52 pm   #11
 
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A lot of BOS-IAH-SFO-SAN-EWR-BOS transcon runs @ $220 a/i would be one of the cheaptest outside of error fares. I think these ones are about 3.3 cpm.
Too much time in airports and not enough in the air! From an efficiency standpoint, you'd want longer flights. Even though you have a 500 mile min, your downtime, if you maximize the shortest-possible hops (ORD-MKEs for example) is still going to short you some possible miles. Also, flying short hops domestically, much greater risk of misconnects.
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Old Dec 22, 12, 4:56 pm   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Jacoubowsky View Post
Too much time in airports and not enough in the air! From an efficiency standpoint, you'd want longer flights. Even though you have a 500 mile min, your downtime, if you maximize the shortest-possible hops (ORD-MKEs for example) is still going to short you some possible miles. Also, flying short hops domestically, much greater risk of misconnects.
true, but getting the 10k+ intl. trips done one a wekeend schedule is tough. You can do the extended domestic runs on weekends and get most of it in place. Of course if you want 1MM a year you have to do at least some large intl. runs as well.
Wrt misconnects, that is not an issue with ORC.
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Old Dec 22, 12, 5:21 pm   #13
 
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OP - what is the reason you want to try and accomplish this?
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Old Dec 22, 12, 5:56 pm   #14
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Did this topic pop up because the world didn't end yesterday

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Old Dec 22, 12, 6:31 pm   #15
 
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A slight tangent but I don't understand how someone can physically fly 1 million miles in a year. After 120,000 miles - I am worn out and can't imagine getting into another aircraft.
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