<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by smoothtakeoffbumpylanding:
but the way i see it .. for $100 more I can get 5000 frequent flyer miles .. that's like flying from ewr to lax for $100 .. which of course isn't the case .. but miles is miles~ </font>
No need for more on the phone, but there's a misconception here that needs clearing up. FF miles don't get you a trip of that length. Rather, they're "currency" you use for awards from the airline's schedule. A transcon round trip in North America, on most airlines that use miles as their unit, typically requires 25,000 miles in economy. Moreover, these tickets are capacity-controlled, which means you can't get one on popular flights without a lot of advance notice. You may be able to avoid capacity controls by using about twice as many miles for the award.
The term "miles" comes from the fact that you usually earn one for each economy class mile that you fly. There are lots of other ways to earn "miles" as well - such as the offer that led to this thread!