This little thread inspired me to go to the spreadsheet and total up my cost spent on tickets for renewing gold elite status, since I've already done so and don't need more MRs this year. I requalified it on 50,000+ flown base miles, BTW, and no flown miles earned more than 1 EQM (i.e. no paid business or first class).

The total spent on tickets that earned the miles that earned the status......(drum roll)..............$1,134.18. Probably a personal record low.

The results were skewed slightly by being able to get a 20K ScoreCard Award ticket to Europe that counted as a paid ticket and kicked in around 9K EQMs (total would be around $1,500 without that).

Also contributing greatly was an LAX-SIN RT on a very short-lived $265 ($325 after tax) special at the height of the SARS thing.

As you might guess, all my flying was for leisure and on my own dime. But since I don't do "pure" MRs and always make at least a 3-day trip of it, the total travel expenses were much higher.

Also spent some $488.30 total on a second airline, mostly under combinations of mileage specials. That was mainly for total miles, and it earned enough for a Hawaii award trip next year, plus the 3 RTs it paid for.

Anyway, it all probably puts me solidly in the low-rev camp, but in most cases I'd wager the alternative for the airline was an empty seat.

Nonetheless, I doubt that if they sold gold status outright they'd sell it for that.

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited Dec 22, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited Dec 22, 2003).]