My concern with the advice in the blog is the Plan B suggestion of getting 125,000 DL miles through their Gold AmEx cards and expecting five coach award tickets to any attractive destination using reasonable flights without one or more long or overnight connections, especially without elite status on DL. Anyone who has ever looked at the DL fora on FT or MP knows this will not happen, not even for several award tickets on the same flights let alone five booked at the same time and far enough in advance to secure award hotel reservations.