Suranyi, I understand your point of paying only whatever it takes to get from point A to point B. When I first started lurking on FT, for about six months before I actually joined and started posting, I was in a part-time job making $1100 month. Someone told me about the Healthy Choice promotion and I hoped I could get enough miles for two tickets to the Caribbean. I then happened to come across the chocolate pudding deal at Canned Foods Outlet just like the infamous Pudding Guy. I totally stressed out over spending $400 for pudding because that was a real financial strain and I didn't even know if I would get miles for the discounted food. Soon after I found Flyertalk, and I eventually did get over 100,000 miles for my pudding investment, and I started mileage runs with the knowledge I obtained from this board.
My point is that this board and community has such an in-depth knowledge of the earning potential of all the various promotions that you can pick and choose what works for you. Keep on following the board carefully and you can rack up incredible amounts of miles at a relatively low cost.
As in most ventures, the more cash you can afford the more potential you have for the big returns. I missed out on some incredible opportunities these past two years because I didn't have extra discretionary income.
Most of my mileage runs are mini-vacations. I have cut the cost of mileage running down significantly because I use previous earnings to finance new trips. The pudding miles and a 100,000 mile OneWorld promo were used to get to South America to do the million mile Latin Pass run two years ago.
I am still using the LatinPass miles to get Hilton hotel points to pay for hotel awards on mileage runs. The trip I did last weekend I used a free Hilton night because all the hotels were over $100/night in Providence last Saturday. I had a three night award stay at the Conrad for a mileage run to SIN last August.
Summer 2001 there was a $286 fare from SIN to SFO and I used 60,000 miles to get an award to SIN and then bruised my butt doing SIN runs last July in economy. I didn't know butt muscles could be so sore.
This year it has finally come together where I can do mileage runs, mostly in business class, and have nice hotel rooms and take advantage of great mileage bonuses and really do runs in comfort.
It has taken time and an incredible amount of planning, but as many posters have pointed out mileage running can be a hobby, I enjoy the puzzle aspect of getting together a good value mileage run.
I am really happy today as I just saw that Mexicana posted my miles for July's mileage run. The Star Alliance 55,555 promo has now accrued 480,000 miles for my wife and me. The $1,800 I mentioned in the earlier post was just for United status and miles. The $2,000 for the Star Alliance tickets are on top of that.
Was it worth it? To us it was!
Next summer we are planning 8 weeks in New Zealand and the South Pacific and we will use a portion of this summer's earnings. I think the miles will make the trip a little bit cheaper and much more luxurious.
If you can afford status, it is a wonderful luxury. If you just want lots of miles for travel and don't care if you fly coach, then hold out for the high mileage bonuses that appear every year on the various airlines and get to places much cheaper via runs that regular ticket costs.