Originally Posted by
dayone
I don't think that's true, but I'll leave it to the experts to speak with certainty.
I kept a blow-by-blow spreadsheet of my march to a million starting January 2014 and ending in April of this year, updating it and verifying the actual miles posted after every trip.
All the flights under 500 miles (like
ANC's ANC-FAI example) counted as 500 butt-in-seat miles. The nice lady who came to my workplace to present me with the memento confirmed that.