*note, videos and pictures are being uploaded/embedded into this report*
Preface
This is not a luxury, glamour trip report. This is not international first/business class flights, no high-end hotels, and no fancy meals. Although as an American Airlines Executive Platinum I was upgraded on my domestic US flights, they aren't anywhere as exciting as the international products that get shared on this forum. I just wanted to share my mileage run trip, as the way you can earn RDMs will all but be dead come August 1. If you've never been a part of an MR, this is what a good one can be like. I have lots of pictures to share, and will try and focus on some parts of the trip that you don't really ever hear about, since most TR's are all Intl First Class to Exotic Destinations. I hope you enjoy my commentary on this adventure.
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Hello and good afternoon from presently somewhere over the Rocky Mountains, en route to Santa Barbara. Looking at the title, you’re probably wondering why anyone would do such an itinerary. Well, it never started out like this. Some plans changed, multiple times actually, to lead to this crazy itinerary.
It all started in early March when
A supposedly flash sale for Taiwanese based flyers got some traction on the Mile Run Deal forum. It was actually by chance I found that thread. I came home from work and took a nap, and it was one of those gloomy days where I really didn’t feel like getting out of bed in the evening. My girlfriend had texted me, and I fired up my computer to load up skype, and figured I check the forum. The thread title mentioned TPE-SJC on AA/JA for less then 1.25 cpm. The thread was active, Mountain Time, from around 6pm (coinciding with the next morning in Taiwan). People started locking in TPE-NRT-LAX-SJC for around $200 USD. You could also throw in a stopover in Tokyo.
I started playing around with google flights and was able to replicate it. Before I booked anything, I saw a poster mention he was able to do the itinerary, but also throw in a “Free” vacation to Key West. I thought this was an awesome deal, and wanted to take advantage of it. The dates you could schedule for this was very wide open. I decided to do it around July 4, as to minimize my time off from work, AND end up back home in Michigan for the holiday weekend. The round trip itinerary I ended up booking was actually cheaper then a one way flight from Denver-Michigan (sans a spirit flight). I booked the return over Thanksgiving, again to minimize time off work. What also made the fare amazing was that it booked into full Y. Many people swore it was a mistake fare, while a couple others said it was a flash sale.
I wanted to make this a mile run, but also visit a different/less traveled airport (by that I mean one I probably wouldn’t visit under normal travel patterns). I was able to book, TPE-KIX//NRT-JFK-MIA-EYW-MIA-DTW, with a return SAN-NRT-TPE. When I lived in San Diego, I always wanted to be on the SAN-NRT flight, and this was my chance.
I once read a poster on FT say, about Mile Runs (or great deals maybe it was), that it’s not about booking the perfect itinerary, it’s about being able to book a good itinerary and then worrying about changes later. After all, a good itinerary is better then no itinerary. So the plan was Leave Taipei at noon, get to Osaka at 4pm, and then …I don’t know, show up in Tokyo the next morning to get back to Detroit for July 1st, the start of the July 4th holiday weekend. I paid $222 for the itinerary. I would worry about getting to Taipei for later, and what I would do for the return part of the trip much later (still no plans).
No more then two days later, I was alerted of a schedule change. Actually, there was 4 changes on my JFK-MIA-EYW-MIA-DTW legs – all four times had changed. I was fully ticketed, but did NOT want to call in to AA to get the schedule change fixed. It was a problem, because the MIA-EYW-MIA legs got pushed back about an hour, and the MIA-DTW flight got moved up, meaning I would land back in Miami after my Detroit flight had left. I knew I had to fix it, and thought about options.
First one was to stay in Key West for a night, but a hotel night cost more than my ticket! I figured I could try a different city, going back perhaps via Dallas for some extra miles as well, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if I could get into Flint. FNT is the closest airport to my home (MBS) that AA serves. I saw that instead of JFK-MIA-EYW-MIA-DTW, I could go JFK-MIA-ORD-FNT, with the MIA-ORD being on a 763. Flint to Detroit is less than an hour drive, so it wasn’t a HUGE request, and sure enough, the agent was able to let me change to that. Except one thing…after she changed it, my fare classes went from Y to a combination of discount economy buckets, which would hurt my mile earnings a fair bit. I called in the next morning to see if I could get by “Y” fare restored, and after three calls, was able to get it done. That’s the end of “Part 1”.
Part 2
Ok, so I had to get to Taipei. While talking to my coworker about the trip, he generously offered to get me a discount award saver ticket (35,000 miles plus $25 in taxes) in exchange for helping him in the future find good deals and maximize PQMs on some United Trips. We looked at some options on the UA website. I didn’t want to get in Tuesday night and stay the night, so I looked for options that would get me in Wednesday morning. When we looked in early March, there were only a couple of the options we found that had availability and the timeframe I was looking at.
DEN-IAH-TPE
DEN-YYZ-TPE
DEN-DFW-YYZ-TPE
I decided on DEN-YYZ-TPE, choosing to fly the DEN-YYZ portion on Air Canada rather than UA (which also had availability). I always wanted to fly on an AC flight out of Denver (hard to explain), and it had good timing – leaving at 4:35 in the afternoon and getting into Toronto around 9pm, with a four hour layover for a 1 am flight to Taipei getting in at 5am. I thought about the DEN-DFW-YYZ-TPE which had an AC leg on DFW-YYZ, but figured I didn’t want to hang around DFW for long, and worse, get stuck there if anything happened. DEN-IAH-TPE just didn’t appeal to me, as I don’t really care for Houston.
That was “Part 2…” until two weeks before the flights, I started looking, just to see, what availability opened up. Ideally, I figured I would enjoy myself the most if I could get DEN-LAX-TPE, as now that the TBIT connector is open, it’s a really fun place to hang around. I didn’t find that, but I did find DEN-YVR-TPE, which immediately sent me into a frenzy because EVA operates a 747 on that route, but even better, the upper deck is all-economy. The times also worked out great – a 7pm Denver-Vancouver flight, with about 5 hours to hang out at YVR before the flight. Having never used an award ticket before, I called up the United (Gold) Line and asked about the change – it would only cost me $25, to which I happily paid. I found myself in an interesting spot after it ticketed. I pulled up my reservation on EVA’s site, and there wasn’t many seats I was able to pick. On the upper deck, there were only a couple middle seats left to pick. I figured I would play it safe and take a window seat over the wing on the lower deck, and worry about an upper deck seat closer to departure.
What I did not know at the time was that EVA blocks out almost half the aircraft. The seats are eligible for BR elites, but almost half the upper deck, and more than half the lower deck was blocked out. I called EVA the next morning and asked if they could put a Star Gold member in one of the blocked out window or (preferably) exit row seats, but the nice women said she couldn’t. She could, though, put in a request for me for those seats. I figured the request wouldn’t actually do anything, but it’s not like it could hurt, so requested them. I set up an expert flyer notice as well, and began searching the Asian Airlines forum for whatever information I could find. The consensus I gathered was that most seats get assigned at the airport (not OLCI), so I had to really ask myself if I could chance it. I decided I would suck it up if need be, and opted to pick seat 87J, a middle seat towards the back of the upper deck.
AT T-4 days, I figured I could up my chance if I could connect in LAX. Since there is an afternoon BR flight, if I could get to the airport (and not have a better seat by that point in time), I could get to a BR desk and inquire there, perhaps giving me a jump. I could also hang around the TBIT and Star Alliance lounge. Only thing was…I didn’t know if that was even legal (in UA award routing terms). Honestly, I’m still not sure what the rules are. Regardless of whatever the rules are, there was not a single saver seat on any DEN-LAX flights. There was ample DEN-SFO-LAX flights, a DEN-SBA-LAX flight, and DEN-SMF-LAX that had good times. There was 4 LAX-YVR Air Canada flights that all had saver availability.
This is the start of where my backwards logic came into play. I wanted to pick a flight that would give me the best chance at being in a VDB situation. An early DEN-SFO flight seemed like the best option, and also most comfortable since DEN-SBA-LAX was all CRJ 200’s, and DEN-SMF-LAX was a 700/200. I picked the 7am DEN-SFO flight connecting to get me into LAX around noon. I put in the change request online, an much to my excitement, there was no extra miles cost, and only a $25 charge. I booked it, but immediately regretted the decision, because, I hate the early morning flights. Sacramento left at 8am, which was better, but when I went to try to see if that was still available, it wasn’t, so that wasn’t an option.
DEN-SBA left at 11:25am, but was on a CRJ 200 that didn’t have many seats left, so good and bad. Good, because good option for VDB, but bad, because that’s a 2.5 hour block time flight on the Devil’s Chariot. I called up UA asking if they could change it since I just made the change, and they waived the cost and was able to get that for me. So with that, my outbound was complete, DEN-SBA-LAX-YVR-TPE. As long as my SBA-LAX flight was on time, I would have some time in the TBIT area to lounge, talk to someone at BR (hopefully), and then venture to the other side of LAX, a part I’ve never been to (AC leaves out of Terminal 2).
I spent a little bit time looking at more oddball routes to see if I could find anything, mainly trying to see if I could get on a Q400, an aircraft I’ve never flown. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m late to the party, and they’ve all been retired from DEN.
“Part 3”
Part 3 actually takes place before changing to DEN-YVR-TPE. My original plan was to be home for the 4th of July weekend and see my girlfriend and family. Plans changed and my amazing girlfriend decided to come out to Colorado for a bit, so she would actually be here rather then in Michigan. So instead of spending the weekend in Michigan, I just decided I would turn around and come back to Denver. The problem I had was that flights were not cheap that weekend, and I couldn’t not find anything “decent,” and by decent I mean under 10cpm.
I could leave at 6am the next morning (so ~6 hours overnight at FNT) and do FNT-ORD-DEN, or FNT-ORD-PHX-DEN for I think it was $224. It left at 6am and got in at midnight. I tried with multicity pricing on AA’s website to change the times, but I got stuck in the endless loop of death process, where AA says the fare has changed to a higher or lower price, but when you try to book it goes back to the original price, forever. I was prepared to do the FNT-ORD-PHX-DEN route, but looked to see if there were any cheap flights from Flint to anywhere via Google Maps.
The only result was a $79 fare to ATL, but it had stops in ORD and CLT. It was a good starting point, but flights from ATL to DEN were up in the $240 range, and ATL-DFW-DEN at that price didn’t sound too appealing. I was about to call it quits, but decided to plug in different connecting cities to see if I could get anything. I was able, for the same price, to turn ATL-DFW-DEN into ATL-CLT-PHX-DEN. So 240+~80 was about $320. Since the AA change to $$ based was recently announced, I figured this was my last shot at a true mile run. I was about to book them separately when I realized I was able to book them all on one ticket, FOR LESS then what they were separately.
Apparently, AA had relaxed their end on end ticketing rules which was a HUGE problem for Mile Runners and/or people needing multi-city itineraries for a period of time, as it was cheaper to book multiple legs on multiple tickets. The price went down to $308, and AA was willing to let me book it, so I did. With that, my flight Itinerary was complete…except for one more problem.
"Part 4"
I regret not booking TPE-HND/NRT. I was getting into KIX at 4pm, and needed to get to Tokyo. I was going to go with the hi-speed train, but the cost was $140 ish, and it still would take almost 4 hours. There were several LCC flights from KIX-NRT in the $49-$79 range, getting into NRT around 9pm, which means I would need to train back to the city and wouldn’t get into 10pm. I could chance a 5pm flight on Star Wings (ANA codeshare), but figured that was too close to call. I went back and forth for a week on the Train vs. Plane ideas, when I found out an award ticket through UA was only 5k miles.
At that price, you could buy United Miles and get an award ticket less then what the economy ticket was going for. I wanted to fly into Haneda rather then Narita, but there weren’t many options from KIX that looked appealing. There was, however, from another Osaka Airport, Itami. As another incentive, ANA flies a 772 on the route, so I chose that. The only choice I had to make was rather I wanted a 7pm departure or 8pm. There’s a direct bus that goes between the aiports, so I chanced that the 7pm departure would work and booked that. And with that, my final itinerary was set.
DEN-SBA-LAX-YVR-TPE-KIX/ITM-HND/NRT-JFK-MIA-ORD-FNT-ORD-CLT-ATL-CLT-PHX-DEN. Buckle up as we go through this roller coaster.
I'm writing the opening part of this before my first flight to Santa Barbara while I’m still sane. If everything goes smoothly, I will have 16 flights over the next four and a half days, and total distance of 22,289 miles.
With all that done, here is a map of what I would have:
The Lead Up
I was a bit nervous, because I wasn't able to secure my upper deck seat in the aisle or window. I had thought about if it would be just as fun if I had took a lower deck window or aisle seat, but decided that I was going to fly the upper deck, no matter what* (unless there was a very attractive VDB offer to not even fly on it). I had an alert set on expert flyer, but I still probably check my reservation 20-30 times a day.
I was figuring that I would have to wait until OLCI for the seats to be unblocked, but also checked at T-72 and T-48, which meant getting up at 3am local time to check. At those times, I didn't not see any additional seats open up. Sometime between T-48 and T-24, I saw one of the exit row window and aisle seats had been selected, so I rushed back to my reservation to see if I could get anything else, but still nothing remained opened. I figured I would have to wait until OLCI.
Even the white "P" seats were unavailable. This was two days before the flight.
I had just finished watching the Game of Thrones season finale, and right before getting ready to go to bed (to get up at 3am for OLCI), I checked once more. Magically, there were more seats open up. Not all of the blocked seats, but maybe a quarter of the seats that were blocked, including a single aisle and window upper deck seat. I quickly changed my seat to 88A and pressed submit, and waited for the longest 5 seconds of my life as I waited for confirmation that my seat had been changed.
I would end up checking in at T-24, where no additional seats had opened up. Between going to be at 10pm, and planning to wake up around 7am (and briefly 3am for check in), I slept terribly. I was anxious for the trip more or less, and if everything would work out or not. I had mentally rehearsed my trip, all parts of it, multiple times and how I would plan to spend downtime (and where). I managed a staggering one hour and 37 minutes according to my Microsoft Band, which seemed about right. Around 5:30am I decided to just get up and head to my apartment's workout facility for some morning cardio. I hoped that this, with the lack of sleep, would let me sleep on the YVR-TPE flight.
Day 1 – Fort Collins/DIA
After getting back from working out and showering, and checking my two bags for the one hundredth time, I was ready to leave. I would be taking my backpack and a small red wings duffle bag. My backpack had my laptop, two puzzle books, and all the electronic cords that I would have to depend on. My duffle bag contained two sets of clothes, a pillow, a neck pillow, and nothing more as I wanted to have some space to bring back a couple souvenirs.
I had booked a one-way shuttle ride through Green Ride, which has shuttles from the transportation center here down to DIA.
With my corporate discount, it is $26 each way. I would be getting a rental vehicle for the way back through AVIS. My girlfriend would drop be off at the Harmony Transportation Center for an 8:40am pickup (and 9:40 dropoff), but before that we stopped at a waffle house for breakfast. Waffle Houses are one of the few restaurants you can't find back in Michigan (and the Midwest really). It's very cheap, and some hash browns and coffee was a great way to start this trip. After a very quick breakfast and a five minute drive down I-25, I arrived at the Harmony Transportation Center ready to begin this trip.
And at $5, can you beat this?
I was down to Denver International Airport almost weekly starting in January qualifying for EXP for the first time. I don't have $12k+ to spend, and I'm lucky to get 2-3 work trips a year, which are simple DEN-IAH trips, so all the qualifying I did was out of pocket. Fort Collins is a nice area, but getting to DIA is a bit of a pain. There is a toll road that adds about $6 each way, and parking is slightly above average, unless you want to park remotely and take a shuttle bus (which I did), which adds almost another hour and a half to your trip. The local area here, Fort Collins/Loveland Municipal (KFNL) used to have commercial service on Allegiant to Las Vegas, and I'm told ages ago a commuter flight to Stapleton, but all that's left now is a semi-regular charter service to Rockford, IL operated by Elite Airways. So at $26, it's not a terrible deal.
Exciting Stuff...
The ride down took exactly one hour, and I was soon off of the bus, and walking into DIA, ready to begin this adventure.