Ahh mileage running - good old college days when I had all the time in the world to fly to nowhere I recall doing a ton of dirt cheap quick DL trips (a few days at destination) when I was a Gold 75K with AS as they had a double miles promotion for DL flights which was effectively 300% per mile flown when counting status bonuses.

Despite writing off MRs for good for the last couple of years I wound up needing to do a big one this year to get me to EXP as I am traveling less this year. I will be doing PIT-CLT-FLL-DFW-NRT-CGK-NRT-LAX-PIT with just six hours in CGK in two weeks....

Hopefully some FTers will be doing a similar trip and we can share the pain together

Although I don't do "runs" generally speaking - getting status for relatively cheap while earning decent miles based on distance flown isn't "dead" per se. One hint... partners.