Well, as of today I have earned just over 50K AA miles by purchasing Kellogg's products. The thing I'm proudest to report, though, is that my total net cost for the 50K miles will be -- ready?...

About SIXTY DOLLARS. That's .0012 per mile! Yes, you read that right -- just over 1/10 of a cent per mile.

Wanna know how I did it?

Every single box was purchased 1) on sale and 2) using manufacturers' coupons. Plus, most of my receipts were sent in to eSave.com for rebates, which allows multiple rebates as long as you generate a new "shopping list" for each one. Here's the breakdown -

Before the double certificates came out, I got 5500 miles as follows:

4000 from 40 boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats. These had $1 off coupons printed on the box. Von's supermarkets, which doubles coupons, had the cereal on sale for $2/box, making the cereal free. I bought the first 4 boxes using coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled). All the rest of the boxes were free, using the coupons off the boxes. Net cost was $2.

800 from two 4-packs of Kellogg's Nutrigrain Twists. Purchased at Costco with the 2-for-1 coupon for $6.99. These were my most expensive miles per dollar -- I quickly learned to do better.

500 from 5 boxes of Kellogg's Pastry Swirls. I bought six boxes on sale at Ralph's for $1.69 each, less coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled) making the cost .69 each x 6 = $4.14 - 3 rebates of $1 through eSave = $1.14 net and one certificate left over.

When the double certificates became available, I really kicked into high gear:

3000 from 15 boxes of Kellogg's Pastry Swirls, using the same coupons and rebates as above. After rebates, net cost for the additional 14 boxes (remember, I had one left over from the earlier "campaign") was $2.66.

42000 from 210 boxes of Kellogg's All Bran, Extra Fiber All Bran, Complete Oat Bran Flakes and Complete Wheat Bran Flakes. These have been on sale for the past 3 or 4 weeks at Von's for $1.66 per box. I used coupons for $1 off 2 (doubled) for about 110 boxes and $1.25 off 2 (which doubled to $2.25 because of Von's doubling restrictions) for the other 100 boxes. I sent in 35 rebates to sSave for $2.50 per 6 boxes. Net cost for 210 boxes = ~$38.60.

I spent less than $10 on handling fees for the coupons and double certificates, which I got from the trading boards at MyCoupons.com. (I also traded a $25 gift certificate, which I had received as a gift and was never going to use, for 25 of the double certificates, but didn't end up using ten of them. I didn't count the gift certificate in my cost breakdown.)

I donated about 250 boxes of various Kellogg's cereals and about 15 boxes of Pop-Tarts Pastry Swirls to my local Food Bank. I will have to do some research to see if I can write these donations off at market value, since my cost basis was far less than that, but that will just be gravy anyway.

I earned UA miles for all purchases through Von's and WebMiles for all purchases through Ralph's (tied to their store cards). I also charged everything to my Delta SkyMiles Amex, so I earned double Delta miles on the purchases. (Of course, there was so little out of pocket that this is fairly insignificant.)

The 50K miles will bring both my husband's and my AA accounts up to the 40K level (my account started at about 7500 miles and his started at about 22500 miles). My initial goal was 25K for each of us, but the double miles certificates caused me to go for the higher level.

Would I do this again? Possibly, if only to be able to donate that much food to the Food Bank! It was a lot of work, though, because both Von's and Ralph's only allow you to use three identical coupons per shopping trip. This represents a LOT of trips to the supermarket, buying 6 boxes of cereal at a time (using 3 coupons, each good for 2 boxes).

I must say I am relieved to be done. I have gained a new respect for "Pudding Guy."