OK, I guess I will submit some of my runs:
@:-) *Base fare is truly irrelevant for comparison purposes in my opinion; don't we all actually care more about what we pay than whatever the base happened to be!
@:-) Vouchers we redeem do not have a value of $0 (to most of us). If I redeem a $1000 voucher for a ticket to SIN that nets me 45,000 miles I do not count that as 45,000 miles for $0. I could have also used that $1000 voucher for many other trips so it does not have a value of $0. Usually we earned it doing something; we would not accept an instrument worth $0 for take a bump, flight cancellation, etc.
Category 1: Mistake fare
I bought 5 AZ YYZ-LCA tickets for about $200 each.
Will earn ~25,000 miles/ticket while flying
business class.
Category 2: Extra Routing
I bought 2 UA tickets 25K+ EQM each for under $500 each.
* I could claim these ticket were under $250 each if I used the base fare only method so many here are quoting.
* My own discovery; not bookable now, so no PMs!
Category 3: Carefully planned runs not using a single mistake fare or Extra routing or Low Fare Guarantee claim.
1) I earned 747 thousand AA miles for $8940.19 airfare over a series of runs during ten weeks of 2004, starting with no status.
See
here for my summary post or
here for the thread.
2) I earned 77,500 AA miles in under 38 hours for $462.70 airfare including cost of getting to qualifying origin city (AA DAL promo this Apr).
Category 4: Bump Run
I earned 37021 miles on my $437 (~$250 base) NW ticket to PEK but also got bumped netting $1500 in vouchers on the trip. Net cost: -$1063 for 37021 miles.
This run also falls into category 3.