dietofly asks:
Any idea as to the percentage of people who travel just for the miles (non-business)?
Do you mean "travel just for the miles" or do you mean occasionally "travel just for the miles"?
I suspect that there are quite a few people who travel for work, find themselves just a few miles short of status at the end of the year and decide to take a mileage run to push them over the hump. I know last year our son left the office in December, jumped on a plane SEA/BLI/SEA, and was back in the office in a little over an hour, just to become an AS MVP. This year he got those $216 SEA/HNL AS tickets and flew to HNL with his girlfriend to get MVPG, and play in the sun for a week.
Hunki and I travel over 100,000 miles a year and have been in the status game for over 10 years now. Because we have been at it for a while, we no longer take any last minute "mileage runs" but we are very aware of making status for the following year, right from the start of each new year. We have both already booked close to 50,000 flight miles in 2008, spread out over seven trips. Six of those trips are to places we really do need to go, but one was just a wonderful opportunity to buy a great ticket to a country we had never visited, at a dirt cheap price, so we said, Why not?
There will probably be a point somewhere this year where a FlyerTalk party that interests us comes up somewhere in the world. Our decision to attend will be based on numerous factors:
How well do we like, or think we will like the destination?
Are we able to get reasonably priced tickets with one of the two airlines on which we hold status?
Can we fly in first or business?
Are there other FlyerTalkers whom we really like a lot attending?
Can we fit the trip into our schedules?
Do we need the miles to maintain our status for 2009?
So we don't really travel "just for the miles" but we sure consider them in making our plans. I suspect that there are a lot of people like us.
There are also folks who really do "just travel for the miles". They have no business travel and have to squeeze their trips into weekends so they don't get to spend a lot of time at their destinations. I suspect that there are a lot less of those folks out there, but I have met some.
WARNING: Do not pursue these ideas any further unless you are willing to accept the possibility of addiciton.
