I don't know anyone who gets elite status without flying for business, although I'm certain many people do. The last thing I want to do, ever, for leisure is get on another plane. I'm glad you're doing it, though. It is good to know some people enjoy this. I enjoy FT, but that's when I'm on the ground.

My travel is 90% business and 10% personal, although miles are accumulated 100% on business travel, personal travel is almost always with AE Miles. My travel is to the US 35+times a year, to Canada 2-5 times a year and international once a year. My travel is always a minimum of T+ and if I am over 4 hours in the air I fly up front as per company policy so my 6 trips to the west coast every year are up front. I have started keeping track of my AC spend this year and can report back in December as to how much I actually spent to get the status, I suspect it will be a number that I could not afford to do on my own since I am at $9500 for January and February alone... :p:p:p

Remember, "CPM" should only be relevant if you're doing a MR. I've made AC*E the last few years mostly on my own dime but I'm going to see family in Asia and/or having enjoyable vacations so the airfare is only part of my overall cost calculation as I'm flying for a reason, not for miles. Would I rather fly all weekend, day and night, throughout the US for 3 CPM, or get 7 CPM that is part of an enjoyable vacation?

My travel in 2009 was about 45% business and 55% personal - I made E with the help of some MRs, on the Elite offer for those who didn't get E status in 2009. I don't usually get good-valued MRs out of BKK, I've never done a classic MR, but have done mini-vacations while picking up miles.

This year, I anticipate that more of my travel will be personal in 2010 - but hopefully my work travel will pick up a bit.

Being based in Asia, it's more difficult to pick up status when traveling regionally (they're a lot of short hops). Of course trips back to North America really make a difference - just 2 trips plus a regional flight brings me to E. If you get to fly J, the class of service bonuses help, too.

Both me and Mrs are SE. We always travel together because we never travel for work.

Last year we did 120K status miles, plus about 40K worth of redemption miles.

We are mainly "bottom feeders:eek:" because we rarely pay for J or F (maybe once a year). But we make full use of all the upgrade instruments. We've been lucky that all the long-haul AC flights that we took have been in J. We make sure we become and maintain SE so that we can maximize our chances of UG.

Flying doesn't bother us because we always have the excitement of going away. We usually do long weekend trips to Asia and normal weekend trips to Europe. Enjoying nice food and nice hotels are our hobby.

That flight memory tool is pretty wicked!

No, all flights on AC. It´s not that difficult to get FRA/LHR-SEA/LAX/SFO on AC for under $700 if your dates are flexible, but these deals will likely disappear once the economy picks up. And I agree flights ex-Canada flights have always been much more expensive.

Also I would consider myself a loyal AC customer as I avoid US/UA/old LH as much as possible and tend to go out of my way to fly AC (e.g. upcoming trip will be FRA-YYZ-YYC-SFO on AC, although I could have flown UA/old LH non-stop for about the same price, but I do prefer AC plus I get more miles :)).

Work: 90% of travel

50% *A, 50% OW

Re-qualified for Elite this year before 28 Feb

How do I do it? I don't spend *nearly* as much time on Flyertalk as I used to :D

SE, did 217K on *A only

I pay for my travel from my business, I love being self employed :)

I'm YWG based and suspect I spent about $2500. Although they were trips I would of taken anyways, not MRs.

I should add 100% personal travel.

I make Elite with at most 2 trips for work a year; if I'm lucky one of those is a nice long-haul (always T+ by policy but I have been lucky with upgrades) to a distant conference or research. I usually can not make E with either work or pleasure by itself (although last year I had a MR for fun but it was an exception) but with both can do so comfortably.

Indeed, there is soemthing of a premium on MRs and other trips from YWG, in addition to the inability to do trans-con MRs, but it's fairly cheap to live here so I consider it a wash. :)

Don't forget the ability to get more bang for your buck with "creative routes". Same price, but quite often you can double/triple your miles and/or segments.

I would still be Elite if it wasn't for the inspiration and tips picked up here on FT. ^

Where do you find these "creative routes"? I'm dying to find out!!!:)

+1, please share your knowledge with us!

I would suspect she means adding in extra segments, or a very round about routing.

Last year I needed to go YVR-SIN r.t., on the way back I flew SIN-NRT-LAX-YVR for 9850 miles but could've taken SIN-DME-HOU-YVR for 13150 miles at the same price.