how do you guys do it?
 

hey everyone -

am glad to have made E for 2010, after what felt like an eternity spent on planes in 2009. so i'm wondering how on earth people make SE. i'm still a student, and doing research abroad, so a few YYZ-CPT flights really add up, plus some health problems that required (insurance-paid!) flights around southern africa on SAA.

but it occurs to me that paying out of my own pocket to fly economy is about the least efficient way to reach status. are you guys really paying for your own tickets for all those miles? am i correct in guessing that you're getting your status from the business and first % perks? and does status eventually beget status - i'm noticing this year that i get the 25/50% mileage bonus on some partners, which is huge.

i'm new to this but trying to work my advantages, and realizing i have a long way to go . . .!

-mike

Congratulation on making Elite! :)

I think many people make Elite status on their own dime, but I´d guess many people make SE by flying around for business.

As you asked for personal experience: I pay for 100% of my travel and will make Elite status in March (total cost for all flights: <$2k CAD) and I´m sure other FTers fly much more than myself.

If you fly to a couple of international destinations every year it´s not that difficult to make Elite status.
In order to earn 35k status miles you only have to fly to either Asia/Australia/South Africa once per year, do one (weekend) trip to Europe and one r/t flight to the West coast.

Jasper - whats your secret receipe???

I spend quite a lot of money a year in travel.... i would say 70% personal $ and 30% business flights.....if u fly somewhere for every long weekend including a long haul a year, should add up to E no problems...

as for SE..... u'd be living in a plane for 1/3 of the year (i guess)

I´d be happy to answer if I knew what part of my post you´re referring to? (price, #of trips, destinations, reason for 100% travel being for leisure??) :confused: :)

getting E for less than $2K... anyways lets not discuss this here or you will be condemened by other posters..... like the other conversation going on about high yield spenders and cheapos :D

$2k = 3 round-trips Europe-West Coast = 35163 miles = instant Elite status :)
(tickets from LHR are rather cheap, especially going to the US)

I´ll happily admit not being a high-yield spender as I basically can´t afford expensive tickets and would have to stop flying across the pond just to get away for the weekend ;) And I´m already used to being condemed for finding good deals by family/friends.

On the other hand AC will generate more revenue from me this year and I´m likely to spend more on my tickets so that I can use my SWUs. So I guess it´s a win/win situation.

Anyhow, I do very much appreciate the fact that there are high yield spenders as they help AC to stay in business / remain the top NA carrier.

For cheap E, the UA fares to Australia helped me last year. For a little over 1k I got 20,000+ status miles for YWG-ORD-LAX-SYD-MEL and return.

Now that length of time on UA isn't exactly fun, but was my first long international flight so the excitement of that helped I guess :)

This year already booked AC to Europe on the Olympic promo, and hopefully will catch a good fair to SIN or BKK for the summer.

All my paid flights are for business- J fares for Asia (~5-6x/year), Lat for Europe (~2x/yr) and T+ for US (~12x/yr).

Any yes, the longer international flights (Asia, Africa, Australia) really add up fast.

I had passed by the Elite mark in the first week of Feb 2010.

If you are on your own dime- a couple of trips to Asia each eyar will put you close to Elite. These flights often come availble at ~$1K each...

Most of my travel is for work and is international--F fares for Asia, J (rarely F) for Europe. Not much domestic or transborder, but when it happens it's usually a latitude fare.

I made elite for the first time this year on my own dime. My husband is elite and that was mostly paid for by his company.

The way I made elite wasn't very economical - mostly tagging along on NA business trips and a few trips to UK.

I'm still not sure how people become super elite without their company paying for it (i.e flying on company time). I stretch my vacation to the limit to get to elite status - anyone out there who isn't retired and flies on their own time to get to SE?

I'm a university student and I've been dying to start a thread like this but was afraid to because of getting yelled at in one way or another

I made Elite on my own dime last year. I have a secondary home (i.e. my parents live) in San Francisco, so the YYZ-SFO transcons slowly add up.

Last year was YYZ-SFO ($250?), SFO-NRT-TPE-NRT-SFO ($1000?), SFO-YYZ ($250?), YYZ-PHL-PHX-SFO ($250?), a MR on UA: SFO-LAS-ORD-IAD-TPA-IAD-LAS-SFO ($250?), and SFO-BOS-SFO ($500?) to push me to 35,507mi

Assuming these rough dollar figures, it cost me $2500 ... ouch 7cpm

...

As for your other question, my feeling is that SE is made mostly on company dime. But perhaps (if one is crazy or lucky enough) it's also possible to do relatively inexpensively.

For example, take the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...rdu-235-i.html mileage run. It comes out to be "235.60$ total, 8,060eqm, 2.9c per eqm."

100,000 / 8060 = 12.4 flights x $235.60us = $2921.44 @:-)@:-)@:-)

(if you're crazy enough to make SE on a mileage run with US ... you deserve the status X3)

I've been SE for the last five or so years through a combination of 75%business and 25% personal travel. Total cost to me and my company is about $15,000 per year.

Virtually all of my flights are booked in Tango Plus, but last year half of my distance flown was in J thanks to judicious use of upgrade certificates on long haul trips.

For me, it's a case of ya gotta do what you gotta do. My travel is 100% business. I'm only allowed to book T+ fares, and even then they wonder why I don't buy those cheapie fares you see advertised at the mall travel agent.:rolleyes: AC does make pretty decent money off of me, though, because I'm schedule sensative rather than fare sensative. At least I do get to ride up front on a somewhat frequent basis.

Either way, though, what I can't understand is the SEs that also fly places for vacation. After spending 140,000 miles butt-in-the-seat, I fail to understand how anyone could want to see the inside of an airplane if they don't have to.

Yup. I work full-time, but my SE qualification is about 80% personal (in terms of miles, not $).

bawm

So the trick is to use US carriers from LHR thereby avoiding the fuel surcharges I assume? Being YWG based I would find it difficult to get to E with a 2K investment.