Mileage runs, or more accurately, segment runs. Anyone done this?
 

So I'm doing a lot of flying this year, and I already have 16 segments either flown or booked, and more planned. I was curious if anyone has tried segment running to get elite status, and if its worth it? One of the routes I found just involves 6 segments ping ponging between hubs for about 200EU, and doing it would make it very likely that I would earn gold status before the year is out. The difference between Silver and Gold status seems enormous, and I was curious if anyone had any thoughts?

Segment runs are a common thing for FB members in Europe, for the same reason you are considering them. You should find quite a few threads on this on FT.

For comparisons sake; Good segment runs cost about 30 euro per segment. That generally means roundtrip flights over short distances from a non-hub to a non-hub airport (4 segments) at just over 100 euro.

In order to get around minimum-stay requirements (to save time you'd generally want to fly back on the same aircraft that you came in with) you can nest two roundtrips (A & B):

Trip A: ABC-DEF (Day 1)
Trip B: DEF-ABC (Day 1)

Trip B: ABC-DEF (Day 2)
Trip A: DEF-ABC (Day 2)

I would recommend to calculate how much money you would spend before doing this though. It is very easy to spend more money this way, than simply buying lounge access as a non-elite...or better yet, simply buying yourself a meal at an airport restaurant. Lounges are nice, but each lounge visit should not be worth more than ~15 euros. Since for that same 15 bucks you can get a better meal elsewhere :)

It also depends. If you have friends living in other cities (preferably abroad) and want to make them suuuper happy, you could perhaps just fly and visit them for a lunch or something along those lines. They'll think you've lost your mind if you're coming only to have lunch with them, but you'll probably get your gold card. :)

PS the cost of one segment might depend on the place where you are based. It can very easily become considerably more expensive if you live in a city where Air France has got less competition, like, say, anything in France that is not Paris/Lyon/Marseille/Toulouse. Even flights to and from Bordeaux are considerably more expensive, and that applies also to flights operated by KLM.

Thanks for the replies guys, so far the cheapest I've found has been more like 50EU a segment. I live in Florence however and FLR has got very little competition, so I figure it's going to be a little more expensive overall. Xandrios, you mention a minimum stay requirement, does that mean if you book a same day return you don't earn segments on the flight?

The minimum stay requirement Xandrios is reffering to is about minimum stays to qualify for certain fare groups, which may in some cases be cheaper. As long as you don't book MiNi fares you should get segments for every flight. (I know Alitalia also has some fare buckets that don't give miles/segments so look out for those too).

The difference isn't all that great; Silver gets you Skyteam Elite, while Gold gets you Skyteam Elite Plus. That means lounge access. The only other differences are incremental (75% vs 50% bonus miles; higher discounts on seating charges, etc).

Before segment running for Gold, I would encourage you to check again the differences between Silver and Gold - lounge access is the only real difference.

http://www.flyingblue.com/about-flyi...s/scheme1.html

For many years, I took extra trips, moved as much flying as possible to Skyteam, or routed via CDG rather than going direct to/from AMS (in order to stretch an otherwise 2-segment trip into a 3- or 4-segement trip) to grind out the required 30 segments each year to maintain Gold. I no longer do this, and no longer even bother to qualify for Silver.

When searching for the cheapest fares there generally is a minimum stay of 3 days required (or a saturday night). Of course you can buy a fare that allows to return the same day, but you are going to pay up to 50% extra for that ticket.

From FLR I'd assume that you will mostly fly out with AZ through FCO. Be very careful of the cheap AZ fares, I believe that the popular 'O' fare only earns miles on international flights (So FLR-FCO would not earn in O).

I'd say the difference between silver and gold is actually quite significant. It is lounge access and Sky priority services across the Skyteam network. While I would question the value of FB overall, I would say that in terms of service/cost, those who qualify to gold by cheap segments get by far the best deal of us all.

I agree, particularly if you are a KL flyer regularly transiting in AMS as lounge access is a major plus.

As for extra segments, I find it often comes up cheaper from the UK with KL to fly UK-AMS-CDG-destination than UK-AMS-destination. Clearly you would have to be desperate for the segments to voluntarily transfer at CDG but it might be an option for people.

I'm not sure I'm following either of those two arguments?

On the first, in what sense is it more useful if you regularly fly kl via Ams than say, AF via CDG or Az via fco etc?

On the second, if your argument is about transiting in general then we agree but it seems a bit of a truism, if it's about cdg I'm not sure why you'd say that? To Schengen youd basically stay in the same terminal and go straight to departure. About 5min gate to gate just as in AMS. If to non Schengen on AF or partners, I currently prefer cdg as at least you don't reclear security from Schengen while you do at ams because of gate security. Of course when the ams work on centralised security finishes ams will be better but not now.

+1
And the lounges at CDG (except for 2G) are much better than at AMS.

has anyone found some good runs lately, starting in NL/BE or western Germany?

subscribe for the alitalia Belgian newsletter. They quite often have a weekend sale where they give you a code for an additional 15% (or so) off their tickets. if you compare it with some cheapo destination, outside of Italy, you win a big big time.

Thanks, will do!