jonnyz1245

I am going for gold again as I use the no change fee perk often as well as others. Last 4 years it was easy as I had lots of transcons but this year my travel schedule has changed.

Any suggestions welcome on how I can get 25-30K butt in seat miles in one or two flights? Hoping to not spend more that $1200 but will go a little higher if necessary. PE or J class only since I'm guessing these are going to be long flights.

Thanks for your help in advance.

_fx

This is basically impossible if you require F and only 1-2x flights. Even flying some of AS's longest routes in F RT will get you less than 10k miles, so you're going to need more flights, and to spend more than $1,200.

Probably your best bet is to look for a deal on an international partner. For example, a deal on BA F from INV-SEA was posted in the Premium Fare Deals forum earlier today.

If you sit in Y and are willing to make multiple trips, then maybe.

$1,200 is 10 change fees. If you're only flying 10k miles a year, how often do you change your flights? Do you really need MVPG?

Flying for Fun

How many miles do you have, how many segments, where is home? 60 segments will give you MVPG as well. Don't forget that if you are flying with partners, you will require 50K AS+Partner to attain MVPG.

You could do JFK-HKG-JNB rin CX PE return for $2395 that would yield 32,347 EQM & 61,752 RDM as MVPG

James

RAD_PDX

Where are you based? The favorites that I always recommend are the mid cons in P/I (SAN - OMA,MCI,STL). All can be had from $358-$398 for a round trip in first, with a little flexibility on the dates. It's a lot to do that 4 or 5 times, but you can earn ~5000 miles for each rt.

chrisl137

Looks like you can 6500 miles for an LAX-PDX-BOS-SFO-LAX for ~$450ish on a saver fare. Four of those and you'll have 25K miles, but it's not in F and it's about $1800.

As previously mentioned, if you're only flying 15K miles/year, are you really going to be changing your reservations enough to make it worth spending $1200 (and likely quite a bit more than that) plus at least four days of your life to get MVPG? To do it in two trips it's going to cost you a lot more.

DrAlex

If we are lucky, there might be an ACTUAL fare sale next week. If we are extra, extra lucky they will also have F on sale. Least expensive dates are traditionally first week of November and first week of December. Perhaps an opportunity will present itself...

ucdtim17

Has there been a (good) July 4 sale in recent years?

milypan

jonnyz1245

Thanks and sorry I wasn't more clear. I don't require F. I am looking for International partner ideas in PE or J that may get me over the hump or close to it.

MVPG has proven useful given my travel patterns. I am tall so grabbing exit rows for free on booking is worth its wait in gold to me. That along with the occasional bumps to first, the GGU, priority boarding, no baggage fees has added up to thousands in savings yearly the last 4 years as gold.

I use the change fee waiver way more than 10 times a year. I travel internationally using Alaska miles, of which I have a lot thanks to years of flying and CC points, several times a year with my girlfriend. This year alone I have changed two pairs of International flights 4 times to better routings/flights. class of service etc. I have also changed 4 reservations domestically. I have already saved well over 1K and I have no doubt I will be using it more.

In years past I was flying 40-50K transcons, this year that isn't happening.

jonnyz1245

Based in PDX and have a very flexible schedule. I was doing 8 transcons a year and that in addition to my other west coast flights got me Gold four years running. This year I have only one and possibly more two transcons by year end so I will probably not have over 20K. Maybe 25 with a couple west coast trips thrown in.

I am thinking maybe a partner flight in PE on Singapore or Cathay may get me the miles needed.

I thought of trying 60 segments( I am at 9 segments currently) but doing so may end up being more of a PIA than one roundtrip of a 12-15 hour flights in PE or J. I really don't mind flying long haul, its kind of fun(I know I'm weird)

chrisl137

It's probably cheaper and less hassle to just pay for PC and changes as they come up if you're only flying 15K miles.

AKLifetimeFlyer

It simply cannot be done with your criteria.

milypan

LAX-SIN is about 17k RT and can be had for as little as $1100 in SQ PE. Sounds like that still leaves you 8-13k EQM short however.

But, with the exception of the 4 GGUs, all of those benefits are also available with MVP, just sometimes to a lesser degree. As for the change fees, you should ask yourself whether you'd actually pay $125 to make every change that you made, or whether in some cases you made them simply because they were free. If the latter, then you shouldn't value the change fee benefit at ($125 * # of changes).

allset2travel

Check this one out (INV-SJC-INV in J & F):

BA/AA - Ł1753 INV-SJC in F

Positioning is a different story though

DrAlex

Not sure I guess - I looked back and the sale I was thinking of in July '18 was actually mid July. But, there does seem to be a trend in Holiday Sales recently (Halloween, Valentines Day), so we'll see.

OP, you might want to keep your eye on transcon I or P fares connecting somewhere south of PDX. You could get 22K miles for 2 r/t in F for PDX-LAX/SAN-BWI or similar. Still probably going to be closer to $2K, though.