bamoozle

I found this website 2 weeks ago when I was doing some research and I think its a great site. I read a post where some people were wondering why someone would bid x amount of miles for this. I already have life time status with AA. My wife on the other hand does not travel that much and when she does she goes to visit her family when I go fishing in the Bahamas. She bid 207K miles; all her miles on AA and got out bid. I decided I would help her win this auction for her as a birthday present. I moved 100K miles from my account to her account. this cost me $298.75 x 4 they would only allow me to move 25K at a time. I also bought 60K miles on her account for a total of $1642.50. So for $2837.50 I was able to get 160K more miles into her account for a total of 370K. She will also get 20K bonus miles in her account and I will get 25K bonus on my account. I told her to wait until the last 7 minutes of the auction to bid. She did like I told her and she won the bid with 306K miles she had put a proxy bid of 370K. Was it worth it? The answer for me is yes, because it made her happy. Now she gets some of the benefits that I get when she flies alone.

broadwayblue

Seems like a steep price to pay for a marginal benefit. But to each his own.

dugknight

First of all, welcome to FT. That's a lot of money to spend for Gold status IMHO. Gold seems fairly easy to get each year with minimum amount of money spent. But as you mentioned, your wife is happy and that makes you happy, so for you it was worth it. Congrats on winning the auction!

SocietyFlyGirl

Welcome bamoozle! For lifetime access to the preferred seats, including exit rows, and some chance of AA domestic upgrades, and 25% bonus on redeemable miles -- well, probably not too bad a cost.

bniu

i wouldn't pay that much for lifetime gold, i'd rather just go do a MR each year to achieve 25K EQMs until I hit the million mile mark which is also lifetime gold. Since I fly alot of midcons on M80s, all I want is advance access to my favorite two seats, 21A and 21F, which hopefully I can get moved to 7A or 7D/F on the day of departure.

Advance access to row 21 on the 763 that I fly on every now and then is also nice. Hopefully, one day, I can advance to Platinum. The double miles is enough incentive to try to maintain Platinum (and after I hit 2MM, I won't have to care anymore about maintaining it!) EXP doesn't offer me enough incentives to feel that it's worthwhile...

KD5MDK

MRs take time. Time is something that is very precious to many people.

dayone

Let me know when they open bidding on Lifetime EXP.

aSWUplz

Wow, that seems crazy to me.

Surely the money would be better spent doing the Platinum Challenge then the following year doing a short MR to get GLD after PLT status expires? Keep following this cycle and you'll be sure to always have Elite status.

You'd also see a 100% mileage bonus in the years she's PLT with lounge access to boot. You'd also get plenty of 500-mile stickers, and it wouldn't be long before you creep up to the 1MM total required for LT GLD.

Gamecock

If you are happy,and momma is happy, good for you. This is a tough board, but hey, in the long run that's what makes it useful. The experts will give you their opinions and you can go from there. As a true novice (no status prior to DEC 08) I really appreciate the critiques given here.

I was tempted to bid on that but as I thought about I decided that I wanted to keep my miles for a trip I am planning in a couple of years. Even if I don't fly again I will be EXP through FEB '11, PLT through FEB '12, and GLD until MAR '13 so bidding wasn't a good deal for me.

I'll get LT gold the old fashioned way, find a way to beat the system.

sukn

To the OP, congratulations on winning lifetime GLD for your wife. You'll get a lot of criticism on this board for your approach to winning the auction. Without knowing your financial status, or the value you put on time, people here will say you shoulda, coulda, done a mileage run, that achieving GLD every year is relatively easy, etc.

However, for 307K your wife never has to worry about making status year after year, or spend unnecessary time in the air doing MRs while enjoying the benefits of GLD regardless of how often she chooses to fly AA. For 307K you've bought your wife plenty of peace of mind, and I think that's worth it.

Congrats again!

mvoight

Why would you need an MR to get GLD after you PLT status expires. When your PLT status expires, you get a "soft landing" to GLD. So, qualifying for PLT gives you at least 3 years of elite status, without requalifying.

WRCSolberg

Seems like a fantastic waste of miles(and money) for something that really doesn't have much value, but everyone values their miles differently I guess.

photodave

This is the key phrase and what makes this particular transaction sensible for the OP and his wife. It's all very well for the hardened mileage runners and upgrade addicts among us to offer opinions as to how we would never spend that much on lifetime status, but pause for a moment and ask yourselves how much you spend every year on maintaining that status.

This year, I've spent just over $11,000 to maintain EXP and qualify for the Elite Rewards promotion. I'm very fortunate in that most of this expenditure was reimbursed business travel (I spent $250 of my own cash on a mileage run to Seattle to make sure I hit 125,000 miles). In order to hit Gold every year (without DBEQM, AADER or any other such promotions), it would take about 4 such mileage runs at a cost of approximately $1000. This does not factor in the additional costs in the mileage runner's time performing research, and assumes that such fares are available at times which are convenient to the mileage runner. In order to maintain status, these runs have to be performed every year. To reach 1,000,000 miles and lifetime status, you'd have to do this for about 28 years at a cost of approximately $30,000 (I've included the 25% gold bonus in the calculation).

So, in exchange for 28 years of inconvenience, 307,000 miles and about $3 000 the OP's wife has no need to worry about paying for checked baggage charges, gets priority boarding and the other benefits of Gold status on her occasional trips to visit family for the rest of her life. Sounds like a bargain to me.

WRCSolberg

That's only worth comparing if she would actually be willing to mileage run for the MM status - which I highly doubt she would. Otherwise, it's a non-starter.

And on the same token, what can 307,000 miles get you? Two first class tickets to Japan plus two domestic tickets? Two J tickets to Australia plus two domestic tickets? The opportunity cost of that 307k miles is huge.

ja_user

A Question for the OP.

You transfered a bunch of miles to your wife account. How many lifetime miles was your Wife's account showing (still is, I assume) before she bid on the lifetime Gold status?

If you didn't know, once this counter shows 1,000,000 miles you are given Lifetime gold Status.