CMK10

I'm sitting at 903,600 Lifetime miles (with about another 400 or so outstanding). While I'm currently Gold, it's highly unlikely I will requalify this year. I assume most people who are so close to 1MM easily keep their status. However, due to being unemployed for a large portion of the year, and no systemwide double EQM, I wasn't able to keep it. I don't think it's worth a mileage run at this point, I looked at weekends I have available and fares are higher than I want to pay.

I will miss AA status but this has been a long time coming. Higher fares and worse schedules have kept me off them, I wouldn't have requalified last year if it wasn't for 2x EQM. Maybe with miles I earn from ancillary sources I will make 1 MM at some point and come back to status.

ttusqrl

Was this rhetorical? The max is 999,999, but I doubt anyone has actually landed on this number.

mvoight

Why not? Why would they more likely hit, say 1000015 than 999,999?

mvoight

I don't understand one thing. Your profile says your local airport is RDU. While there has been no systemwide double EQM, certainly you are located in one of the better spots to earn DBL EQM, due to the triple miles/double EQM bonus from RDU. It's how I am getting to EXP this year, due to the AA cuts from SJC. If I flew out of RDU, all of my trips would have started in RDU and MR's would not be needed.

ooodaveb

Because you would have to land at exactly 999,999 to have MAX without STATUS.

Anything above will have STATUS and anything below will not be MAX. So the chance of landing there is 1/999,999 but anywhere anywhere below is magnitudes larger (999,998/999,999).

mctrees02

I just checked my dad's account and he has 943,401 lifetime miles and no status. In fact, he hasn't had status since 1999 or 2000. He used to fly to England/Scotland on a quarterly basis for 20 or so years but hasn't flown significantly since he semi-retired about 10 years ago.

In fact, I took him to the airport a few weeks ago to fly to DCA for a bike trip and he had a lot of questions about the new security protocols as he hasn't flown anywhere in 4-5 years.

He's in his late 50's so I guess it's possible that he still makes it to Lifetime Gold. However, I think he'd laugh at me if I suggested a few mileage runs to get him over 1mm.

clacko

i had ~ 500k bis [most on ua] prior to ff programs, and had no status then!....i knew other people who could have had 1 mm bis before 1981....with aa, someone could be gold w/out ever getting on an airplane....however, it does lead to discussions that might be interesting....

mvoight

Heck with the RDU/PIT/STL/BNA promos, getting 56599 RDMs could be done in one MR... "a few mileage runs" weren't needed RDU-ORD-DEL and back would have been 48378, before you count the positioning flight, and the side flights for the trip to DEL, like RDU-jfk-mia-ORD-DEL-ORD-mia-jfk-rdu would have been over 60K RDM for someone with no status (80K+ for PLT/EXP), and they would be gold when the EQM bonus posted..... Of course, I would have recommended a PLT challenge...as they would have had over 10K EQP for the trip. That would have given them PLT status for the rest of this year, next year, plus Gold for the following year. but that's just the FF in me.

If a similar promo happens next year, I really understand how to capitalize on it now..... unless the marketing people fill in the holes and restrict "round trip" to include some of the stuff we have done this year from RDU, et al

mctrees02

haha yeah my dad thinks I'm crazy for flying DFW-ORD-SEA-DFW-MIA-TPA just to get to my annual meeting every year.

Efrem

Let's say the average segment is 1,000. That means someone has a 1 in 1,000 chance of landing on that number. How many people reach 1MM each year? If it's 1,000, which probably isn't that far off, on the average one of them would hit that number. Since many of them are already Gold or higher, though, I'd say the expectation is that one person without status will hit it every two or three years. That would mean 5-10 people have hit it since AAdvantage began.

How many of those 5-10 are FTers, though? FT has about 300,000 members. AAdvantage has what - 20 million? FTers disproportionately have status; most members without status are not on FT. So, I'd say the chances of someone who hit exactly this number without status seeing this thread are small, though not insignificant - probably in the 5 to 10 percent range.

johndeere19

Someone works/has worked in consulting

Gamecock

Not really. The "odds" here are not random but a function of flying/miles accrued. Someone has the same "odds" of landing at 999,999 as 999,998.

The exception would be someone who is at a point, say 975,000, who transfers 20K SPG points. S/he will not reach 999,999.

ttusqrl

I'm not following your math. If the average segment is 1,000 miles, that will get you to 999,000, not 999,999. The statistical calculation for this relates to the number of possible combinations to get you to the actual 1 mile mark. So you would have to take your average 1,000 mile segment and predict the possibility of hitting the average a 999 times (or off-setting equally a specific number of times) and finding a flight that will provide 999 (or using that offset) miles at the end. I would actually rate this at well under a 1% probability of a person hitting this mileage exactly without precisely planning flights or transferring mileage to hit this number.

I never claimed to be a statistician though...

vasantn

Just as well ...

terockwo

No one has mentioned how credit card spending would enter the mix. Say someone has accumulated 990,000 & spends on average, $250 each month on their Citibank AA credit card.

I'd argue that they have a 4 times greater chance at hitting 999,999 on the dot than the 1,000 segment person. Im sure its happened to someone, & possibly to a flyertalker.

I wonder what % of the 20 Million AAdvantage members have over 900,000 lifetime miles & then out of that group what percentage of them are Flyertalkers. I bet its a pretty high percentage...