TheBOSman

I'm AA's number one...least valuable former EXP, I assume my photo is up in the main RM office and used for dart practice .

CloudCoder

Every time I walk into the Admirals Club, I loudly announce, "Your Attention Please! Lifetime Platinum, Multi-Million Miler, Now Entering Admirals Club. All Rise!".

But they never rise.

Now I know why. Mr. Pajama-Pants outranks me. ::cry::

Shareholder

Considering AAdvantage has been going for about 40 years, flying over a million miles a year is a rather incredible, almost impossible feat. Like 2.7K a day, every day or 19.2K per week.

JumboJet

Urban legend

Dallas49er

I am Spartacus!

Dallas49er

IMHO

Mr. "Pajama Pants' " anecdotal behaviour, in spite of protestations to the contrary, seems to be a nasty combination of narcissism, arrogance, selfishness, pettiness, blended in with an industrial strength case of DYKWIA.

But then again, even though I am neither a Doug Parker dispariger or fan, who amongst us wouldn't welcome the opportunity to "blow" him out of our assigned seat?

FTR (For the Record)-I like to fly "invisible"-Get on. Get going. Get there. Get off. Get through customs. While I appreciate the thought/effort, I am mildly embarrassed when Pursers/FA's thank me individually at the beginning and/or end for my business.

If I flew like Mr. Pajama Pants, or the United guy in Chicago, the last thing I would do is let them name a plane after me, or worse yet, ever talk to a "journalist ".

YMMV

CloudCoder

Theory: decades ago, AA offered an unlimited lifetime AAirpass for something like $350,000. There were only a handful of takers. Perhaps this mystery guy is one of those folks? Perhaps two such folks are involved in a friendly competition to see who can rack up the most miles? Or perhaps it's one guy with a lifetime AAirpass on a mission to earn miles for charity? Theories abound.

Score8

It's not impossible if you consider that for the first 35 of the 40 years, your credit card and other earning possibilities contributed to your number. If you were the owner of a business and all of the miles spent on the card accrued to you, this would be difficult but feasible. The founder of my business is in the 13MM range. He traveled biz class for a couple of decades, but much of it was matched by CC spend.

AlwaysAisle

I am sure they are talking about total miles accumulated in a person’s AAdvantage account. Beside the base miles flown, there are class of bonus, elite bonus, miles from credit cards, miles from hotel stays, miles from car rental, etc.

When I reached 1 MM status I did quick dirty estimate of how many of 1 MM miles were actual flown miles, and I think it was less than 400,000 miles.

OneWorldJunkie

I agree with the comments that he was probably quoting total AAdvantage miles earned versus air miles.

I met one of the AAirpass members that purchased unlimited first class passes in the mid-1980s. The passes were sold to raise funds for AA to purchase more MD-80s. In the early 2000s, the gentleman had 22MM and the AA card to prove it. He made trips to Europe from Dallas for dinner, etc to rack up the AA account miles with all of the bonuses and double miles programs through the years.

For myself, I just hit 10 million air miles from travel over the last 31 years in the AAdvantage program. AA had a little celebration in the LHR AAdmirals club prior to boarding the flight to hit the 10MM.

You are correct that over time, the bonuses, etc add about 40% more into the AAdvantage account over the actual air miles.

enviroian

Anyone who has to self speak about wearing pajamas on a plane and flying quadzillion of miles is most likely 1. blowing smoke so far up your arse and 2. has issues.

fanger

Wow, what a first post after 6 yrs registered here!

teemuflyer

I guess you'll have to wait until you hit 20 MM miles before they will throw it at the AA Flagship Lounge!

enpremiere

As long as the exciting and long-winded "this flight has been selected for a special bonus" card announcements keep rolling, everyone can feel like they're AA's number two flyer.

kmandrew

It was 250k for Lifetime Airpass, in 1983 I met with AA about it - instead I asked the company I worked for to buy a 5 year pass for $80k all travel was in F. It was kind of fun, I called an 800 number to book flights then had blank ticket stock and a credit card type thing to write to tickets. Living in Omaha was kind of tough getting home so I had the company rent an apartment just east of DFW to stay M-Th. It was good anywhere AA flew and had a provision that if AA went on strike the monthly counter would pause (never happened).