nkedel

This seems the appropriate place to ask...

I'm looking at ending the year right now with at least 86,000 EQM, and depending on how I do on routing of a couple of non-MR international trips already planned, maybe as much as 92,000.

I think that's doable in two more straightforward weekend transcons, if I maximize my routing, even at the higher number. Cost, I would guess, is around $800-$1000, unless I can get very lucky with fares... maybe higher as I have little flexibility in timing. Sounds reasonable so far.

Time between now and the end of the year is really tight, which makes timing these things very difficult -- I've got basically zero ability to get more time off work, and I've got more than half the weekends between now and the new year already spoken for.

So... is it worth it?

(And, lest I go too off-topic for the thread, if you think the answer is "yes," is the MR Discussions board the best place to discuss MR strategies?)

925

8000 miles at five cents a mile is $400. A very small dollar price to pay for EXP. I've spent far more. So economically, yes. Your time is important, and it sounds like you don't have much. That might price the run as high as $800? Not quite the same win, but still... For me, the free upgrades all year and the 8 one way SWUs for the occasional international trip make it so obviously wort it.

But then you have your origin city, and the limited time and the busy holiday time and holiday pricing. You almost have to do it before mid November to get $400-$800 pricing, at least the way I think about cheap flights. Where are you originating? Can you get some time between now and the Thanksgiving fate increases?

I've done 20 plus mileage runs over the last 15 years, always for status. The first one was certainly the hardest, by far. It seemed so backwards, so out of character. Now it is so easy.

If you can find the time and flights between now and 11/14, I would certainly go for it. But the first time will be quite the hurdle. And next year, try to start your planning earlier if you can.

ILuvParis

What does next year look like? If you don't plan on doing much traveling, it's probably not worth it. However, if you do have a lot of travel in store and/or a couple of international trips planned, you'll enjoy it.

nkedel

First, thanks!

I'm about 10 minutes from SFO, or about 30 minutes from SJC, so either. I don't think AA has any flights out of OAK any more, but I think AS does, if it were relevant.

Between now and 11/14, I have 3 weekends free (10/12-13, 26/27, and 11/9-10) and I could probably take a day or two off from work -- but near-zero possibility of taking two consecutive days off of work because various commitments. Overnights coming back in the morning the next day might work.

I've had PLT with only one brief (sub-year) gap from 9/2000 to today, but that's almost always been by flying similar international trips, and while I took some steps to maximize my miles via the routings (often SFO-DFW-NRT or SFO-ORD-NRT rather than via LAX or direct on a codeshare) I've never needed to take pure mileage runs -- the few I've taken have been opportunistic when early in the year EQM promotions have come up.

Perhaps I could have been EXP for quite a few of the years, but it never seemed close enough to go for; I don't think I've ever broken 70k miles before.

My planning for this year was to get to PLT -- which I did back in June -- then burn miles for the fall international trip I was hoping for. Then family stuff came up and I ended up with 4 a bunch of transcons I hadn't planned on, and family stuff came up for the original planned dates I had award seats for.

Time is the hard part, although two weekends out to NYC and back (where I've got a couch I can crash on) while tiring is sort of the lame easy option.

I don't want to threadjack this with MR strategies out of SFO, but I'm leaning towards it, and would appreciate any more specific advice, or perhaps more appropriately a yes/no whether the MR discussions forum is the right place to ask for it?

Next year looks like I'll have a couple to several international trips (as usual), and the SWUs would be really nice. Whether my domestic travel will look like this year (a fair number of transcons) or just a my usual couple is more of an unknown.

tom911

I'd look at some same-day SFO-ORD-MKE turns for around $250. Those would be around 2,346 miles each way before bonuses. It will take you the entire day (out at 5:40am and back at 10:10pm).

For a little more you could do some same-day JFK trips at $332, but they don't bring in a lot more miles (just over 2,500 miles one way). You'd leave at 7am and be back at 10pm. There are some weekends those work with a start on the overnight flight from SFO, out at 10pm and back at 1:35pm.

Also, look at San Jose if you can overnight in the NYC area. There's some $296 fares from there but they don't seem to work for same day returns on the weekends or even with overnight flights.

If you have a 3 day weekend, you might look at Seoul in the low $800 range. That could get everything you need out of the way in one trip on AA metal (over 8,300 miles one way).

Pity you hadn't plotted this out a few months back when San Juan fares were $267. I'm off there again this week at 7,500 miles RT.

nkedel

Thank you, thank you, thank you! There are some Friday or Saturday same-day turns that would work beautifully to MKE (the timing looks like there's slight risk of a misconnect, but I assume the ORD-MKE-ORD will be the same plane?), and the SJC-DFW-LGA overnights work very well for $100 or so less than the SFO-(...)-NYC I'd been looking at myself.

That looks really cool, although I can't find one where I can do it with only workday off. It's certainly a more interesting prospect than two connecting transcons, but I don't think I can swing the timing. I wish I could -- or a couple of days beyond that -- as I'd enjoy checking out the city, but time is tighter than money.

If only I'd realized I'd be close this year... I thought I had done well being done with PLT in June.

aktchi

By all criteria, EXP is better than PLT, as long as you actually fly. After that startling observation, I must note that no airline status is useful when you are not flying. So I have to agree with ILuvParis that the crucial question for you is, will you fly enough next year to make the EXP status worthwhile?

nkedel

My typical year is 2-4 TPACs and 1-2 SFO-NYC trips, at least one of the latter with wife and kid in tow (where I can't seem to get onto the upgrade list, going by two of them this year.) Right now, I expect next year to be typical.

Because I usually get PLT based on a few long flights and not a lot of short ones, the free domesstic upgrades from EXP would be much less valuable than they are for some, but I'd certainly enjoy the SWUs.

shadymg

Well, another year, another time i'm SO close to exec. platinum. As it stands today, i'm at 74,000 miles for the year, and I have probably another couple thousand of work trips before end of the year, but unless a surprise international trip comes up, i doubt i'll make it.

Think it's worth it to take a trip solely for the Executive Platinum status?

Assuming the answer is yes, what's the furthest I could fly for the cost (i'm in LAX)

thanks!

Of course i post this while i'm reading the sticky on EXECUTIVE PLATINUM. Could you merge my post with that and delete this thread please mod, thanks!

miamigrad

Done.

The best way to get a moderator's attention to action needed on a post, or thread, is to use the "alert moderator to this post" function (looks like a red triangle with an exclamation point found in the bottom left corner, below member name, of each post). Moderators don't see every post or thread in the forum... We work and travel a lot, too

Apieinthesky

That's still kind of far, and would depend on how much time and money you're willing to spend.

I would look into whether those crazy East Coast-China fares are still available. If so, then LAX-East Coast r/t + East Coast-China r/t should net you 20K+ miles.

nkedel

Sounds like the same boat I'm in.

How much time do you have? Repeated Saturday or Sunday same-day turns to NYC or the midwest is probably the most time-efficient way, but dead boring.

You can get 22k miles in a single go with the right Asia run (LAX-ORD-NRT-BKK, but most of those fares require a couple of nights on the ground so you're really looking at a commitment of about 5 days, and the miles/$ are rarely much better than the best midwest runs. OTOH, it's more interesting, and I personally would rather take a couple of longhauls than one midcon.

There have been some very good fares for Nov to ICN (but they're not as many miles, around 16k-17k) and to MNL (also not as many miles since the NRT-MNL leg is a low-earning JL code on, plus I can't get AA.com to actually book any of them.)

I'm coming out of the Bay Area, but am hoping to combine the two.

--
$1690
$0.076 per mile
22,101 miles
(not super, but not easy to get this many miles on one itinerary!)

Nov 3 AA 32 LAX 1:25PM JFK 9:59PM 5h 34m Boeing 767 Economy (L)
Layover in JFK 15h 56m
AA 6091 JFK 1:55PM HKG 7:00PM 16h 5m Boeing 777 Economy (L)
Layover in HKG 3h 0m
AA 6081 HKG 10:00PM BKK 11:55PM 2h 55m Airbus A330 Economy (L)
Nov 7 AA 8412 BKK 8:15AM NRT 4:05PM 5h 50m Boeing 767 Economy (S)
Layover in NRT 3h 5m
AA 60 NRT 7:10PM DFW 3:45PM 11h 35m Boeing 777 Economy (S)
Layover in DFW 2h 0m
AA 2467 DFW 5:45PM LAX 7:00PM 3h 15m Boeing 737 Economy (S)

shadymg

yeah, thanks for the replies...i'm thinking if i can't get at least half way there through work trips that i'll just be resigned to missing out again. Doh well, Platinum's not all bad ;-)

AANYC1981

If on the west coast why not lax-GRU....might be good cheap intro fares for this new route

nkedel

The best I see are around $1100, plus visa fee*. EZE is more miles, and cheaper (although you're still looking at about $850-$900 plus visa fee*)

The ICN fares tom911 seem not to be matched out of LAX, although there are a few $950ish fares from LAX the 2nd week of November. (vs. $817 Sun-Thurs and $842 on the weekends all throughout the second half of this month and first half of November... possibly later in the month as well.) Minimum stay seems to be 2 nights, or 4 pretty full calendar days, so the timing may not work for many folks.

(* the fares for both GRU and EZE allow same day turns; I don't know if you could do a there and back without ever entering the country. I'd imagine if it's allowed someone here has tried it.)

The cheap same-day turns (or Sat overnights) to MKE seem to be available out of LAX and/or some of the other LA-area airports.