Horizons

For those who made specific trips in December to top off accounts or reach new elite levels, did you reach your goals? Was it worth it, on reflection? What was your most effective run? And finally -- hard to talk about -- did anyone just throw in the towel or miss the mark?


My travel was definitely back-loaded this year, mostly because of severe work constraints Jan-Aug. Looks like December alone totaled 46,944 miles flown and 157,558 miles accrued. It was a harrowing month and I don't want to repeat the experience. It's the first time I've had to hustle this way to re-qualify.

And finally... did anyone have a quiet December?

Rudi

I had no flights on my own in december - but it was great to welcome Wanderlust and Catman to Zurich-Wengen-Basel-Alsace!

blackfur

December was a very intense month for me. Looking over my travel plans for 2001, I decided that I really wanted to be Exec Platinum on AA going into the new year. However, because of a lean summer at my previous job and all the time I invested starting my own business during the fall, I was going into December with only about 50K miles flown.

I had one RT transcontinental already scheduled for December, which would net me another 5K. I know the best way to pick up the remaining miles would have been to schedule a RTW, but I didn't have time to invest in planning the route and verifying availability of the segments. So, I started looking around for long-mileage, low-cost trips I could take instead.

I finally found good J and F fares from my homebase of SJC to BKK via NRT on American. (The NRT-BKK leg is a JAL codeshare.) I scheduled 3 roundtrips -- just over 16,000 miles each -- in just over one week. I'd fly out of SJC about noon, arrive in BKK around 11pm the next day, walk over to the Amari Airport Hotel and crash for a few hours, then walk back to the airport for my 8:30am return flight. I'd arrive back in SJC around 10am 2 days after my departure. I then spent the night at home before doing the same thing over again. Twice.

It was quite an intense experience. Not as exhausting as I thought it would be, but very disorienting. The hardest legs were the NRT-BKK segments. After spending 10-11 hours flying to Tokyo and an all too fast, inter-terminal connection, I'd be getting quite tired. But even in business class, I have a lot of difficulty getting any sleep because of the lack of recline. So I'd arrive in BKK fairly ragged, but my body clock was telling me that it was around 8am, so I wasn't able to get a lot of sleep at the hotel. I did get a lot of reading done on the plane, though, and watched several movies.

I don't want to have to do something like this again, but I don't think I'll have to. I should be able to requalify for Exec Platinum next year with only 1 transatlantic mileage run, and I'll be able to schedule it as a nice vacation with my partner. As is, my only regret with the run I did in December was that I wasn't able to schedule any time in Bangkok to actually visit the city. Pretty pathetic, but then it wasn't my primary goal. I got my Exec Platinum status and, because of all the promotions in place, was able to rack up almost 230,000 miles.

ElmhurstNick

Thanks to FT, I had found out about the AA TTBNS promo the day I made Platinum in August, and so I had time to plan. Otherwise, I never would have made it.

I had spaced my mileage weekends (LAS, SAT, BCN, MCO) out for every other weekend from October 15 - December 8, so I had no last-minute leisure trips planned. That almost backfired on me, as the work trips I had counted on in November for Executive Platinum kept on getting postponed. Fortunately, all five came through after Thanksgiving during five consecutive weeks, so I ended up flying 15 segments (11 work, 4 on an ORD-MIA-MCO golfing weekend run) to make EXP by 49 miles.

Epilog
In retrospect, I should have booked a $225 late December ORD-LAX-LAS during the September fare sales, and just eaten the $75 penalty when I didn't need it.

The total airfare cost of my mileage was $1200, with probably another $700 in hotels thanks to Priceline and $100 for a rental car and gas in MCO. I don't count food or golf, as I'd eat out anyway and golf is, well, golf! If you play, you understand.

But, at $2000 for 10 days I got to spent two days in Vegas with one of my cousins, go to my first FT event, visit a former student of mine in Spain and see her new 6-month-old boy, and play a couple of rounds of golf while it was snowing in Chicago. Plus, I got 77,000 frequent flier miles to spend on my 68 & 63 year old parents, and all the benefits of EXP for a year, including 4 systemwide upgrades to make my 2001 trips to Europe more enjoyable.

Such a deal. Thanks FT!

[This message has been edited by ElmhurstNick (edited 01-05-2001).]

chipper

In March, I had planned my trips to make Plat on AA and Prem on UAL. By July, I had sewn up UAL and Plat. Since my trips to Europe for work ended in July, I was not looking for ExecPlat via my domestic flying.

Things changed in November, when my partner and I booked a trip to Barcelona (on AA/BA). I did some crazy math and found that I was going to be just 10,000 miles short of ExecPlat on December 20. The bad news was that my work and vacation schedule kept me on the road from Nov 12 to Dec 21 with no flexible time for a run.

However, in late November, I saw DFW-ZRH fares around $600 for Dec 30-31. It was tantalizing enough, and with permission from my boyfriend I booked the ticket.

I almost chose to go in coach, but I caught a cold at Christmas, so 20 hours in coach with a cold was not for me. I made the trip (with a box of tissues beside me) and had a pleasant journey reading the books I got for Christmas. The miles and status posted earlier this week.

As I put together my schedule for January and started pricing tickets and looking at routes, I saw that DL might be my airline of choice for the month of January since the AA flights are much less convenient.