Mega Multi MR Madness!
 

Mega Multi MR Madness
or, The Month that I Lived on a Plane
or, How Lucky Convinced Me that 1K is more Important than (having a) Life


The Backstory:
I’m a young consultant on my second gig, based out of LA and working in Kansas City (MCI). As of the beginning of November, I had 19,000 EQM and was looking forward to just breaking the 1P barrier by the end of the year. I had already spent a chunk of my own change on the Double EQM offer (for the two of you who are unfamiliar with the offer, it doubles all EQM on flights between Oct 24 and Dec 16). I had just been staffed and looked forward to six double-EQM weekend trips between MCI and LAX or SJC/SFO, and a few more un-doub’d after that. One faithful night, not long after the SFO Dim-sum DO, Mr. LuckyCoins and I and were chatting on AIM. And so the story began…


LuckyCoins: Being 1K is so awesome.
XJ47: Really?
LuckyCoins: Yea. You should totally try to get 1K. Then you’d be awesome… like me.
XJ47: Wow… I want to be just like you.
XJ47: So what do I have to do? I only have a few more weekends left in the year and I’m not quite 2P yet.
LuckyCoins: That’s okay. Let’s see… which weekends are you free?
XJ47: I’m going home to LA on Nov 17. I’m free the weekends of Nov24, Dec1, Dec8. And I want to go to Dallas on Dec 16.
LuckyCoins: Just a sec.
[2 minutes pass]
LuckyCoins: Okay. I found you a good routing to LA and Dallas, two MRs to London and one to Philadelphia. You’ll fly 29 legs and earn 67,000 EQM. You’ll be on a plane or in an airport for approximately five and a half days in a 4 week period…
LuckyCoins: It’ll be great!
XJ47: …
XJ47: …
XJ47: Let’s do it!!!*


Four hours and ~$1400 later, I’m well on my way (literally… I’m writing this on the DEN-SJC leg shown in the first line below). I’m really looking forward to the whole experience – while I don’t think anyone can claim to love being on a plane quite as much as Mr. Coins, I do find the whole thing incredibly relaxing and am excited to spend so much time unplugged. I’ve got four or five books I’ve been trying to find time to read, some meditation entrainment CDs (dirty hippy…), a season of House on my laptop, lots of podcasts to catch up on and, if none of that works, plenty of melatonin and benadryl ;-)

The following are the routes and dates I’ll be flying. If you see any similarities, drop me a PM and I'll send over specific times/flight nums and we can meet up.

Nov 17/20/26: MCI-DEN-SJC-LAX-DEN-MCI, for 11,550 EQM.
Nov 24/25: LAX-PHL-PIT-IAD-LAX, for 10,878 EQM.
Dec 2/3: MCI-DEN-IAD-LHR-IAD-STL-DEN-MCI, for 22,672 EQM.
Dec 9/10: MCI-ORD-LGA-IAD-LHR-IAD-STL-DEN-MCI, for 22,170 EQM.
Dec 14/17/18: MCI-DEN-DFW-LAX-DEN-MCI, for 4,975.

Wish me luck!

*Note: The above dialogue may or may not be completely accurate and simply reflects my lame attempt at comedy. Haha. Ha.

Those MRs take an amazing amount of dedication - Enjoy those trips!

$1400 only to become 1K is actually a good deal. ^ I wish I have the time to do this type of complicated runs. :(

Great post!! :D The first time I found FlyerTalk, I looked at DogDad and said, 'These are my people'. I've been obsessed by maxing miles, perks, etc. since my first consulting assignment in Honolulu (and subsequent 'revenge' staffing in Minneapolis...). Few people understand how awesome it is to have guilt-free 'me' time AND to be earning your next vacation at the same time. Life truly is better post-status, so go for it and enjoy!

Holy Mother of Mileage Runs! Good Luck! Are you going to write a trip report for them?

Cheers!
M.

I wish we got this much opportunity up north :(.

You're going to hate planes by the time you hit LHR.

I was talking with flight attendents on my lax-nrt sector. they were nice, but i explained about MR they thought i was crazy :D

My whole family thinks I'm insane and my friends and my travel agent who booked for me

You're insane, congratulations, and welcome to the club! :D ^

I used to work in corporate travel and at the time never really understood why a couple of "my guys" used to insist on the most diverse routes. They'd mutter milleage and I'd just make it as mile rich as I could. Most of my collegues reckoned the travellers were nuts but I enjoyed the quirkiness of it. I reckon I could do a MUCH better job of it now though now I've been FT "educated" !!
I'm currently "resting" maybe I should find a job back in the industry doing exactly this :)

Hmm... LHR twice in 9 days? Ouch! Good luck not getting DVT...

On the bright side, though, you'll probably gain so many 500-milers from all those runs that towards the end you could spend most of your time up front (except of course for the LHR legs). And once you make 1P and start collecting double redeemable miles, 15k miles won't seem like so much to pay for an upgrade.

Still, ouch--and that's coming from someone who's crossing the Pacific another 3 times before the end of the year!

Twice in 9 days, thats nothing. I am doing LGW twice in 4 days and then repeating the the same double run 4 weeks later. However, I have been able to ugpradge most of the segments. Only one IAH-LGW is in Y and I have hopes that I will be able to upgrade that one as well.

1/11 MDW-MSP
1/12 MSP-IAH-AUS-IAH-LGW
1/13 LGW-IAH-MSP
1/14 MSP-IAH-DFW-IAH-LGW
1/15 LGW-IAH-MSP
1/16 MSP-MDW

Repeat, with varitations, on 2/8-12

Just don't do LAX-SFO-LHR-DUB for four consecutive weekends, Friday to Sunday. I am on my third trip and am really worn out! Should have opted for the double EQM thing!

I know the feeling. Exactly. Unfortunately my dad is terrified of flying (after going to Taiwan and back for 18 years... hmm). So I have a bit of guilt associated with stressing him out "unnecessarily." Oh well.

DVT?

deep vein thrombosis.

You should be fine on your short hops and being youngish.
Still some aspirin always helps.

Good luck on your ventures ^ !
I seriously considered a 3K MR but now it's not even necessary ;) .