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Best Mileage Run Ever - MERGED

Best Mileage Run Ever - MERGED

Old Aug 13, 2006, 2:34 pm
  #46  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: MHT/BOS <--> World
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Originally Posted by Seat 2A
$1037.00 spent
198,960 miles earned

Read all about it HERE
Yes, I remember that nice AS promo! I couldn't make it work into my plans but I sure was tempted!

Your figure does include a threshold bonus for passing a landmark only possible because you already had a bunch of BIS miles on AS that year...but still an excellent boast!
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Old Aug 13, 2006, 3:42 pm
  #47  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
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OK, I guess I will submit some of my runs:

@:-) *Base fare is truly irrelevant for comparison purposes in my opinion; don't we all actually care more about what we pay than whatever the base happened to be!

@:-) Vouchers we redeem do not have a value of $0 (to most of us). If I redeem a $1000 voucher for a ticket to SIN that nets me 45,000 miles I do not count that as 45,000 miles for $0. I could have also used that $1000 voucher for many other trips so it does not have a value of $0. Usually we earned it doing something; we would not accept an instrument worth $0 for take a bump, flight cancellation, etc.

Category 1: Mistake fare
I bought 5 AZ YYZ-LCA tickets for about $200 each.
Will earn ~25,000 miles/ticket while flying business class.

Category 2: Extra Routing
I bought 2 UA tickets 25K+ EQM each for under $500 each.
* I could claim these ticket were under $250 each if I used the base fare only method so many here are quoting.
* My own discovery; not bookable now, so no PMs!

Category 3: Carefully planned runs not using a single mistake fare or Extra routing or Low Fare Guarantee claim.
1) I earned 747 thousand AA miles for $8940.19 airfare over a series of runs during ten weeks of 2004, starting with no status.
See here for my summary post or here for the thread.
2) I earned 77,500 AA miles in under 38 hours for $462.70 airfare including cost of getting to qualifying origin city (AA DAL promo this Apr).

Category 4: Bump Run
I earned 37021 miles on my $437 (~$250 base) NW ticket to PEK but also got bumped netting $1500 in vouchers on the trip. Net cost: -$1063 for 37021 miles.
This run also falls into category 3.

Last edited by wanaflyforless; Aug 13, 2006 at 4:17 pm
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Old Aug 13, 2006, 5:58 pm
  #48  
 
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Monterey, California
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The 2002 Star Alliance 5th Anniversary promotion for 55,555 miles after flying five star alliance carriers worked out well for some of us. At the time there was plenty of analysis calling it a mediocre promotion. At least Davistev was one other flyertalker who figured out a lucrative routing and I worked it for my wife and I to get about 500,000 miles total for under $2,000.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...5555+promotion
After getting $1,200 in UA bump vouchers and two domestic RT award vouchers for a 3 hour delay I guess the entire net cost of the trip was about $800 for the 20 flight segments and the run earned about 60,000 miles in Mexicana, Lufthansa, All Nippon, and Air Canada. Each of these accounts was boosted to business class and first class level awards through Diners transfers over the years. We pooled our ANA miles for a first award to New Zealand and converted other accounts into premium Europe awards. I still have leftover miles I plan to convert into Africa awards for this next year.
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Old Aug 13, 2006, 9:22 pm
  #49  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
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Best so Far

In my opinion, the leading contenders for best MRs are:

Best Mileage Runs:
(Demonstrates the ART of MRing, no mistakes,Extra routings, or bumps considered.)


Latin Pass 1,000,000 bonus Jan-July 2000 ~$3000 dhacker

Air Canada 6X bonus, January 1988, C$40-50 --> 9600 miles Oreck

Star Alliance 5th aniversary 2002 ~500,000 miles for ~$2000 satori

Swiss segment promos - some yeilding 0.002 per mile

Alaska 100,000 bonus for 35 segs 2003 ~150,000 miles for ~$1000 Seat 2A

Some of the Best Status Runs Ever:


2003-4 CMB-SIN-ICN-LAX-SFO RT on OZ in F ~$2900 then yielded ~60,000 LH status miles

2002? The TG BAHT Run UA 1K Status for ~$750

Some of the best Mistakes:
(Bookers posses the excellent ability to pounce on a mistakes when they happen)

~$200 AZ DEL-LHR Business Class
~$200 AZ YYZ-LCA Business Class
~$40 LEB-ART
~$40 US CLT-LAS
~$120 BA US-Europe WT+
~$100 PHX-CDG
~$150 AA LGW-CLE
~$200 BA LHR-HKG
~$300 BA DEL-LHR-SYD First Class
~$200 BD MAN-CHI E+
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 2:05 am
  #50  
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Arizona
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My LatinPass....

OK, so I'm up late as I continue to procrastinate on whatever it was I had to do-- I forgot....

but I was wondering out loud how much my LatinPass trip finally cost. I did a bunch of paid tickets plus one 20k CO award on COPA ticketed open jaw CCS-LIM-GUA with a PTY stopover on the return. Here's my itinerary, with prices as I look at the ticket receipts:

MDW-IAD-MIA on US Air/ Metrojet: about $89

MIA--CCS on Aeropostal $259.40

CCS--PTY--LIM on a CO award

LIM--UIO--LIM day trip on ACES (one seg for ACES, one counted as SAETA) $211.22

LIM-CUZ-LIM on TACA Peru with LIM-CUZ on a $171.10 Y fare and CUZ-LIM on a $50 cheapie

LIM--PTY on the CO award; stopover in PTY

Day trip PTY-SJO-BOG-PTY like so:

PTY-SJO on TA connecting to SJO-BOG on LR $292.00

BOG-PTY on Avianca partner SAM $177.10

PTY--GUA on the CO award

GUA--SAL--MGA with Aviateca GUA-SAL and COPA SAL-MGA $316.80

MGA--MIA on TA (substitute for NICA) $382.56

MIA-STL-BNA on TWA for about $89.


Total: $2038.18 plus 20k CO miles plus 2 car rental days plus 2 Fairfield Inn stays for 1 million LatinPass miles, which were used for some 25 coach tickets to Central/South America---> ballpark $95 per round trip award ticket.


The biggest challenge of the whole deal: finding a Thrifty rental car for my 19 year old travel buddy. Fortunately the Ann Arbor location was happy to take his money and he left the car sit on the lot!

Last edited by Viajero Joven; Aug 18, 2006 at 2:11 am
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 2:54 am
  #51  
 
Join Date: Apr 2000
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[QUOTE=wanaflyforless]In my opinion, the leading contenders for best MRs are:

Some of the Best Status Runs Ever:[/B][/SIZE][/B]
2003-4 CMB-SIN-ICN-LAX-SFO RT on OZ in F ~$2900 then yielded ~60,000 LH status miles

These days, you can get about 170,000 miles to LAX via JFK in F on OZ.....using the BD program!!

2002? The TG BAHT Run UA 1K Status for ~$750

For $1500 (a total of 100 Baht Run RTs), you could earn enough mileage and free intl. certs for 3 intl. J class RTs With AC.

Of course, the Mileage Run, oops 'Magazine Run' that was the most lucrative was courtesy of this board- buy InsideFlyer, get gobs of Starwood points, to convert to QF miles...less than 1 cent per mile. I think IFs subscription base went up 10% just on my purchases alone!!!

Last edited by beaubo; Aug 18, 2006 at 4:32 am
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 5:03 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by beaubo
These days, you can get about 170,000 miles to LAX via JFK in F on OZ.....using the BD program!!
Show me the way, guru beaubo!
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 5:37 am
  #53  
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Originally Posted by MatthewClement
Show me the way, guru beaubo!
The 170,000 BD miles is earned via the c. $2900 ex-CMB F fares (routed via JFK) and is for a BD Gold above 55k status miles in the current membership year, right?
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 4:25 pm
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
The 170,000 BD miles is earned via the c. $2900 ex-CMB F fares (routed via JFK) and is for a BD Gold above 55k status miles in the current membership year, right?
bingo!!!
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 4:29 pm
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by beaubo
These days, you can get about 170,000 miles to LAX via JFK in F on OZ.....using the BD program!!
Of course, but I wasn't sure this needed to be brought to light, as the other similar cost fare very recently got pulled.


Originally Posted by beaubo
Of course, the Mileage Run, oops 'Magazine Run' that was the most lucrative was courtesy of this board- buy InsideFlyer, get gobs of Starwood points, to convert to QF miles...less than 1 cent per mile. I think IFs subscription base went up 10% just on my purchases alone!!!
If we are talking about things like the IssideFlyer-Starwood-Qantas/Qualiflyer magazine offer (different from the art/skill/challenge of mileage running) I found the AA Kellogg's promo equally lucrative. unlimited AA miles for ~.75 cents/each when the promo first started (500 mile certs on Sam's Club Eggo waffles).

And of course there was ValueMags, Pudding Guy....

Last edited by wanaflyforless; Aug 18, 2006 at 4:34 pm
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Old Aug 18, 2006, 6:45 pm
  #56  
 
Join Date: May 2003
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The $20 US FC to ART, generating 15964 BD miles for a total cost of $64 (and the joy of having to fly some US metal and the B1900 flying trashcan. Second prize is two weeks in Jersey.)

I am enjoying the CMB run, especially meeting up with beaubo on the return. 187009 BD miles per RT and FC on some pretty good Asian carriers (even UA's PS service from JFK-SFO was good, much better than AA's front cabin. Still, marginal IFE, but the sleep comes in handy.)
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Old Aug 20, 2006, 3:24 am
  #57  
 
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Originally Posted by wanaflyforless
Of course, but I wasn't sure this needed to be brought to light, as the other similar cost fare very recently got pulled.
....
This was covered pretty thoroughly by gleff's blog back a few months ago, so this is more like positive reinforcement than actual revelation!!!
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Old Aug 21, 2006, 6:33 pm
  #58  
 
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Jfk-bkk

I paid $88 R/T plus taxes on Cathay Pacific. NWA PHL-BKK for $350 R/T including taxes.
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Old Jan 6, 2007, 7:22 pm
  #59  
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Talking Best Mileage Run Ever - MERGED

Let's hear all your excellent MR stories, everyone!

My best was a YYC-DFW-LAX-OGG(Maui) returning via HNL-DFW-ORD-YYC on AA during their 25th anniversary special. $550 with taxes all told.

Total mileage for this run, with the booking bonus, was around 23,000 miles. Too bad I wasn't elite status back then

It did bump me to Gold, at least, and I recieved some Elite miles.

Too bad that double AA miles promo won't be around again anytime soon. It would be an excellent way to get Silver without spending too much or flying too much!

I love AA!
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Old Jan 6, 2007, 7:43 pm
  #60  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
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i'll be doing my first one this year, looking forward to a story to tell...
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