Dear Flyertalk members,

Last week I saw an article in a magazine about a young Dutch student who explained his mileage running. He travels in weekends to gain his miles, and uses those in the holidays for vacations. He said he did this so often, he has been in 60(!) countries in the past year. He did all this on his student wage (which, in Holland is usually never higher than €500,- per month).

Since I'm an Aviation Engineering + Security & Technology student in Amsterdam I got really interested in this story. I'm 20 years old so I have a long time of collecting miles ahead of me (I hope). And my brother lives on the other side of the world, so this might come handy. I started googling about mileage running for hours, but I just cant understand this method.

I understand that you get way more miles by zigzagging rather than booking a direct flight and you reach platinum status much easier. But I'll try to explain the part that I dont understand here.

Lets say you book a MR for 500$ and you make 15.000 miles from this. With the 15.000 miles you book your 'real' holiday. Now, you have still paid 500$ right? And how do you know the 15000 miles you got, are worth the 500$?

I really hope someone can explain this method to me (maybe an example run from Amsterdam?).

Kind regards,
Tim

PS: What do the letters like "Z Fare" mean and/or where can I find these defenitions?

I don't know about the article you're referencing, but mileage running is rarely worthwhile for the purpose you describe. The purpose of mileage running is for status. Even great mileage runs can cost 4cents per mile. You can buy miles directly from airlines for 3-4 cpm, often less during sales. In other words, your $500 hypothetical that garners 15K miles will be very rare to find, and even when you do, you could have just bought 15K miles for $565 (United), $525 (US Airways), etc.

Hello Tim, and welcome to FlyerTalk. Do stick around, it's a fun site where everyone's contribution really helps.

Mileage running is essentially a process by which people take flights (or routings) that they don't need to, purely to gain air miles and, usually in the process, higher status on airline frequent flyer programmes. So for example people might want to go from London to Rome but instead fly London-Frankfurt-Munich-Rome on a fare which costs just as much, but which gets them three of four times the miles. Whether this makes financial sense is often a different question.

I live near London and travel a great deal on BA. Some of he people on the BA section of this website fly Amsterdam-London-New York-Las Vegas-Los Angeles-Honolulu-Los Angeles-Miami-San Juan-Miami-Los Angeles-Honolulu-Los Angeles-New York-London over a weekend, just to collect the miles/points (really!). It's a slightly bizarre obsession.

You might find this thread helpful:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...rums-work.html

or this one:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...ser-guide.html

Thank you both for taking the time to explain! I really appreciate it. Tomorrow I might take the time to put together a translated version of the article, so you guys can read it and maybe understand what that guy is doing!

Sometimes KLM has crazy deals for 100 euro round trip (rare) so if he got a few of those he could get a good sum of points

Welcome to FlyerTalk, InsaneTim. Since this question is specifically about MRs, your post has been moved to our dedicated Mileage Run Discussion forum, where it may be subject to merging with an existing thread.

Responding FTers will please note that this thread originated at the flame-free Information Desk.


Good luck!

Also I've found that a great majority of the MR deals have an orignation point in the US, and are on one of the big 3 US based carriers. Not sure if thats because thats where all the deals are or if FT is just more US-centric.

I do know that no MRs worth speaking about are available from my home airport, SIN. Not sure how it will be ex-AMS.

Alright, this is the translated version of the article (by me, so I hope you can understand):

For the past years a guy named Valentijn Kuperus has been in an airplane for 30 to 50 times a year on average. He has been in 60 different countries and does this all on his student budget! Before this interview, he has slept a night in a hotel in Amsterdam for 40 euro so that he can stay for free at a deluxe hotel at Bora-Bora where one night costs around 200 euros.

How does this work?
In exchange for an amount of points, you get flight tickets from the airline. You have to exploit this offer as good as possible. Lets say you can pick an intercontinental flight; you could choose to fly from Amsterdam to Frankfurt. But, you can also choose to fly from Miami to New York to Vancouver to Alaska. By making use of software owned by travel companies these flights are found. Usually the guy books his trips one year before departure. In February he goes to Vancouver, in March to Guatemala, in April to Singapore, in may to Sidney, in June Abu Dhabi and in July he goes to 6 destinations; Tokyo, Ishigaki, French-Polynesia, Boracay, Cambodja and Vietnam. All of this on his student budget! (which, in Holland, is usually not higher than €400-500,- per month.)

He has been in 67 countries so far and because of all the stamps in his passport, he has to get a new one every 2 or 3 years.


This was my translated version of the article, I hope you guys can understand how he's doing it cause I don't .

It seems the guy from your article is a blogger so if you would like to know his in's and out's, perhaps that's a good start.

Btw, the trips you have reported about, were already taken, for ex AUH in June. For this particular flight on AZ (my guess but I'm quite sure), you can even retrieve a dedicated thread on this forum/MR discussion if I remember well.

Hi insaneTim - I think that you are getting stuck on how can this work financially? Here is an old article that might help explain the concept: http://travelsort.com/blog/flying-fi...-ben-schlappig

Here is also a video that helps to explain it: http://vimeo.com/7167640

In the first article, Ben (One Mile at a Time) was averaging about a $0.01 per mile in cost. Since that article was written, the airlines do not do as many promotions, airfares have risen and the earning rates have changed. Ben mentions flying coast to coast for $250 - this is now closer to $400 to $450 - and if you add segments, they increase the price.

But, you can still do some inexpensive flying. This year, I picked up a EWR-MXP for $186, and JAX-OSL for $486. These are mileage "jogs" - I use cheap fares to determine where I am going to visit.

Not always the case. I have a LGA-PHL-PHX-BUR r/t at $211 and a EWR-CLT-SFO r/t at $250 this year.

I totally agree. I have been given some of the weirdest looks, and heard some totally bizarre comments when I said that I was going to SIN for 2.5 hours, or SAN for 1.5 hours, etc. But, if you really love what you are doing (read FLYING) and are keen on learning the game, this can be awesome, and totally addictive. Especially if you get to meet all the amazing FT'ers along the way.

I used to do it on a student budget during my undergrad, and grad; and I still do it! I was always able to maintain a decent status with atleast two airlines (by BIS). IMO, MR's are more to earn and keep elite status with an airline, as opposed to earning RDMs (which, ofcourse, is necessary and an added benefit of MR's).

I am not nearly as experienced as many of the FT'ers here, and I have a long way to go! Hope our paths cross sometime!!

Thanks for replying to my question guys, it really helps me understand this.

Still I have some things that I dont understand:
- How do you know you have enough time for the transfer; for example you planned 2 hours for your transfer, but your first flight is delayed for 3 hours.. Is there some kind of guarantee or cashback if these kind of things occur?

- How do you know the value of the miles you for a certain flight. For example, in the article explained above, the guy said this too: I try to book milerun flights if I get around 5(!) times the value of the ticket, in miles. For example: if he books a flight for 200euro, the value of the miles he gets should be around 1000 euros.

I understand this theory, but how does he know the value of the miles is around that 1000 euros? (and is this even possible nowadays?)

- When I look around on this forum I see alot of people talking about a flight and then they add a certain Fare behind it. For example V fares. What do these characters mean and what how can I use/learn about them?

The report you read is a bit of a nonsense, and reflects a world that is on its way out, or has already disappeared.

Airlines have been working hard to destroy value in miles earned through frequent-flying at low cost. Increasingly, they reward $$$ spend on tickets rather than distance flown. The miles are a type of "cash-back" on high-fare tickets often paid for by companies/employers, but selected/purchased by the traveller. Passengers on cheap tickets are "commodity" flyers, they can be won more easily by ticket prices than through loyalty rewards

• The cheap flights the blogger claims as mileage-earners are increasingly earning no miles at all or a very limited proportion of the miles earned at higher fares. Some mistake-fares buck this trend, but they are not so easy to find and often require additional costs for positioning, overnight stays etc
  
• Buying trips with miles generally requires a co-payment in cash to cover taxes, fuel charge, booking fees, insurance and other fanciful amounts conjured up by the airline. These cash payments frequently add up to the price of an economy-class ticket. Carriers in the US are different. But while there are carriers with low charges elsewhere, outside the US these tend to be thin on the ground.
  
  My miles ticket to Jakarta requires �600 in cash. It's only a value proposition because I have sufficient miles to put myself in business-class. And that takes a lot of miles.

Status may be worth chasing, but only if you are (a) a fool, (b) wealthy enough to fund the chase, or (c) you fly enough to justify it in terms of benefits received. If you want to pursue status, you can select programmes with low status-barriers, such as Aegean's route to STAR Gold: the miles earned are of relatively low importance, but access to a world-network of airport lounges, seat-selection and first-class check-in make economy-class travel much more comfortable.

Another thing to consider is that with status comes mileage multipliers. So, for example, if you reach Platinum or Executive Platinum status (referred to on FlyerTalk as PLT or EXP) on American, you will (thereafter, for as long as you retain your status) earn 2 miles for every mile you actually fly on American or codeshares operated by other carriers if you book them using the American flight number codeshare.