fti

Platinum Elite Mileage Run January 1-11, 2009

Goal: to re-qualify for platinum status with NW/Skyteam for two full years by accumulating over 75K EQM’s (elite qualifying miles) during this time frame. Status is gifted the year you earn it until the end of February the following year. Then you have one more full year (March 1 to February 28) after that to enjoy the benefits of the status you earned. It took just over 10 days and 18 flights.

I decided last March to do this when the SU business class (mistake?) fare from DXB to YYZ came out. This was before the NW/DL merger became official and all the “enhancements” (deterioration) within their frequent flyer programs.

One reason I didn’t make platinum in 2008 is because I redeemed a lot of miles for flights in 2008 (three trips to Europe and one to Asia come to mind, among others). This year I have award tickets booked to Alaska (3 trips), Vancouver, Albany, Norfolk, San Juan and Sacramento, which I otherwise would have paid for. But platinum elite/Skyteam elite plus benefits are (were?) addicting and hard to give up.

Will it be worth it? I think so. Since I am doing it so early in the year, I effectively get 24 months of platinum status for my efforts. Most likely PE will need to be 100K MQM in 2010 with Delta (my guess) but I won’t need to really worry about MQM until 2011. Just the redeemable miles that I earn are worth roughly what I spent on the tickets. I will get all the platinum benefits for two years - 100%-125% bonus miles, domestic upgrades, even on award tickets (for now), companion upgrades (at least for a while), domestic and international lounge access when flying any class of service on a Skyteam airline, free changes to award tickets, no last-minute award ticketing fees and more (e.g. platinum elite phone line, additional miles or compensation with flight interruptions as platinum, etc).

Having written the above during the very first part of my trip, I have since learned mid-trip that the benefits for platinum elites are plummeting rapidly. Platinum elites will indeed be charged for booking award tickets 21 days or less before departure, and platinums will also now be charged to make changes to or redeposit award tickets. In this light, earning platinum status on Delta/Northwest is getting harder by the minute to justify! But at this point there is no turning back!

Trip summary:
57K+ BIS miles
78K+ EQM on NW (including J bonuses)
150K+ RDM on NW

246 hour trip, of which:
117+ hours flight time (wheels up to touchdown)
90 hours spent in airports
+-9 hours spent in the airplane before departure and taxiing to/from the gates

216 hours total of above

visiting Dubai 12 hours first time, 18 hours second time

Total 246 hours

Cost: under 4 cents/EQM and about 2 cents/RDM including positioning flight and hotel. Does not include sightseeing or (small) food costs since I would need to eat anyway and sightseeing is an optional excursion. Indeed, though I didn’t factor this in, I saved on groceries for 11 days by eating airline and lounge food almost the entire time (both surprisingly very good, except the Moscow lounge where the food was just OK). Since I am requalifying so early in the year and therefore am using this requalification for two years, a case could be made that my effective cost per EQM is half of what I stated above.

All flights, except the flights on Jan 1-2 from MN to Dubai, were in business class. Even the hotel cost could be considered “recreational” or “fun” and not really MR-related. I wanted to experience what Raffles is all about but in reality, I didn’t spend all that much time in the room. Never actually slept in the bed!

Thu Jan 1 – 4.30pm fly from central MN to Dubai via Minneapolis (2 hours) and
Amsterdam (10 hours) with Northwest/KLM, arrive morning of Jan 3rd

Sat Jan 3 – see some of Dubai (lots of walking)

Sun Jan 4 – 3am flight to Moscow, 12 hour layover (due to delay – should have been 6 hours), fly to Toronto, 1-1/2 hour layover, return to Moscow, 2 hour layover, fly to Dubai, all with Aeroflot

Tue Jan 6 - arrive Dubai 2am, Taxi to Raffles Dubai hotel, check into hotel at 9am, drop off luggage in room, sightsee (hop on/hop off bus). Part of evening in hotel room, check out 11pm

Wed Jan 7 - fly to Moscow at 3am, 6 hour layover, fly to Toronto, 1+ hour layover, return to Moscow, 8 hour layover, fly to Dubai, all with Aeroflot

Fri Jan 9 - arrive Dubai 2am, 1-1/2 hour layover, fly to Moscow, 6 hour layover, fly to Toronto, 1-1/2 hour layover. Return to Moscow, 8 hour layover, fly to Dubai, all with Aeroflot

Sun Jan 11 - Arrive Dubai 1.45am, hang out at airport. 8am flight with KLM to Amsterdam, 3 hour layover, fly to Minneapolis with NW, 4 hour layover, fly to central MN. Done at 10.30pm!

If I had to do it over again, I would plan the stop in Dubai for the end of the trip. But I had planned to depart the US on January 2nd with only one day in Dubai, not two. The fares for January 2nd from the US to Dubai were considerably higher than for January 1st, thus I ended up leaving a day earlier than originally planned.

For a detailed trip journal, you can click on the following link:

http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous...=552539&go=fti

For some photos of Dubai and of Aeroflot’s food, you can click on the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/johnn.ph...baiMileageRun#

cliburn

Wow... I am jealous....
Where did you find the fares in J?

Wiley

sounds like a great trip! how is the transit visa thing at SVO these days? any problems there? or even needed one?

gengar

I'm impressed you were able to get <4cpm with nearly half your trip in J. Good stuff!

LornaV

fti, congratulations on the nice trip, and thanks for sharing. I wish I had those miles in my account on Jan 12!

nldogbert

Fti,

Thanks for the entertaining report. Very good one especially for MR's, a few nice tips here and there..

Anyway, I am curious because you stated a few times that you went into the KLM and AF lounge in Dubai without a BP. Is this possible? Did you use your SU BP to gain entry even without a connecting ST flight?

Thanks.

nzqjyb

pretty sweet

fti

Last March DXB-YYZ round trip +-$!000 all-in.

SVO transit was simple. No visa for <24 hour transit. My only regret was not getting a visa one of the 8 hour transits (or spending the night) and heading into the city for at least a little sightseeing.

I am NW PE through Feb 2009, "elite plus", which gains access to any skyteam lounge when flying a skyteam airline internationally.

Policypeddler

Fascinating run! I'm not sure I would have the stamina to do this; however, I sure enjoyed reading about you doing it. Enjoy the benefits. You fly so much, it sounds like you work for a church group or missions group....am I right?

EasternTraveler

How did you acquire your Russian Visa?

Jaimito Cartero

No visa needed for transit flights (under 24 hours).

fti

I do a lot of work with both. Kind of a unique job, so it is hard to explain. But the short answer is yes

OnAMileHigh

Well done sir. I wish I had the vision to put this together last March. I earned my current, soon to expire, PE status doing back to back MSP-LGW runs on the CO mistake fare. I like knocking out the EQM's on long haul flights.

fti

For all three back-to-back tickets, the YYZ-SVO flights never posted. So I sent in my boarding passes and ticket stubs. Today those flights posted (over 20K EQM and over 38K RDM so no insignificant sum).

So even though DL/NW are gutting their FF program for platinums, like it or not I have that status for 2 more years. Will probably do a status match late this year and abandon DL/NW. Hate to "wait and see" but I can't afford to just walk away from platinum status knowing I would not be able to qualify for that level this year again on another airline/alliance.

And another note - I requested "original routing credit" since my original NW flight had me returning AMS-IAD-MSP but due to a schedule change, I was routed AMS-MSP direct. Not only did I get the original routing credit, I got 1,000 PE Upgrade Guarantee Bonus for the IAD-MSP flight that I never took

Exleftseat

I am right behind you. Leaving Jan 25, returning Feb 2. 139 hrs flying, 87k EQM. Not sure now anymore if it all really will be worth it, But had it booked long time ago. Guess, we'll find out.