That is hard to believe almost. I would like to know what his CC limit is and if it is all on one account. I can't amaze anyone with stories (that are true anyway) about huge miles in thier accounts.

1 million miles BIS takes about 2000 flight hours @ 500mph which is a reasonable estimate including take off and landing.

Or about 5 1/2 hours every day for a year. That's 38 hours a week of flying.

I'd find it difficult to believe you could find anyone who spent 5 1/2 hours on a plane every day for a year. 1/2 that would be an impressive amount of flying (A 10 hour flight twice a week).

My conclusion is that a 500K/yr BIS flyer is about the limit. 20 years at that pace would get you to 10M BIS miles.

100 million BIS miles @ 500mph would require 200,000 hours or 8,333 days of flying 24 hours non-stop. If you hopped on a plane at age 20 and it flew non-stop you would have your 100 million miles when you were almost 43 years old.

At 4 cents/mile it would cost you about $4 million for your tickets.

$4m and 23 years of your life, I think I'd rather go the credit card route. You could purchase 100,000,000 golden dollars from the US Mint. At 2,500 per box the UPS driver would have to drop off 40,000 boxes that weighed about 50 lbs each for a total weight of 2,000,000 lbs or 1000 tons.

The most I've flown in a year is 200,000-240,000 miles (on 95% leisure travel), but there are some easy possibilities:

1) How about a weekly commute to Europe/Asia? Especially if you sleep on a flight. You might be flying 12-18 hrs/flight...

2) I heard about someone (friend of a friend, consultant) who commuted every day from Washington DC to New York because he wanted to be home at night with his wife (rather than spend all week in New York, and just come home on weekends). 1,000 miles/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/yr.

Don't forget EQM bonuses on some airlines for flying business/first. If your company is flying you US-Europe/Asia every week (or twice a week), you're probably in business/first.

Mitchell

P.S. There are many people who commute 2-3 hrs to work every day (Average work commute is 45 min each way). That's 4-6 hrs x 5 days/wk x 50 weeks/yr = 1,000-1,500 hrs/yr.

Ditto...rent it. Seeing Vera Farmiga's naked backside is worth $3.

George probably double dipped for AA miles from all his Hilton stays
Used iDine (AA rewards network)
AA miles on his Hertz rentals
and maybe some cheese and pudding in his past?

On the *A MegaDo my son sat by someone on a JFK - FRA flight. Apparently this person did that flight weekly which means roughly 7500 miles per week before bonuses. 7500 x 40 weeks = 300K miles, but I would assume this individual does some more flying in between as well.

And yet, they exist. I know someone who has flown 700,000 - 800,000 miles per year for the last 14 years. I am sure there are people who have topped a million BIS in a year (I once did over 100,000 BIS in 18 days - more than a million in a year is very possible.)

But not to be recommended. I am averaging about 200k BIS annually.
2009 was 225.000 BIS miles and it really drained on me. I got the flu about 3 times this year knocking me out for a week at a time.

I have a colleague who is almost at 10 million BIS.

For many years, he flew EDI to ITO roundtrip weekly. That's about a million miles a year.

So it can be done, but it shouldn't.

I have over 10 million miles. I have no idea how many of those are BIS. I've been to over 150 countries, but a lot of those were with award tickets; I don't even know if that travel was a net plus or minus. For the non-BIS miles, I really want to thank Gary Leff (View from the Wing) Gary Steiger (FreeFrequentFlyerMiles.com), and Randy Peterson (FlyerTalk), who helped me get a huge amount of miles through promos over the years.

My top was 240k BIS miles in a year and that was draining. I can't imagine doing more.

Agree. For 2009, I did 1,000,633 EQM all from flying, with over 80% of that in one program. I'm sure I've got a long ways to go to be a top flyer.

My BIS miles in 2009 were just over 600K.

I'm sure I'll be hitting 10 million BIS someday, unless something drastic happens to my flying. I'm looking forward to beating out good old George, unless Up In The Air 2 comes out.

On AA, extremely easy as everything counts, if not counting BIS miles, I too have vachieved that, howecer with the impressive caveat of only including airlines in the mix and not having ANY miles credit cards.

I've earned 300,000 status miles on one roundtrip on AA. Thru that trick and others I've learned about on FT over the years, I know there are many > 10 million milers out there. I met a 5 million miler at the Admirals club in RDU who was a lot younger than me. I am also a one million miler on US and closing in on a million with Delta and those are BIS miles. I have a lot more respect for high milers if they earned it in BIS, so AA status now may be flaunting how much you use the CC. Maybe the OP should have worded the post "except for AA".

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