Hey,

I am writing an article for CNN Traveller Magazine on frequent flyer programmes and what we will all do to "go the extra mile"

Anyone got any particularly good stories of what you have done? where you have gone? how dedicated you have been to the cause?

Wont use names just some of the stories as examples. You can leave messages here, or If you prefer you can email me at [email protected]


Happy End of Year flying....

Richard Quest
UA 1K. CO Platinum

Richard...

In South Africa at the moment and just saw your report from Brazil. Good work there. ^

I'm not sure what you're after, but I'll submit something I hope you will pursue. Feel free to PM me, if necessary. FYI, I'm a very frequent traveler (will end the year with >350K qualification miles on UA/DL and extensive travel on SW). I have traveled extensively, both domestically and internationally.

The question "what will I do to go the extra mile" makes me think about what I accept from the government security Goliath in order to travel. I choose to fly (a lot) because I enjoy it and nobody is going to keep me from doing it. Not terrorists. Not the government.

My hope is you are willing to address the difficult subject of travel security, More specifically, that you will address the necessity, decency, and cost-effectiveness of travel security. There are two clear sides to the story. One is a "safe at all costs" and the other is to take a reasonable, risk-based approach to security. Everyone should agree that some security is necessary, that security should be reasonable and effective, that the way it is implemented should be decent, and that the government should be accountable. IMO, there is substantial information to demonstrate this is not the case. If this is where you want to take the story, I am more than willing to share my experiences with you.

What will I do? Whadda ya got?

Do you mileage running? Mattress runs? ... or good deads we have done along the way ie giving up our first class seat to a soldier?

You left out the third side. The TSA believes in the illusion of security (i.e., security theatre), while actually doing nothing to promote actual security.

TSA is an government agency with a sole purpose, security. Their claims that everything they do is essential, completely effective, legal, decent, and worth the cost is expected. The constant fear-mongering is essential to maintain the Raison d'�tre. This is nothing more than blatant self-promotion. But let's be realistic, what else are they going to say?

The problem is not that TSA "sells" the illusion; all government agencies do this. The real problem is not being required/challenged to demonstrate that any of their claims are true.

Hopefully there is a courageous journalist out there willing to thoroughly investigate what the TSA is doing.

I think you will find that many of us FTers have done 24+ hour mileage runs for those last needed miles to get to the next tier.

But "how far" is relative... I haven't killed anyone for miles... yet

I'll bite. While travelling about 95% of the year for work, I amassed a great number of travel vouchers on UA for various travel disruptions. While surfing the net I found a particularly lucrative fare which could get me ~65k in just a few days. Long story short, I took a week vacation from work, flew a few 22 hour days in that week, and cashed in some IHG pointsbreak nights, all to get some more of those previous miles. Total cost was some food and drinks, cab fares, and a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones (lifesavers).

these may fit what you want.....

i tossed round trip air tickets for a cruise in europe from a package deal and paid ~ $1200 ea so we could ug w mi's & fly in business plus help on status qualification....this was in the good old days [late 80's & 90's iirc]....if we were going intl [which we did 4-5 x/yr], ug was 1st priority...less important when it was just me, but i could always find ug'ed flights to book for us.....never had to buy j seats, but would have, they are much cheaper than a divorce....

my 1st mr was actually for segments....in 1985, aa had a promo, fly x segs in a date range get 2 fc domestic tickets....our 25th was coming up so i spent most of 2 weekends doing dfw-aus-dfw-okc etc etc....met about 5 others doing the same thing on the trips....we did dfw-lga [to see the kids]-stt-dfw w/the tickets...

good luck...

A few years ago I did a double RTW for lifetime Qantas status when I thought they might be removing the benefit (as Singapore did earlier that year). Link to trip report.

do you have any interest in other mi's earning methods, like pudding guy, for your story?

In October I did a back-to-back STL-SYD run on DL to take advantage of the double MQM plus 25K bonus RDM.

Over a mere ~99 hours I did STL-DTW-LAX-SYD-LAX-MEM-STL-MSP-LAX-SYD-LAX-MSP-STL or around 38,000 flown miles all booked in coach. Left on Wed afternoon and returne Sun afternoon. I felt great afterwards and wish I could have gone for the elusive triple turn.

Can you let us know when you're article is published?

I will temporarily kill our credit rating by signing my wife and I up for a zillion credit cards that earn miles or points on airlines and hotels we use.

I will then max out every credit card we have 3 times a month to order mint coins.

I will order as many gift cards as possible in charges upwards of $25,000 every 2 weeks to later order more coins with those too--whenever possible.

I will visit stores at strange hours--on days like XMAS eve and on birthdays JUST to get a promo or a deal.

I will buy things at stores online BECAUSE they have an airline mall affiliation.

I will sit at the dinner table and talk miles like some people talk politics or sports.

All this for a few non stop international routings for my family of four to see relatives overseas. And to me, it's worth allllll the effort!

MM

In the "how low will you go?" category:

Several years ago Cinemark Theatres had soft drink concessions cups for the summer season with peel-off codes worth 100 AA miles each, no limit.

It wasn't quite as bad as dumpster diving ...