I get 3,000 miles a week for a trip from Seattle to Portland and back (about 150 actual miles each way). Alaska has a minimum of 500 miles, so at gold level that is 1,000 miles each way. 2,000 round trip. Add 250 per segment for on-line booking (500) and another 250 per segment for kiosk check-in (another 500)---- Total 3,000 not bad for a trip that is less than 45 minutes. Oh yeah, I just realized I also buy the ticket on an Alaska credit card, so its more that 3,000. Hmmm.

Oh, I forgot to tell how much the ticket cost about $68.00--what's that .02 per mile. Actually I just remembered a better one. Bought a $288.00 Roundtrip NW ticket from NW and used mileage to upgrade to first class. Because of strike they put me on United (coach unfortunately) but I got double miles from NW (for gold status) 10,000 miles, plus 50% for first class 5,000, plus 5,000 from United total 20,000 miles plus 288 for purchase. .014.

I still consider a round the world trip in INTERNATIONAL FIRST class on StarAlliance (using LH's miles&more-program with the special promotion from jan-1 to feb-28-99: flying all 6 gives 50'000 bonus miles) as one of the best deals:

* all the luxury of international first class around the world
* costs for max 38'000 flight miles = SFr 9'990 = US$ 7'000
* miles: flight: 40'000 x 3 (for first) = 120'000 (2'000 more than flight miles for minimum-miles on some segments, class bonus counts for status with LH)
* miles: StarAlliance promotion: 50'000
* miles credit card: 7'000
* treshold bonus miles for reaching ff and Senator = 7'000 + 20'000
* total of miles: 204'000
* price per miles&more-mile = $7000:204'000=3.4 cents
* LH-Senator Status for one year (also StarAlliance Gold) with one ticket only
* 4 LH-upgrade-vouchers
* plus all other advantages and promotion possibilities as a Senator

Rudi's definitely got one of the best deals. Not only lots of relatively cheap miles earned but top status as well -- that's what really counts.

Just got my IAD-LHR tix for Jan 29-Feb 1 for $358. It's a 7354 mile RT (14,708 with premex bonus), so that's 4.8 cents per mile (or 2.4 cents per mile with premex bonus). Add the UAL website booking bonus and the credit card miles gets a total of 2.0 cents per mile.

Not bad for a short-hopper like me more used to paying more like 26-30 cents per mile!!!!

(of course, this is all academic since the company is paying anyway!)

This story (from a British Sunday paper) seems unbeatable:

"Flight BA9318 to Innsbruck is waiting at Munich's Franz Kafka Airport. I hand over my ticket. The rear doors open and my hand luggage is stowed. I climb aboard and fasten my seat-belt.

The pilot settles into the cockpit and turns the ignition key. The starter clatters, the four-cylinder diesel engine rumbles into life, and we head off via the airport's perimiter for the winding road that leads to the Austrian
border. Flight BA9318 is an eight-seater Ford Transit bus.

All right, I'm making some of this up: Munich's airport is not called "Franz Kafka". But the rest is true.

I had arrived at Munich Airport from Nice at 9.50am on October 14, and studied the screens for flight BA9318, which my schedule and ticket told me was due to take off at 10.30am. No such flight number was shown, nor were there any
flights to Innsbruck. I could see no information desk, but the screens suggested that British Airways' flights operated from a distant terminal.

The information desk in the terminal was unmanned. It was now 10.10am. I checked the screens again - still no sign of flight BA9318. In desperation, I showed my tcket to a security guard, who took me to his office, and discussed
the problem with two colleagues. They checked their screens - no BA9318 there either.

This was against all notions of Teutonic order. "Follow me", said one, leading me through security to check-in. A woman at the BA desk examined my ticket and announced "Oh no, there's no flight. It's a bus to Innsbruck". She directed me to the bus station, a major trek.

I found my bus driver. My name was on his list - hurrah - but when he saw my ticket, he shook his head and said "That will be 160 Australian schillings, please." I asked why I should pay for a service for which BA had received payment. He was adamant: BA had no agreement with this bus company. So that
was that. I handed over 160 schillings (about £10 [$16]) and embarked on my two hour bus ride...."

And on it goes. I checked the time-table and this route is indeed served by "BUS". I also checked with BA and they advised that this route counts as a "short-haul" journey for the purposes of Airmiles (40UK/400US) and Exec Club Points."

Greetings all. I had a few minutes and thought I'd click around. As for low miles per dollar, one of the better deals ever is Chicago to Stockholm, Brussels, Milan or Zurich on American. Through May 15 you earn a 10,000 mile bonus on your first trip and a 25,000 mile bonus on your second. The current airfare to Brussels is around $531. If you took two trips, you would have accumulated over 60,000 miles for just over $1,000, about 1.7 cents per mile. The best part is these bonuses are valid from any fare, not just business or full fare.

Just going over my spreadsheet and my best airmiles deal was 1998 (especially the post-strike fall).

In U.S. currency, and not counting car rental, hotel and credit card miles (ie. only counting airline earned miles), I paid an average of 7 cents per status mile (range of 4 to 99 cents, depending on the month) and 2.5 cents per air mile (range of 1.5 to 99 cents depending on the month).

The good deal was due to Air Canada's 2-5X post strike bonuses in September that counted for up to 3X status miles.

The grand total was 78 flight segments for 105,000 status miles and 245,000 total air miles (including all special bonuses)for just $7500 in expenditures!!! Except for short commuter flights, I flew mainly in the business class cabin due to upgrades.

I have never had such a phenomenal year at such low cost. Doubt that I will match it in 1999 but will try -- will start flying again next week if the snow gods allow.

*And* you made Super Elite, BlondeBomber... well done!

Abiding wrote: "I purchased $250 of office products from Office Max for supposedly $107.15 if I ever get the rebate check of $112.65"

I no longer do business with OfficeMax as they never made good on over $200 worth of mail-in rebates for me. Everything was completed properly and submitted on time. It's been over a year now and no resolution from them.

------------------
Addicted to airline miles? Check out: The Airline Mileage Workshop

See "Best bang for the buck"

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum20/HTML/000400.html

Randy - the bonus to Brussels, etc for the first trip is 7500. We are going at the end of March. Booked on-line 1000. Miles from chicago 8200. 25 % bonus for being gold. Used $355 worth of vouchers from a bumped flight last spring which means it is really free. so that will be about 11000.
Flew Ord to LAX for $199. 1000 on line booking bonus. Double miles between Ord and DFW, and double miles between DFW and LAX. Also got 1000 from sports federation. Totaled about 10000 miles plus it was a tax deduction as a business trip.Too bad I wasn't gold at the time.

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DtG

I got my best deal while being robbed. Two years ago my calling card number was stolen somehow and within one day about $12,000 were charged with calls from Australia. Then the phone company (one of the big three) caught on and stopped my card. It was an obvious fraud, so I was never charged for this, however, I got billed some $50+ in taxes. When I called the phone company what this was about, they told me that this was for the 60000 miles they credited me for the bad calls. The lady asked me, whether I wanted to complain or otherwise pay the tax and keep the miles. That was very nice of her and so I got about 60000 miles at $50something = $0.00083333 per mile.

Last year there was a 24 hr window on Continental for booking DCA-HNL in the summer for $214.00, so I grabbed a RT flight and got sunshine, aloha, and:

Actual flight miles 10966
Double bonus miles 10966
125% Plat bonus miles 13708
E-Ticket bonus miles 4000

Total miles 39640

Cost per mile = $214.00/39640 miles= $0.0054/mi

This can also be viewed as paying $214.00 for 39640 miles with a RT to Hawaii thrown in for free. An unusual opportunity I agree, but it can and did happen. America, such a wonderful country!!! Continental, such a wonderful airline!!!

I don't have all the details but here is what happend last fall:

Bought a $99 rt sjc-lax, was bumped and got $200 voucher, used it for a rt sjc-las ($60 left over), was bumped off the flight home for $600, misplaced luggage on flght back and eventually got $200 from AA. Used the remaining vouchers ($860) for:

SJC-LAX-FLL-DFW-SFO ($176) About 12K miles total with bonuses
SJC-LAX-MIA-SFO ($336) About 11.5K with bonuses
SFO-ORD-PHL-ORD-SFO ($329) About 11K with bonuses
Trip to LAX 3K miles with bonuses
Trip to LAS 3K miles with bonuses

Total cost = $99 / Total Miles = 40.5K / Total flying time = way too much ;-)


[This message has been edited by CART_Flagman (edited 01-28-2000).]