3.5 trillion miles
 

There are an estimated 3.5 trillion miles outstanding among all frequent flyer programs.

I pulled this off of best fares web site. 3.5 trillion outstanding miles! Divide that 25000 for a flight to get 140 million flights and multiply that by say, conservatively, 300 dollars per flight, to get 42 billion dollars. Obiously, people blow more than 25000 miles on average per flight, but even if it was 50000, it would still be 21 billion in outstanding "dollars". That's quite a bit. Just my $0.02.

That's why airlines love putting capacity controls in every way they can. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif So that they could even increase the amount of unredeemed miles. To say the least, they don't expire any more.

- Pat

That is a lot of miles... I cannot remember where I saw it recently, but I believe I saw where Randy was qouted (and I am paraphrasing and apologize to Randy if it was not him) that if the travelling public was able to redeem all the saved up miles, we could all travel free for 37 days... or something like that.

Good thing about those restrictions... would hate to see the airlines allow us to all to fly free!!!

William

I wonder how many percent of those 3.5 trillion miles that FT members have?

Good question. I've got 84356. Next?

I have 121709, so the sum is 206065. Next?

I've got 112,254

I have ~190,000. The total so far is

508,319

Are a lot of those points in accounts, that are TOO small to qualify for an award?
And in the old days, TONS of miles expired unused. I bet there are a lot of people with totals of less then 10,000-20,000 miles.
So how many total miles are there, that are a threat to the airlines pocket books?

My household can account for 232,000........

New total:

740,319 miles

[This message has been edited by fscher (edited 04-11-2001).]

I've got 223,000.

Total now
661,065 miles

household of 4 (Gisela, Maria, Susanna, Rudi) and each is in 3 ff-progrmas (miles&more, Mileage Plus, Qualiflyer): 1'238'112

Total 1'899'177

267,886 in UA plus orphans everywhere, maybe another 60,000 on AA, AC, CO, DL...

I don't count to well, I would need to take off my shoes to figure this out... Help?

Wait, does points from my Aeroplan Visa count? About another 100,000 there.

273,000 mostly on UA, US and AA. Then some orphans on DL, HP and NW).

Brings a total to 2,172,177.

And to help out for Village Idiot's lack of math skills, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif his 327,886 bring the total to:
2,500,063

I've got another 300K, 199K with NWA, 60K with DL, and the rest cats and dogs.... (and just used 170K, so unfortunately can't count those on this poll)

Plus add another 40K for my wife....


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I've got 350K in the bank ... just used 160K so those don't count.

I've got roughly 140,000 and my husband about 60,000 - added to the running total so far (with some rounding):

3,390,000

Wow!

[This message has been edited by Scigirl (edited 04-11-2001).]

985,000 on DL, 13K on US, and less on a couple of others

So far, I have the following miles which adds up to 4677317!

84356 (FTer: Imhooked)
121709
112254
190000
232000
223000
1238112
327886
273000
340000
350000
200000
985000 (FTer: dant)
Total=4677317

Okay, I have around 800k in the BA household account. 600k in UA and 840k in AA (thanks to Marriott rewards). Total is 2,240,000.

Which brings the new total to 6,917,317.

Checking the definition of a trillion:

In Britain, France, and Germany, 10^18 or a million cubed.

In the USA and Canada, 10^12.

So I assume that it is 3.5 *10^12?

Excellent, at this point we have 1.97637628571428571428571428571e-6% of the miles accounted for. Well on our way. Keep it up.

bagold, fascinating! I just looked it up, and was surprised to see that you are correct in that the words that we (U.S.) accept for 10E9 and 10E12 are not universal in the West. (Actually, according the Webster's New World Dictionary, Collegiate Ed. 1966, the split comes between U.S and France on one side, and Great Britain and Germany on the other). So, by definition:

U.S/France: billion = thousand million = 10E9; trillion = thousand billion = 10E12
GB/Germany: billion = million million = 10E12; trillion = million billion = 10E18

A billion here and a trillion there and pretty soon we're talking about real miles http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Add 329796 miles from my parents and girlfriend on UA, SR and RG. New total is 7,247,113.

ops

[This message has been edited by Toxa (edited 04-11-2001).]

I have a total of 335,511. They are kind of spread out but mostly on AA and BA.

The new total is 7,582,624.

I have 623,769, my wife has 145,950

8,352,343

2,189,290! With 1.26 million in AA, 733,000 in AC, and the rest in UA and BA.

That makes the total (drumroll, please):10,541,633!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Add my measly 350,000 to the tally.

(Passing the baton ... )

A bit over 800,000.

11,691,633


VanMan how did you accumulate 1.26(+) with AA? Any tricks you'd like to share http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by GreyOwl (edited 04-11-2001).]

GreyOwl, not too many tricks, mostly flying coach in NA, with a fair bit of trans-pacific and trans-atlantic travel in J. Member since '87, and not too many redemptions. One recent trick has been talked about elsewhere - redeeming upgrades for miles at 2500 mile per upgrade. That netted me 207,500 miles in March!

Membership Rewards - 57,362
AA ---------------- 41,660
ClickRewards ------- 56 (hah.)
Delta -------------- 51,434
Greenpts ---------- 5,500
MyPoints ---------- 30,100
Northwest --------- 52,498
TWA -------------- 20,037
United ------------- 9,071
Continental -------- 20,000
----------------
My Total....................287,718

Needless to say, in this crowd, I feel puny.

New group total: 11,979,351

Well - let's add another 720,500 to the tally. TW @ 268K and AA @ 452.5K.

New total = 12,699,851

Never counted before but I have burned up 1.9 Million on AA over the years flying wife and I in F around the World. Also kids all over the USA & Hawaii. Oh well, when I get those TW miles over to AA I'll be http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

dAAvid -

edited to update "total"
------------------
previously known as "Bigtex1"

[This message has been edited by AA SLF (edited 04-12-2001).]

560,000 in my UA account right now.

so the new total is 13,259,851

US - approx. 260,000
AA - approx. 25,000
UA - approx. 10,000

but the one I am most proud of...

DL - exactly 0

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I'll put my 1,272,847 miles in the pot, putting the latest tally at 13,534,851.

Add my 172'792 BA (just burned 160k) and my ~20'000 SR

New Total: 13'727'643

421,000 miles (give or take a couple)

180k NW
110k BA
60k UA
25k AS
30k Diners Club

And about 16k orphaned miles floating around.

New Total: 14'148'643


(And I figure that since 1988, when I first joined Mileage Plus, I've redeemed about 900k
miles.)

Ok. I'll add in 254,000 roughly.
New total:

14,402,643

Hubby- 435,087 of which 361,418 is DL
Me- 26,231
Kids- 50,631 all on DL

Total for our family- 511,949

Total on FT- 14,914,592

if we are not only sticking with FF miles, we also have

125,000 AmEx
135,000 Marriott
110,000 HH

for another 370,000 (but these are non-airline).