What was the earliest "mileage run"?
 

Another post made me think back to my personal first "mileage run" (and, to the best of my recollection, the only one I ever made).

I think it was about 1983 (I bet someone reading this board can better define the date). Western Airlines had a special program - fly any 2 roundtrips and you can go anywhere on their system for $150(?) round trip. I had already taken one RT for business. But there wasn't another in the future. So I flew from LAX-SFO and back, on a Saturday, in order to get my reward. (I went to Alaska for the 4th of July weekend later that year - at that time $450 was the lowest regular price I could find from LAX).

Anyone else participate in that particular program? Anyone have a better fix on the actual dates (I don't keep my old records).

I think the earliest mileage run (trip done for no other reason except to elevate to elite level) was by Lindbergh, when he flew to Paris. This probably beat you by a few years.

Good thought. But what flight did he get as his "reward"?

I did one in 1982, the year after the start of the frequent flier programs. Flew a couple cheap BOS-DC trips when you were able to get a free first class ticket anywhere in the US after only 7 segments (including to Hawaii!). THey used to run those types of promotions all the time in the 80's, but haven't seen anything like it recently.

ff

Around 1976 or 1977, UA went on a long strike. Afterward, they needed a gimmick to get people flying again. The flight attendants began passing out certificates to the passengers. Each one was good for a roundtrip domestic flight at 50% off. (Back then there were basically only two fares...coach and first class.)

I can remember scheduling trips mainly for the purpose of collecting them. I even bought some off of infrequent flyers who didn't want them. The thought of being able to fly roundtrip first class ORD-LAS for under $200.00 (instead of almost $400.00) was very hard to pass up.

I remember Randy Peterson once referring to this promotion as the true start of the FF programs.

I remember in the 80's (I think) that if you flew one roundtrip you would get 3x miles all year. The OAK-SFO route suddenly became very popular.

In 1984, UA had a promotion about flying to all 50 states (as they served at least one city with jets in each state at the time). Those who did it within a certain time period got some kind of an award.

I remember reading about that on FlyerTalk.

The prize was unlimited FC travel for the next year, I think.

1988 was the year of triple miles plus they had threshold bonuses of like 50,000 once you hit 50,000 per six months. 1992 fly 8 trips 4 rount trip one ticket anywhere.

My first was in 1984 or 1985--on Republic Airlines out of Lansing, Michigan (where I was at school). They had a promotion (1-2-free) where if you did a 6-segment roundtrip you essentially ended up with a second roundtrip free.

At that time, my parents lived in St. Louis and I was in Lansing. RC served MKE from St. Louis, but did not serve DTW yet. From LAN, they served DTW, ORD and GRR. So for a LAN-GRR-MKE-STL round trip ($160, as I recall), you got a second one. Plus, you got access to the RC lounge at MKE (woo woo--in the circular terminal there, they had a room with a TV...)

Second was a really odd routing I did in 1988 (when I was a chicken checker)...KFC was based in Louisville, KY and we had a monthly meeting there. I had to go to Las Vegas and routed my self on USAir SDF-IND-LAS (actually was an excellent AM connection). US had a better coach than the norm (I recall juice before takeoff) and I got the triple miles (which I combined with my Piedmont miles in 1989 to take a friend to London in 1991 on BA in Biz)

Third was a time in 1993 when I was in Greenville, NC (about 90 miles east of RDU). As I had cleaned out my US account, I didn't want to use them any more. The only choices were US or AA (flights to RDU) so to get back to St. Louis flew Greenville-RDU-BNA-STL several x (got a trip to Europe out of it).

JL

In 1982 (or so), CO had startup service to JAX from IAH. Did a 24 hour turn for $38 RT total (no PFC's, etc then http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif)& they were giving triple miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif It was hard to get availablity as this was long before the internet. Was in grad school & called many times until I got through. Was willing to do a quick turn to get the miles. A few people called me crazy at the time but the triple miles helped me to get an award to Australia two years ago. I wasn't so crazy! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

In the early '80's UA was offering a domestic First Class ticket (including Hawaii) for flying 7 segments and 7,000 miles. At the time my brother and a colleague were flying coast to coast on a weekly basis, getting the miles, but not the segments. It was also possible at that time to fly 3 round trips a day between TUS and PHX for a $25 O/W walkup fare. Since there was no requirement for ID at the time I flew over a few weekends under different names to round out the Mileage Plus accounts, and was able to share the bounty of the early days of the frequent flyer programs. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I was able to use one of the tickets to fly TUS-EWR where I met my brother and friends, then fly to HNL and return to LAX. (UA didn't have a HNL-TUS connection available so I was on my own LAX-TUS.

Fred Flintstone went on a few mileage runs on that flying dinosaur. He was probably the first. I wonder if anyone saved his menus from those flights. Yabba dabba doo!

I DON'T THINK SO! I remember the promotion quite well even though I don't remember the reward. If unlimited FC travel for a whole year was the reward, I would have been first in line to buy tickets!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif



[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 01-13-2002).]

Actually, the reward WAS unlimited F class travel for a year.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/009098.html