FASTEST way to 25,000 miles.

Fly the 45 minute LAX-LAS RT in F ($425) and pay with a Visa during United's '3 Perfect Days' promo back in '99...earn 25K bonus per RT with no limits on number of RTs during the 3 month promo.

1 mile for under 1 cent !

I've had 2 great promotions :

1 - a London-Orlando business Elite Round trip on Delta for around $2.200 got me over 110,000 miles !! Cant' remember exactly how many miles I got, but I have only flown once on DL and I have over 110,000 miles . It was an Amex promotion for selected members in Europe : fly one RT Business Europe to US and get the actual flown miles + BUsiness bonus + 80,000 miles as part of the promotion + 10,000 as a new member + 20 000 for something else.. Sorry can't remember all details but at the time I posted my experience on this site. Globally, 1 mile for 2 cents ! Was a great promotion.

2 -Also, another great deal was last year (2002) the Free flights promotion by B.A. in Europe : fly one business class return and get 50,000 bonus. I flew Paris to London in C Class for 450 euros and got the actual flown miles + 50,000 bonus miles = that's 1 mile for $0.008 ie. under 1 cent !!! and thanks to that promotion we were able to fly Europe-JFK with Concorde (outbound) and World Traveller + (return flight) for just $685 each return ticket (tax included) or Concorde outbound + Club Class on the way back for only $900 (tax included) !!! Was a REALLY great promotion.

I went AUS-IAH-EWR-HKG Thursday through Sunday 2 consecutive weekends in May of 2001 for 750.00 and received 190,000 for each RT-(various Amex bonuses-thank you JonNYC)and with no status to boot! Of course, 42 hours in flight over a 3 day weekend in coach was tough.

A long time ago, 1986, I guess, I spent a year commuting between Washington and New York. PA & EA were competing heavily for business on the shuttle and I flew 200 round trips that year. Here's what I earned:

Each round trip cost me $100.
2000 each way for the flight.
500 each way for the "Water Shuttle" between the Marine Air Terminal and Manhattan.
2000 bonus for a same-day round trip.
2000 bonus for more than 5 round trips in a month.

9000 miles a day!

1.8 million miles in a year. $20,000

[This message has been edited by bollar (edited 01-01-2003).]

flew family to london $320 a person on nw each person(4)given a free ticket to australia and triple miles.

I have a good one. 7,000 miles for $0.00

(Work paid for the ticket, I think it was $196 or $216)

MSP - MDW
Minimum credited miles: 500 * 2 = 1000
Silver Bonus: = 250 * 2 = 500
Other bonus miles: 5500

Actual flown miles: 344 * 2 = 688
Time spent in the air: About 2 hours

Oh, yeah I forgot this. If you want to include the other things, like car rental partner and the credit card miles, then it's much higher. Then it's about 8,000 miles for FREE.



[This message has been edited by travelnick (edited 01-02-2003).]

If everyone is going to add trips on here that were covered by their jobs/expense accounts, then we're in for a long series of uninteresting stories.

60 trips SNA-LAS on America West earning 5000 miles per trip (500 per segment X 2, 100% Gold bonus, 3000 online booking bonus).

I rarely paid more than $150, many times $102. At the lowest fare of $92, I was essentially flying first class for free out of So Cal's most expensive airport.

All good things got to come to and end (just the same with the Wildwood Weed :-) ) -- the bonus is now only 500. R.I.P., the greatest online booking bonus ever. I earned 100K's of miles and found a great airline to boot.

I complained to US Airways once with a legitimate letter of concern over a problem flight and sent back some vouchers they had given us. I thought were a pain to redeem in reality and so surely they could do better.

They gave me 10,000 miles on my suggestion of this nicer form of useable compensation. I liked that, and I like them better for it because I feel I have more choices as a customer. Someone once said I'd have a million miles if I could get one for every word I wrote. I suppose that could happen. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

The good ol days with the AmEx CO Triple and Quadruple miles of 2001! A trip to FRA gave over a 100,000 miles.

I don't get serious about trips with miles under 10,000 miles value. Those 500 miles only clutter up the mind like peanut shells on the carpet! Why get emotionally attached and side tracked with 'peanut' miles, when there are much bigger prizes out there to claim with less efforts or loss of sleep!

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

R&R you are correct, go for the biggies whenever possible.

BUT travel and miles wanted is all relative, I think.

If one is just shooting for one free ticket, say Bos-Aspen, CO which is 25k on UAL, then 500 or 1000 miles may be something worth concerning themselves about in one case or another. Some do not fly as often as others so that could be their only ever free ticket. A good one at that, since the fare is usually about 5-600bucks RT.

Anyway, I have much more than that in many airline accts but I do recall the days when I too had nothing. To these people, one free ticket for 25k is the same thing as say, 3 free world tours in first class for someone who is exec platinum elite on 6 carriers...

It's all relative...
Just a thought.

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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!

monalisa:

The trip to London and Australia was in 1992? I forgot about that sweet deal!! My family of 5 enjoyed that year very well except London was a little cold and damp in February, but DownUnder was great in July/August.

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My biggest steal was only 3,000 miles. I booked a 5 star hotel in BRU via AA vacations. THe AAV cost was half as much as buying direct from the hotel or other sites. THey tossed in 3,000 miles to bood. Can't beet that.

I thought the LatinPass deal was going to be the best ever. When KLM matched my mileage balance from AA, I ended up with an upper six figure balance in their program. Total cost was about $1500 for the flights required to qualify.

I've got two:

BOS-LAS for $125 last November on DL. 5200 miles r/t. They were running 2x promo and I get 2x for PM status. Add 1000 for online purchase nets 16,600 for .0075 cents/mile. Wife had same. Plus we got op upgraded to first on the way back.

BOS-LGW in June 2001 for $425 using DL voucher money. They had a standard 2x promo along with a BOS-LGW new route 2x promo. Add my PM 2x and you get 4x for a total of 26000 miles. Got B/E on the outgoing overnight leg as well as 52k miles in bank (wife matches) for $825 of DL's money http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif