I won a million Worldperks miles From an Online sweepstakes (from Vonage) 2 years ago. I've already used more than half of them... but it sure is fun.

I accumulated about a million miles in one program (FB), but this gave me no benefit at all, because most of them where non-status miles.

Using them, however, gives nice stories

At this time I even have no status at all at FB (Ivory), but will be Platinum this year if every thing works out the way I want.

I'm at 2.4 million AA miles, with miles gathered from many sources. I'm pretty sure I have over 1 million US miles, having been at their top level for over 10 years, but I haven't received a cert like CPRich yet. I'll have to call US to find out what my total is. Delta is over 600,000 million miler miles, where my mileage accumulation will be focused this year and next. I've had over a million Priority Club points (Holiday Inn), but have burned it down to a little over 500,000 now.

Does "legal" miles/points include anything the airline/hotel would void if they found out about it? 300,000 of my lifetime miles were earned with one international roundtrip which cost me nothing.

-outoftown

I am a DL Million Miler and more than halfway to 2M miles. I'll send you the rest of the information via e-mail Lynda.

I have 1,050,000 with AA. 99% on credit card and bonuses/promos.

1,005,000 AA miles; only have 40k left to spend!

I'm currently approaching 2.6MM lifetime on AA, after hitting 1MM in Nov 2001 and 2MM in Nov 2004 (I'm behind schedule for hitting 3MM!!) A big chunk of the 2MM was from the Cinemark promotion several years ago; large soda cups had 100 AA mile stickers on them. I spent several days going through movie theaters after the shows let out, pulling stickers off of cups people left! Hit 1MM when exchanging electronic upgrades to miles, and 2MM on a LGW-DFW flight.

OK. I'll bite. How did you get 300M miles on a free international roundtrip???

Hey, that wasn't you picking aluminum cans out of the dumpster I saw from the I-35 top deck a few weeks ago, was it?

The miles were credited to my million miler status through a codeshare award glitch for 3 F tickets to NRT, but it didn't result in any AA miles being available for use after the trip. It kind of tripped the odometer, you could say. This was in 2001. It is not possible to do now and to avoid any problems, that's about all I can say about it. It helped me go from 1mm to 2mm in about a year. The last 400K miles I've earned have taken about 6 years since I rarely fly AA these days. About 80,000 of that last 400K is from idine.


outoftown

Lynda, some thoughts:

Did you mean "embellish" or elaborate? Because, if you've spent any time on these boards, you're aware that some participants sure can "embellish". Since you are an author, I should leave it to you that you said what you meant.

Second, don't you often alert Mykel about such stories, so he puts a notice at the top of all of the boards?

From my own experience, I can only add that I surpassed the 1MM and 2MM lines with United without even noticing. United caught up with me when they backed into the recognition after DL initiated 1MM status recognition, and then after AA initited 2MM recognition. I guess that I would also say that I wish I hadn't spread my patronage around so much at the beginning, or I could have made my miles count even more. But I don't regret my time on DL and others, and even benefited from "shopping".

Fourth, I have a colleague who has over six million AAdvantage miles. Really. He got started in a similar job to mine several years earlier, and will fly only AA, unless they absolutely can't get him there. And before someone challenges, it's his total -- BIS plus bonuses, as AA counts them.

Fifth, there's an interesting aspect to "the REST of the story!" here, though it may not fit with your theme. You may remember that a few years ago, USA Today convened a cadre of extreme travel "Road Warriors". They ended up abandoning it because they found that there were some pretty strange (O-C) people, or at least some pretty strange behavior, among the ranks. Along the lines of obsession, as with any obsession - like gambling, sex etc. The downside was the effects on family, job etc., that were happening as they spoke. Sometimes not pretty. Since that was not the bent of the USA Today program, they dropped it like a hot potato.

For a much lighter, sweet take on the latter point, you might check out the thread BigLar started in MilesBuzz, "When Do We Cross the Line?" My favorite comment was, ".....I'm Jeff, and I'm a Frequent Travel-holic". To which I replied (maybe along with everyone watching): "Hi Jeff!"

I have earned approximately 4 million miles and points to date. 98% of my miles/points are from credit cards and promotions. It's very rare that I actually purchase a ticket or room (with Latin Pass run being the exception).I have 1,760,000 lifetime AAdvantage miles and did the Latin Pass million mile run. Many programs don't track lifetime miles so it's hard to quantify exactly.

I keep an Excel spreadsheet tracking my "earnings". To date I have received 100 RT tickets I value at $86,000 and 113 nights I value at $58,000 for a total of $144,000. I determine value by looking at the going rate when I make the award reservation. I mostly travel on high demand weeks (Christmas, Easter, Presidents week) to high demand destinations ( St. Martin, St. Kitts, Key West, etc) when rates are crazy.

Needless to say I am a very happy camper!

I�ll cross AAdvantage 2MM next week. Probably half the miles are BIS. Thousands of miles through the Kellogg cereal promotion years back (my family thought I was crazy with several years supply stashed in the garage). 110,000 IDine miles on my daughter�s wedding reception by convincing the restaurant to let us begin paying in advance (splitting these miles with my wife) $1,200 a month. A lot of credit card miles, especially once I attained lifetime gold and the yearly earning restrictions were removed. I have opportunities to make large purchases on behalf of my clients $25,000 to $50,000 at a pop, and then get reimbursed. 6 new credit card sign-up bonuses. A lot of hotel program miles.

I use my miles for One World business class and partner business class awards; New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Tahiti, Easter Island, Patagonia(2), Peru, Costa Rica(8), Ireland, UK, Spain(6), Paris, Rome, Morocco. Que divertido!

I'd love to speak with you but I'm too busy collecting my next million miles & points . If you can catch me at an airport between flights then I can share some great travel experiences. Just look for a very calm traveler with multi-million miler tags of multiple airlines attached to an IBM Thinkpad laptop bag.

I think this may not have thought out well.

First, most hotel points (Starwood the main exception) are valued at about a 5:1 to 10:1 ratio to airline miles. So 1 million hotel points is more like 200k airline miles or less. And if you're not asking about 200k airline miles, why ask about only 1 million hotel points???

Second, I know of no hotel program that shows you lifetime points, because they don't mean anything to the program. So while I may have earned a million lifetime points at one or two programs, I have no way of telling, because I wasn't keeping track (and neither were they).

Meanwhile, at airlines, if you aren't "hoarding" without burning, you can't tell your progress toward/past million miles from sources other than flying except at AA, because each airline only show you the lifetime miles that it counts toward lifetime status or threshold award certificates.

And so if you aren't keeping track of lifetime "all sources" miles at the other airlines, how would you know??? (And since it doesn't matter at other airlines, why would you keep track of it?)

So I can tell you that I got to 1MM at AA in about 4 years from when I joined the program, less than 1/5 of that from "base miles" on flying (since I just barefly requalify for Platinum each year), another 1/4 or so in bonuses on flying, and the remainder on various non-flying stuff (credit cards, dining, hotels, rental cars, other random promos, etc).

But the others I have no clue, because once used up (or moved, or expired) I had no point in keeping track of them at their original sources.

What I can tell you, which is perhaps more signficant, is that whenever I can earn non-flying miles toward a choice of different airlines (that I collect miles with) and no other airline has a much better bonus, I choose to earn toward AA, precisely because only there do non-flying miles count toward lifetime status.

Only when another airline has a bonus that AA can't come close to for the same non-flying activity (or only when another airline can give me miles at all for that activty) do I choose to earn miles toward another airline.

But the moment I hit 2MM miles at AA (Lifetime Plat), all that will change, since the third 1MM miles won't get me that much more (not enough to work hard for). So at that point, I presume I'll suddenly stop caring much about lifetime miles...