I thank the members of FT who posted the ideas that helped me get to the magic number of miles. I never could have done it without you!

I have been a million (BIS) miles on UA for about 4 years. I have earned and spent a few million on UA.

On AS, I have been a loyal MP member for 22 years, but am not even at 300K lifetime miles (but if it was under the AA method for counting miles, I'd be at 2+ million miles).

90% of this has been leisure, and 98%+ has been out of my own pocket.

Until the past few years (well after hitting MM on UA), nothing was really a true MR. It was more like "seeing the world a weekend at a time."

This is difficult to be precise about. Of course, on most programs (e.g. DL) bonus miles used to count in a big way towards MM status. Not so much on DL any longer, but still so on AA. Then there is the issue of free tickets (why shouldn't those miles count?) as well as charters and pre-1981-2 miles. On the other hand, even today, if you fly a short hop (e.g. CVG-CLE) then DL still gives you the minimum number of base (i.e. MM) miles. So how do you calc true BIS miles. I input pretty much everything into FlightMemory and came up with over 4MM, vs. total FF miles in all programs of well over 10MM.

I have just under 3.4 MM with Delta, all butt in seat (BIS) miles. I earned between 600 and 700K BIS mile on Air Canada, and a few hundred K BIS miles on Northwest. I joined all of these programs at their inception. Actually I started with Republic Airlines which was aquired by Northwest, and Canadian Pacific, which was acquired by Air Canada. My Delta miles are still growing rapidly, and NW and AC are fairly dormant. However, my wife and I are flying in F between BDL and PHX using AC miles in one week.

Hi I accumulated roughly 2,5 MM with Lufthansa. Never been in an airplane gaining miles ! I did it only with promotions with german mobile phone company. worked like that : recomended collegues a phone contract, payed all the costs for 2 years ( contract includs free phone calls ! ) and got the promotion-phone ( which I sold in Ebay ) and gained the promotion miles of Lufthansa ! So result : collegues use a complete free mobile phone for 2 years, I didn't have any costs and gainded per recomendation 40-50 k miles

The sell price on ebay covered the cost of the two year contract?

Yes if you chose the right phone and the right phone contract . But the metioned version works only for special groups !
But there us a other option with the "right contracts", wichare not really advertised ( quite old types) but it's possible to get them, you can do it as well. The mobile phone company are quite interested to sell them New contracts, so if you know what you have to order, you make a good deal ( means covers the costs for 2 years ! ) and get free miles.

I have over 1 million status miles earned in Air Canada Aeroplan (without counting the miles from Canadian's program that was amalgamated). I don't know the exact moment because frequent flyer programs weren't that important to me. My mom was always trying to get me to sign up and I just said I don't fly enough!

Well once I joined, I started to see how much I flew and then it increased. After a few years I started compiling spreadsheets etc to record progress but it was too late to figure when I would cross the magic million mark.

I know I have done it since I have been an Aeroplan member since 1990 and I have been a Super Elite member (100k status miles needed per year) in every year since 1998. Before that I earned 30-65K/year. So even discounting class of service bonuses etc, I believe I have flown over one million actual miles (no multipliers used). Only Air Canada knows for sure (and maybe even they don't since they don't recognize million milers)

My M&M lifetime count is over 2M after 8 years of flying.

I've racked up a million miles... on 5 different programs. Biggest one I am around 400K, so I have a ways to go.

I�m a Million Miler with DL and 96K BIS miles away from 2MM. (Can�t even begin to add up all miles from other airlines and non-flight sources). I�m a little unique in that all of my qualifying miles are from domestic flights.
As a DL MM, I have lifetime Silver Medallion status and am currently GM based on miles traveled last year. The best perk is the lifetime Elite status because it isn�t necessary to re-qualify every year. But, other than that, the MM status and $2.00 will get you a coffee at Starbucks�LOL. As far as upgrades, you will find that airlines care only about how much business you give them (and your current ticket price), not how much business you gave them. My last two cross country trips this month were without upgrades. In fact, from SFO to ATL yesterday, I was number 22 on the upgrade list. A fellow coworker traveling with me, as a Silver member, was number 25 so MM status buys you nothing in the upgrade line. As far as recognition�you get luggage tags. In all of my travels, only twice has a flight attendant made it a point to come back to coach and thank me for being a MM and asked if there was anything they could do to make my flight more enjoyable. It would be nice if they did that more often.

Late December my daughter and went to Brazil on AA, me in biz class, she in coach. Hey, a college student can tough out overnight flights better than the old guy, right? Anyway, as we were checking in at Sao Paulo the TA told us coach was full and instructed us to get daughter's BP from GA. She hinted at an OP-UP. I'm thinking my AAPLAT status might give daughter another Xmas present but GA gave the set a MM flyer instead.

Guess current status trumps MM but latter is still worth something over non-elite even when travelling with elite. YMMV, of course.

I'm almost MM but hoping to finagle 2MM on AA to lock in lifetime PLAT.

And how come that you are SEN as per your profile??? Doesn�t make sense at all. You seem to be a fake....

Really a good question !!

Theoretically you could do it on German trains, but you'd have to spend a heck of a lot of time on trains. Having flown 100,000 miles in a year more than once, I'd hate to have to do it without traveling at 500+ mph. (I'm not familiar with the details of the LH program; there may be minimum mileage earning and/or class of service bonuses that apply here which could make it doable.)