An associate told me that on the NBC Today show this morning, there were 2 guys with that many miles. That's all I know about it, and can't find anything at NBC.com. Did anybody see this or know anything about it? Thanks

Yes...I saw it. The way I understand it they were trying to find the person who had the biggest ff-mile balance. (That is the way I understood it...not who has earned the most, but who has the biggest balance...I could be wrong!)

They interviewed a guy (from Chicago, I believe?) who has a 25million balance with AA. I expected a "pudding guy" story or something but apparently he earns most of his miles the old-fashioned way...flying! They also interviewed a UA flyer who has a large balance (not 25m though). UA had named a plane after him.

It was just a human interest story about what it is like to fly that much and have that many miles available to use.

A few years back, UA offered the unique frequent flier reward of having your name painted on the fuselage of one of their aircraft for a year. IIRC, it cost either 500,000 or one million miles. Personally, I would have used the miles for travel, but if you have tens of millions accumulated, you probably already fly more than any non-pilot would ever want!

[This message has been edited by cAAl (edited 07-28-2003).]

Pity I missed that....did they by any chance say what these guys did job wise ? I mean there are a lot of jobs that require travel, but 25.000.000 miles..wow.

Something tells me their miles were earned from more than flying coach. Otherwise, if they earned 25,000,000 miles over 25 years, that's about 2,739 miles per day with no days off. Geesh, if that was the case, they wouldn't need a house to live in, since there would be little time in their lives to be out of an airplane.

Was it 25 mil on one airline, or spread among several?

Now, 25 million miles earned by flying.. that's just 200k flown miles per year for 40 years with 100% bonus and 100% class of service bonus.

Of course we also know that frequent flyer programs weren't around 40 years ago.

Even over 20 years, that would be more than 400,000 flown miles per year earning double miles on all flights plus double miles as a class of service bonus on all flights.

Nope. I don't think these folks earned 25 million miles all by flying. Maybe they bought a whole lot of subscriptions to Inside Flyer.

------------------
View from the Wing: A blog about Free Miles and Free Markets

and the real question: Are these guys on FT?

Nah..they would be way to busy flying...

Yes, I saw it on NBC this morning. Peter Greenberg - NBC Travel guru contacted American Express to see who had more miles than him. Peter has about 5 million miles.

The person with the highest was Steve Rothstein with 25 million miles. Its a combination of AA and UA, but he primarily flies on AA. His whole family was featured. His 12 year old daughter has 300K miles, 20 year old daughter has 600K and his wife has 1.2 million miles.

He flies almost daily, and gives a lot of his miles away to strangers since he earns more than he can give away. He recently lost his 15 year old son in a car accident. He seemed like a nice, down to earth regular guy.

The next person was a UA FF with 6 million miles, and they named am A/C after him.

They didn't mention what either of them did for a living or how they accumulated the miles.

[This message has been edited by norton (edited 07-28-2003).]

[This message has been edited by norton (edited 07-28-2003).]

Norton,
Welcome to FT!
ZZ

Qantas top flier does well over a million paid actual miles a year. All in It'l F, so I assume his balance each year is several M before any credit card points/hotel miles etc charges are added.

Flyertalker moderator B_Watson does around 700,000 paid miles in It'l F or C he told me. So a 25M balance out there from someone would not surprise me one bit.

------------------
~ Glen ~

Come visit HERE the most ** FRIENDLY FORUM ** on FlyerTalk. No flame wars, no personal abuse, no substance abuse. Not much of anything really!

I know a few people who charge much more than that on an annual basis. So I would guess if they belong to MR or something their balance would be way past that....

Something seemed suspicious to me, though. Especially the AA flyer. He described going on mileage-accruing personal flights, even in the week he was describing. Wouldn't he use some of his MILLIONS of miles to pay for his personal flying? Also, his family (especially the 12-year old and the teenager) had huge balances; again, wouldn't they be flying free on Dad's balance? That surprised me. I don't know AA's rules, but I would have guessed that he would not experience capacity controls or concerns about finding a first-class seat.

A major fault of the piece is that there was not a mention (to my recollection) of what these guys did for a living. That may have put some of this in context.

I am going to call NW and see what I get for my 1.5 million miles...maybe a plastic luggage tag? maybe naming a plane after me?

we'll see!!! Ha!