A Million Miles a Year
 

We've all heard of Pudding Guy and his exploits. He worked an offer on some pudding to get about a million FF miles. According to various articles by and about him, snagging FF miles is his hobby. We can all relate to that.

Recently he posted his recent activity - about 1.4 million miles worth.

My question is, if he's getting about a million miles a year (as he has stated), what could he possibly be doing for this?

According to him, he flies on business only occasionally. I assume he has FF CC's, and he bangs away at the hotels when he's off cashing in some flight reward. But a million miles....

Right now, I'm not flying much for business, just cashing in some miles for pleasure. I'm getting hotel points every week, and almost all my spend is with mileage-earning CC's.

That's the easy stuff. With luck, I might get the equivalent of 50,000 miles this year.

Am I missing some golden opportunities out there? Are there food/cereal/beer whatever promos out there that I don't know about? What should I be doing?

I can see maybe getting from 50K to 100K, but a million? And he does it every year!

Or is it just grinding away at every chance you get, a mile here and a mile there?

I've got some time on my hands and the willingness. Just need directions. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Maybe I'm missing somthing, but I cannot find where Pudding Guy said he is earning a million miles a year. I followed your link and he only said he burned (spent) 1.4 million miles last year. That isn't how many he earned. Did he say he earns a million a year somewhere else?

I don't how one could easily get a million miles this year, but late 2001 and early Jan 2002 you could have gotten a million Kelloggs AA miles into your account for $14K or so off eBay. In 2002 one could have gotten a million Qantas or Qualiflyer miles for $10K through the Insideflyer/Starwood promo. In 2003, one could have gotten 1 million CO miles for $20K through the Inside Flyer promo. (Not really a good deal!) A million BA miles have also been available during summers for around $18K. Besides costly methods like this - some people could spend a million $/year on miles earning CC.

I can see a person getting 100K some years from CC sign up bonuses if they play the games right and have an income to support this many CCs.

And maybe another 25K a year or so from phone bonuses.

I wonder if there might be a better way to get 1 million miles this year I don't know about?


[This message has been edited by wanaflyforless (edited 11-09-2003).]

If you need a course, then contact me. I need some more work.

I manage just my wife's and my accounts. We only travel for fun and miles. Pick the right promotions and fly them for miles, then cash in the miles for the really fun trips.

1999 - 450,000 miles for about $2,500
2000 - 1,500,000 miles for about $5,000
2001 - 500,000 miles for about $4,000
2002 - 800,000 miles for about $6,000
2003 - est. 550,000 miles for about $4,000

Prices are the cost of tickets and stuff for the miles. There are other travel expenses involved, but I'm not even going into our hotel program points.

I keep cashing miles for awards to try and keep a good balance. I'd say we are at about 1,000,000 miles right now and planning several redemptions in the next couple of months. 540,000 miles redeemed so far in 2003.

The opportunities are all found here on FT.

Yes - mileage runs are great!

I was assuming we were talking about ways to earn 1 million miles without flying - but I agree you could earn 1 million miles a year just by flying. However, this would be total miles credited incl. bonus miles - not actual distance flown. And one would have to spend a LOT of time in a plane to maintain a 1 million a year earn rate.

Satori - just curious - how many hours in a plane does 500K miles earned usually mean for you?

If it were not for my interest in traveling places I would probably never have looked for a place like Flyertalk.

2002 - 5 paid trips to Europe, 2 paid trips to Singapore. 1 trip to Canada and 1 to Rhode Island.
United 300,000 miles (wife and me) with half of those status bonus miles. During summer 2002, flew 20 short flights on * alliance carriers for 500,000 miles. First class to Europe in summer and December.

2003 - three paid trips to Europe on UA and a few transcons, upgraded for almost all flights. First class to Europe and Australia on awards. Lots of Alaska/Horizon segments so those have been the major butt in the seat runs (for 250,000 miles), but First class when flying Alaska; Starwood promo in Australia brought in 120,000 Starwood points.

How many hours for 500 K depends on the promo? The 2002 *55,555 promo was 20 planes, probably 25 hours in planes, since almost all the flights were a flight time of an hour.
The Alaska promos since June this year required 45 segments (10 segments for summer promo, 35 segments for current promo of 100K bonus) and again the flights average 50 to 60 minutes each.

I definitely prefer to do long-haul international so I can eat and watch movies from a business class seat while I earn miles. The majority of our time in planes these past two years has been in a business or First Class seat. I try to compensate any grueling day of flights with a nice hotel at the destination.

There are lots of ways to earn miles without flying, but they are generally considerably more expensive than taking advantage of flight bonuses.



[This message has been edited by satori (edited 11-10-2003).]

It's not hard to earn 1mm non-flight miles/yr if you're running enough business expenses through your credit cards.

1. Yes, he did state he was doing about a million miles a year - couldn't find the link. Claimed 1/2 cent/mile was his threshold. Seems OK to me.

2. Apparently, he doesn't fly that much on paid trips (lots of award thavel, though http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ), so the flying bonus doesn't matter here. At least, that was my impression.

3. He also does not appear to have a business that he can launder miles through - and that wouldn't get near 1/2 cent/mile anyhow.

I'm impressed with satori who seems to do between 0.3 and 0.7 cents/mile. Sweet.

Maybe I'm just not payin' 'tention enough. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Still time to rack up miles this year http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

The Alaska promo is still good for a month and if you have 8 days for travel you can pull in 125,000 miles for about $700. Look at some of the itineraries in the Alaska Forum.

The US Air/Lufthansa First Class deal is good for 60,000 miles for $600 if you want a quick run in comfort.

I just did a quick search and didn't see anything that eludes to this other than to Jamaica. I don't really follow US or Lufthansa, but for $600 in F a trip sounds like it may be worth the money. If you could get UA miles would even be better, but it still sounds interesting. Can you explain or point me to a thread?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum32/HTML/003384.html

look here

Some of the credit cards cap how many miles you can get in a year. No limit on AMEX Membership rewards, No Limit on Starwood, AA Gold Personal 100K a year, Business is 150K a year I think. I have bith AA cards. Once I make 100K miles on personal I stop using the card. This year I am trying to book every flight on AA. Seems a little tough on some routes because they are much higher priced than some of the other airlines.

In 2002 I believe that I earned appx. 3 million miles on a variety of airlines. i do not own a mileage earning credit card.

You know there's no mileage cap on your personal card if you have status on AA, right? If you're not elite already, sign up for a challenge, make a quick mileage run. Once you make lifetime gold you're home free. Sounds like you're fairly close.

I thought lifetime Gold only comes with in the seat miles? Most of my AA miles/points are from the cc. I am trying to get some in the seat miles this year. I have never done a mileage run before.

Rob

No - any source. From what you put on both cards annually, I guessed you might be getting close. Even if you're several 100K away, a year or two with no cap might get you there.

Two years ago I did this. I signed up for the Gold challenge and made a DFW-ORD-NRT-ORD-DFW run in a day and a half. Made lifetime Gold the next year - best $480 I ever spent.