Let me preface this by saying I admit to having a complete ignorance of the reward structures of the various frequent flyer programs and no saracasm is intended by my question. I am just truly curious (as a past and enthusastic user of the OWE product I'm afraid I'm missing something good here) as to what would motivation someone to spend $6000-$7000 for a first class ticket in order to spend two to three weeks of nearly solid flying. My favorite was the guy who was thinking of spending his entire trip in first class (especially CX's first class) without the benefit of hotel room. Surely the reward must be more than just the 80,000 - 120,000 or whatever miles accrued.
(At 1 cent per mile, this would only be $1200
worth of miles. Even valued at 5 cents a mile, you would break even on the ticket price, but what about your time?). Does some sort of super bonus kick in?

first, i will not not do it, unless i have 1 month to spend to travle for pleasure.
i suppose many people here who did the run with their own money also do some sightseeing/etc.

then the miles.
it is 3x100k=300k miles. so worth about 3kUSD
(for AAdv...it is 3x miles for elite tier FFP). so the only time i was thinking about spending my own money for AONE5 was wehn the fare was just over 4kUSD ex-JNB.

now, let's come back to FFP tier. i think the only reason for any 'mileage run' should be motivated by maintaining the FFP tier, not the miles. because the whole point of getting miles is to make your travel more comfy (or less uncomfy), it defeats the purpose if you have to suffer now to secure comfy in the future.

as for the benefits of FFP, it is a LOT for frequent travellers. e.g. lounge access, occasioanl upgrade, guaranteed reservation, no worry at flight disruption, etc.

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 09-17-2002).]

Hmmm, I think that's 2.5x the miles (at best). 100% PLT/EXP bonus + 50% class of service for F/A or 25% for J/D.

I agree with pegasus8228 on why I do mileage runs. Actually, I have done very few pure runs, as most of my run travel at least includes visiting with friends, if only for a quick dinner, before I fly out the next day. A RTW earlier this year netted me over 200,000 miles for 84,000 actual flight miles. It qualified me for EXP though 2/2004 and got me 8 VIPOWs with another 8 to come in January. Cost about US$6,400. I spread the trip over 2.5 months (including a stop at home in the middle), stopping to visit friends along the way and visiting some new places. Why - it was fun and very beneficial from a mileage program standpoint.

BTW, if you ever get the opportunity to spend 2 weeks flying on CX in F and sleeping on the plane - do it. There are few things that rival getting tucked in by a lovely CX FA.

Most runners enjoy flying. If they didn't, they surely would not do it.

It's 350%, Exmo.

100% miles
50% class bonus
100% elite bonus
100% Upgrade conversion

The last is what Pegasus factored and you didn't. But with that much intl premium flying, there shouldnt be much of an issue with converting.

Yes there is. Getting tucked in by *two* Cathay attendants...

Uh oh....maybe 2500 milers gone...

Oh, you did say "tucked".

I had to check after I noticed two smileys.

If a recent post in the AA forum is correct:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum71/HTML/011548.html
(so far it's been confirmed but not disputed) make that 20 percent upgrade conversion, not 100 percent, for a total of 270%.

Darn.