kurz

A higher frequent flyer status and eventually reaching top-tier is for a lot of mileage runners a strong motivation. Should we leave out the higher status it comes back to economics and money. Recently Wanaflyforless mentioned in thread AA mega mileage run: The aforementioned series of mileage runs results in a cost of 0.0164 US$ per award mile. My question is:
1) What is the lowest cost per award mile that you have encountered?
2) Neglecting the higher frequent flyer status, at what cost per award mile is a mileage run economically worth it?

My lowest cost ever was 0.002 € per mile mentioned in thread 305,500 Swiss miles.

[This message has been edited by kurz (edited Feb 03, 2004).]

wanaflyforless

If you read my thread, you will see that my cost/mile went down as I planned better routings. By the time I booked, I had:

$6799.69 spent
522,278 AA miles earned
= 1.30 cents/mile

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Edited Nov 2005 when I saw this to Add:
By the time I had my MegAA runs were all planned out I had my cost down to 1.1 cents per mile. I also earned exaclty 747K miles in this series of runs. I was starting with no status at all...so did not begin with a multiplier effect. Also I was earning a LOT of valuable certs...estimated value of certs earned from the many promos I was combining is about 400,000 miles or $7,000....all these free trip, etc certs in addition to the miles earned. These were also relatively efficient runs in that I earned more than 50K/day on many flying days...

Since that first series of mileage runs (those wer my first!) I have flown many extensive runs with a cost per mile under .7 cents/mile (and these were not mistake fares!) but still consider the above string of runs to be some of my best.
----------------------------------------------------


Total flown miles credit to AA: 127,131
Eligible for FLY04 bonus: 104,943
Eligible for Plat bonus: 110,261
EUR04 bonus: 30,000
JPN04 bonus: 30,000
Booking bonus': 7,000 miles
Credit Card miles from $$ spent on tickets: 8,000 miles (16,000 if I transfer to BA during DC promo)

127,131 + 104,943 x 2 + 110,261 + 30,000 + 30,000 + 7,000 + 8,000 = 522,278 AA miles earned

That wasn't the only benefits I considered when booking. I also considered:

- 16 VIPOW system wide upgrades
- approximately 50 500 mile domestic upgrades
- Two certificates for a free AA flight worldwide
- This brings me within 40K of being an AA million miler
- The many benefits of One World top tier status through Feb 06

My lowest cost per mile (ever) was not from flying - .96 cents per Travelclub and Qantas mile a couple years ago from the Starwood deal and .75 cents per AA mile from a special negotiation in 2000 - but that was before I knew the true value of miles and became an FTer.

But I certainly don't have the lowest cost per mile. Many FTers have done much better. In my thread CART_Flagman reports a lower cost per mile from flying than I can come by - and there are probably those who can boast costs as low as .7 cents per mile from certain flying promos. If you consider miles from other sources than flying, the cost per mile can go even lower with CC applications, the Hallmark and Value Mag deal, etc - but that doesn't take into account the time/hastle of the ordeal.

All in all, I am happy with my cost/mile even if others can do better. It would have been a little easeir for me if I lived in NYC or CA - where the best oppurtunities seem to be. Also, most of my runs are on weekends - I couldn't use the lowest fares on my routings because of when I had to fly. Also, the fact I can't afford to stay anywhere limited my options to fares I could immediatly return on. This makes a big difference also. Lastly, I don't have a single nested ticket. (Helps give me peace of mind - and if one flight goes wrong, I have time before the next itinerary begins.)

Craig6z

The British Airways "$20 sale" fiasco was a pretty good example. Leaving from the West Coast one's cost was in the 6/10 of a cent range.

While there are going to be better numbers on this board, if you consider the minimal investment, it should get an honorable mention in the Hall Of Fame .

hauteboy

My best was on a $117 AUS-DFW-STL-ORD-SAN-LAX-STL-DFW-AUS run right after 9/11. With online booking + PLT bonus + double mile bonus, earned over 20k miles for $117.. about 0.57 cents/mile.

free101girl

A couple of years ago I got a substantial number of AA miles (~50k, if I recall correctly) without flying, and MADE money on them!

At the time, it was possible to buy a particular type of Kellogg's cereal imprinted with AA miles certificates in Southern California for $1.66 per box on sale. SoCal grocery stores double coupons up to $1. I got a bunch of .75 coupons that doubled to $1.50 off, thus getting the cereal for .16/box. There was also an unlimited rebate available through an online source for .50 per box and you could send in receipts for up to 6 boxes at a time.

Even counting postage, I was making about .27 a box AND getting 100 miles per box.

Eventually the prices and coupons changed, and the rebate went away, but I still ended up with 150k AA miles for something like $67 net. That was my first post on FlyerTalk, in fact.

I also got in on the $20 BA fares (which were closer to $200 with tax) and earned nearly 25k BA miles per roundtrip. That was very nice, but still didn't beat the miles Kellogg's PAID me to take!

C-5Crewdog

Bear with me here, I'm a UA 2P newbie with FT.

Just about ready to book 2 UA SFO-BOS MRs tagging my daughter along for the ride. This way we each rack up 10.8K miles, qualify for the 5K bonus (neither one of us will be flying in a qualifying class again in March), get the 1K booking bonus and I'll have 2 System-wide award tix (worth 60K) for my wife and I to vacation in Sydney.

(60K + 10.8K + 5K + 1K = 76.8K) $413.60/76.8K = $0.0054/mile

*GOD, I'm glad I waited for UA to get on board, I almost bit on the same AA deal only to get tickets to places I'm not interested in travelling.*

If depart anytime on Tues - like catching the red-eye out of SFO to avoid a hotel stay in BOS, you can return anytime Wed and qualify for the $203 fare + taxes. We'll spend the day at the aquarium or museum, have lunch and fly back. We're flying 3/2-3 and 3/9-10 in E+ and with the CS25 5% discount, each T class trip will cost $206.80.

Only thorn in my side is that my wife feels like we're 'taking advantage of the system' be doing MRs, and exploiting our daughter by flying her XC twice to get a free ticket... ANY OPINIONS?

tom911

Welcome to FT (from down the road)

It'll come down to availability when you get ready to use the promotional tickets you earn from this routing. If you can secure seats to Australia, you will have made out quite well with this promotion. I have 4 JFK tickets on AA, but will likely give my promotional tickets away to relatives for Europe travel (if I get them, still not entirely certain I qualify from this direction with AA), and try to travel in business class when I hit NZ/Australia next (I've been over 11 times, 10 on award travel). A coach ticket SFO-SYD is generally worth at least $1,000, and up to around $1,300 in high season there (Dec-Jan). Your BOS tickets at around $400 total give you a SYD ticket worth $1000-$1300 if you can make it worth.

I'd say you've done quite well.

bhatnasx

Well, a $98 run & and a $114 run netted me about $900 in bump vouchers. The two runs netted me about 6000 miles, but the vouchers off of the runs netted me (or will have netted me when I'm done with the voucher travel in May - and I still have a 70.00 MCO that I'm going to use on a trip later on this year when the fares go down) approximately 26,000 EQMs - so the $212 I spent gave me a rate of approximately 0.6 cents a mile - or, about 32,000 EQMs miles for 212 bucks.

But then, when you take into account that the second 114.00 run gave me Silver status for the first time & the 26K that I'll earn by may will be crediting my a 50% bonus, that means that the $212 actually netted me 45,000 total miles, which is equal to 0.4 cents per mile - and I had my status til 2/2006 taken care of.

And, with those trips that I currently have scheduled, I'll get the check-in bonuses and the Mile-A-Rama (and hopefully some FFF4 bonuses for my May trip to AMS) - so I get to tack on about 12K (maybe more with FFF4?) in bonus miles, so that 212 = 57K in total miles, which yields a total cost per mile of 0.3 cents a mile (or $0.003/mile) - didn't beat the 0.002 Euros per mile (unless the exchange rate works in my favor!) but I'm happy with 57K for $212.00

Also I used my SE status to get a status comp on UA to Premier, so I got a 5K bonus on a 20K trip on UA & that trip that I took in return got me an SWU & 200.00 UA vouchers (and I doubt I would have gotten so much if I wasn't a Premier) so that 212.00 is still paying for itself!

satori

Spring 2000
LatinPass $2,000 or so for 1,000,000 miles was about 0.2 cents/mile.

Summer 2002 StarAlliance 55,555 promo
4 carriers, $1,000 for 240,000 miles.

Fall 2003 Alaska Airlines $675 for 140,000 miles.

Bangkok, right now, $543 for 73,000 UA miles
(edited: 5-5-04 The BKK trip earned 5x miles for 91,250 miles; ticket price was reduced to $543 using one of the Tennis 15% coupons)