Ease of Travel

What the heck is a mileage run? It’s when frequent flyer members of an airline find cheap fares and fly them simply to rack up the miles for their programs. Sometimes these mileage runs net double miles, sometimes the additional mileage bumps you up to another tier of service, sometimes it’s just a cheap way to accrue some miles in return for your time. It’s a tactic of the more hardcore frequent flyers but it’s actually interesting to read about. If you’re curious, I was first introduced to this concept at FlyerTalk, a great bulletin board on travel, and read the journal of Randy Peterson, detailing his mileage run (70 flights, 14 days, 38 stats and 44 cities!!!).

From the site itself:

On Friday, Oct. 19 [2004], Randy Petersen, publisher of InsideFlyer magazine and WebFlyer.com, will begin a two-week “airathon” that will take him to 44 cities, 38 states and three countries, covering a total of 52,495 miles - all to show the traveling public that airline travel is safe and that the travel industry is financially secure. All of the flights are on US Airways.

The reason for these kinds of trips?

1. Earn miles - A lot of times folks buy the flights because they are cheap flights with bonuses, like double miles. Purchase with an airline branded credit card and you could be earning double miles plus the cost of the flight in miles (or even double).
2. Bonus Programs - If you read the article by Randy, you’ll see he participated in the “LatinPass Run” where he earned a bonus of a MILLION miles.
3. Bumps - A common occurrence is to be bumped from a flight and then given a free flight, sometimes a hotel room if it’s a late flight and the next one isn’t until the next day. So not only do you get the miles, but you also get the bonus of a free nights stay and a free flight later on.
4. Tiered Membership Status - Maybe it’s near the end of the year and you want to make it to Gold status (or Platinum, or just Silver) and you’re a few miles away. Go on one of these flights and ensure you have that status for all of next year.
5. Enjoy Travel - Sometimes people just want to go on a whirlwind tour of the United States! An added perk is that they rack up some ridiculous miles while they’re at it.

It’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it, right?