Mileage Running 101 – The art of flying FOR free travel

It seems the people I know that are obsessed with this free travel game are torn on mileage running. Some are evangelist and fly nearly every week just for the miles, while others can’t possibly understand why people are paying for flights when they have the option not to. This will go over all the basics and why people do it. But you may find this post helpful whether you’re planning to fly solely for the miles or if you simply want to maximize your next flight. What is this really about? This is the way you can pay less for your travel and fly business class instead of economy. Yep, if you take the time to master this game you can pay less and fly premium cabin.

The key is status. When you have status, the benefits are great. Most importantly in this case, you get a 100% bonus on miles earned from flying. Although there are a few other perks that make status worth while. Like with AA you get “unlimited upgrades“, which is even better now that they have a new fleet. So you’ll have upgrades and we’re looking to earn 2 miles for every in-air mile flown. You earn status by flying. With AA you need 50,000 miles in a calendar year for Platinum Status and 100,000 miles for Executive Platinum Status (see details about status here).

Next you find cheap airfare. I’ve written about the tools to find cheap airfare but to reiterate and add, here’s a list of ways to find cheap airfare.

• Kayak Explore. A map of destinations from your city.
• ITA Matrix. The most powerful airfare search engine.
• Flyertalk forum for flight deals. People post deals daily on here.

Once you find a cheap airfare you try to add mileage. You can try to understand the rules regarding this but one easy way is using the ITA Matrix. Notice 4 things in my picture below:

1. I wrote “AA” in the advance routing section (under the departing airport) in each direction. This is so ITA searches for American Airlines flights. UA is United, US is US Airways, etc…
2. I put a “+” after AA. This tells ITA to add segments. So instead of just flying CHO to ORD to LAX, it might try to add another destination like DFW.
3. My length of stay is “1-7” days.
4. I’m searching multiple cities my first time as I just want to get to the west coast.
5. Since I have multiple cities listed, it is then important to uncheck “allow airport changes”.

Let’s just say the best results were to LAS. Now lets go back and try to add more segments. We can do this simply by the “AA +” coding or by actually trying to route through specific cities. The first time the “AA +” gave me some routes through ORD (the only AA route out of CHO), but I know sometimes it will also route through DFW or LAX. So lets try at least one. (“x:” is a connection). Okay, in this case, it worked out and I’ve only managed to squeeze out an extra few hundred miles each direction but it is at no extra cost. (But there is an added bonus as an elite. LAX – LAS is less than 500 miles (236 miles) and therefore it rounds up and I get 500 instead of 236. So I really get 730 extra miles each way (before the 100% bonus). Also, use gcmap.com to figure out the distances your flying.  If you can get this flight (or similar) on a sale I can earn 5,600+ miles for less than $200. During a double miles promotion this is an absolute steal. You see with status you actually get around 11,000 miles already. If I can get that amount of miles for $150 – which is possible – then do the math on redemptions. A flight in peak season to Europe is well over $1,000 or 60,000 miles. So if you fly this route 6 times and pay $900 you have more than enough miles and could possibly upgrade to business class. Now imagine if there were also a double miles promotions, then you really have a deal.

This is just an example, some runs are better and some worse. If you’re lucky enough to see a mistake fare or to get bumped and get the flight paid for, you can come out really far ahead.

Next, you have to book your flight. Piece it together using a multiple destination search or call it in.

A note on mileage accruals with partners. You can technically earn AA miles with any OneWorld partner. However, there are a few partnerships that have been devalued. For example you no longer earn miles with AA when flying on Cathay Pacific for economy flights. Major bummer but it’s good to know before you book. Let’s take the DC to Istanbul deal for $399. A great opportunity to earn miles and see some place cool and on Lufthansa Airlines you earned 100% United miles.

But how do I know? Simply google, “earn [united] miles on [lufthansa]” – or whatever airline combination you’re searching for.  Almost always the first link will be from United.com with a chart showing how much you earn on that particular partner. If you’re really into this, you can try to get bumped and receive a $400 voucher to cover your next flight.

My opinion on who should mileage run… You can use this as an excuse to see new places instead of flying boring domestic flights. Why not see Turkey instead of Las Vegas again? Yes, you earn more miles per dollar spent, but you are earning miles to fly cool places. If you redeem those miles to go to Turkey, then you aren’t coming out any more ahead than just taking the deal to Turkey (and earning miles), unless there is a double elite qualifying miles promo. In the end this is mainly for two types of people:

1. Those who can’t travel enough. They have the best travel credit cards and still are needing more miles. Obviously this person is both intrigued by the game and is willing to pay for some travel. Chances are this person spends so much time in the air that they just don’t want to fly economy for long hauls. If done right, there is no doubt that you can save money on travel by flying the cheapest flights now… even to boring destinations. And you’d be paying less to fly business instead of economy.
2. The other person is one who travels for business already. They may already have Platinum status and therefore they should just go for Executive Platinum in their spare time to get the unlimited upgrades. Hopefully they love traveling too and not just the upgrades.

Maybe I should add a third type? Those who don’t do the credit card game? Travel addicts  Crazy people?