As if the holiday season isn’t busy enough, think about it in context of points travelers- we have to deal with trying to squeeze in those last-minute mileage runs in order to achieve our desired elite status for the following year. Since our home airport is EWR (Newark, NJ), you can guess that we fly primarily with Continental/United.
2011 was a great travel year for us. Kevin and I both achieved “Silver Elite” status for the first time. I’ve been a Continental One Pass member for almost 10 years and this was the first time I’ve been fortunate enough to have experienced enough travel to get to silver. As for Kevin, he has never had any frequent flier account in his life before he met me, and since he frequently travels to and from California for business, his miles add up quickly. As of today he has around 42k EQM (elite qualifying miles) with Continental. With only one more round trip to SNA (Orange County, Ca) left for him, you can see that he will only be around a few thousand miles shy of achieving gold status for 2012.
What’s a concerned points-girlfriend to do in this case? We decided it was time for his first mileage run by shipping him to and from Seattle in one day. We found a round trip leaving EWR at 9 am and arriving in SEA at 12:17 pm, then leaving SEA at 3 pm and arriving back at EWR at 11 pm. The fare only cost $221 including all taxes.
A mileage run is flying for the sole intention of accumulating miles (flying miles that count towards status with an airline). I must admit, I am a bit jealous because I think it would be cool to experience this together, but I am about 20k miles from gold so it really would have less benefit for me. Besides, at least I could say I had the ability to ship my boyfriend to Seattle for a day. That alone sounds hilarious. :-P
What mileage runs are you trying to squeeze in this year? Do you have any mileage run experiences you want to share?
-x0 Angelina
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