This is an optimal time of year to use a trick that will get you status for all of next year with very little effort on your part. I am also going to go over some synergies that are out there to maximize your elite statuses (stati?). In general, a rival airline or hotel will try…
As some of you know from my post last year, I have troops deployed to Djibouti and go out there to visit them about once a year. Last year I flew Turkish Airlines to get there and had good flights on them from FRA-IST-JIB (Djibouti). And I really enjoyed the Turkish lounge in Istanbul which…
It seems to me that one of the most sought after answers for aspiring FF addicts is how to do a mileage run. With my move to D.C., I am not racking up the miles like I usually did when living in Hawaii. Therefore, I have to do some mileage runs if I intend to keep my United 1K and Alaska MVPG statuses (stati?). Today, I am going to walk you through all the steps I took to book a mileage run this week. The first step is to look for a good candidate run and then optimize it to maximize the miles. I like to look on Flytertalk or Milepoint’s Mileage Run forums to see what others have found. I was looking a few days ago and finding many interesting runs. WAS-SNA, WAS-ONT, WAS-SJD (Cabo San Lucas), but what caught my eye was a comment from one person who asked if someone had taken advantage of the $348 WAS-ANC fare. Bingo! I love ANC…
Fortunately airline crashed are very rare and you are much safer up in the air than you are driving on the ground. Still, people get nervous about what to do in case of an emergency landing. I thought that it might be timely to share some of my training in aircraft survival. When I lived in…
A hotly debated topic among frequent fliers is whether to hoard your miles and save them for a rainy day or spend them right away on a flight before the airline can devalue the miles. Devaluation typically comes in the form of a revision to the program’s redemption rate meaning that you need more miles…
Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you all had a great holiday period and some well-deserved time off. Most frequent flyers know New Years as the depressing time when all of their mileage and points counters reset to zero. A few programs, such as Delta and Marriott, allow you to carry over excess EQM and…
Seeing Gary’s post today, it reminded me that the wife and I have a lot of expiring Upgrade Certificates on Alaska Airlines. It seems like the four Alaska MVP Gold Guest Upgrade Certificates went pretty fast. Since my wife and I are an Alaska Airlines power couple (both MVP Gold75K’s), we can be a little more…
The wife and I are both Alaska MVG Gold 75K this year. Me through status-matching my UA 1K status, her through BIS. Yeah, she wasn’t too happy I took the easy route. Anyway, this year is shaping up that I will easily qualify for Gold, but not that close to Gold 75K. She, however, was…
For those of you chasing United elite status, I’m sure the news of their PQD (premier qualifying dollars) requirement was disheartening. In addition to PQM (premier qualifying miles) or PQS (premier qualifying segments), you now must spend a minimum amount of money to reach a certain tier of status with them. There are ways…
If you have flown United in the last month, you have seen the opening video thanking veterans and demonstrating how many work for United. If you haven’t seen it, go to this YouTube site first and then come back here. I have to say that I personally think it is pretty cool for them to…
