Back in early 2014, I took my first ever flight run to South Africa. It was long, it was tiring, and for most people it would have been just plain terrible. It was my first time trying to acquire elite status with an airline, so I didn’t yet have the benefits to make the trip more comfortable, not to mention that from Dallas to London I had the only non-functional TV on the entire plane. So much for catching up on Game of Thrones.
Why would I ever do that again?
Fast forward to late 2015. With my flight run from the previous year, as well as other flights that year, I racked up more than 50,000 miles and now had Platinum status with American Airlines. In order to keep my status for 2016, however, I would need to complete another flight run. Note to self: watch Game of Thrones first.
I kept my eyes peeled on the daily deals provided by The Flight Deal. I set up an alert on Twitter so that every time The Flight Deal posts a deal, I get a text with that information. I wanted this flight run to be a new destination, so when a deal on American Airlines popped up to Jakarta, Indonesia, I immediately went to book it.
Before I get into details of the Indonesia trip, though, let’s recap the idea of the flight run. Normally when I explain to people that I’m flying 20,000+ miles over the course of a weekend, I just get reactions like this:
This is a GIF. Click on it if nothing is happening.
Point taken.
The idea of a flight run is to gain as many miles as possible for as little money as possible, typically measured in cents per mile (cpm). The Flight Deal usually posts when deals are less than 6 cpm, so that has become more or less the industry standard. Take the price of the flight, divide it by how many miles you’re getting, multiply by 100, and anything less than 6 cpm is considered to be a great deal.
For this Indonesia trip, I flew from DC-Dallas-Tokyo-Jakarta and back. I paid $801 for 22,478 miles, or about 3.6 cpm, which isn’t just a great deal, it’s a phenomenal deal. Add to that the 100% bonus miles from having Platinum status and I’d be getting 44,956 miles that I could redeem for a potentially much more expensive flight later on. So consider the $801 an investment.
Overview of my Indonesia flight run
Additionally, the benefits from regaining Platinum status with American Airlines provide much more value, making this trip a no-brainer.
Some of the additional perks include:
- 2 free checked bags
- 100% bonus miles (bonus miles do not count toward elite status)
- separate check-in counter at the airport (huge time saver)
- priority access at security and boarding
- minimum mileage guarantee of 500 miles per segment
- complimentary upgrades on flights 500 miles or less
- complimentary main cabin extra and preferred seats (extra legroom can cost from $25-45 per person)
- my favorite: access to Business Class lounges for all partner airlines in the Oneworld Alliance (except Qantas). This can be upwards of $50/person for a one-day pass.
With the amount of times we travel per year, for us it’s worth it to have that Platinum status, even if that means I have to fly around the world in a weekend.
Sadly, it’s going to become much more difficult to do this in the coming years. American Airlines was the last major US carrier that gave you miles based on how many miles you actually flew. A couple crappy airlines ::cough:: United and Delta ::cough:: already moved to a system where you get miles based on how much you paid for your ticket and unfortunately American is following suit.
Math is Hard
Using the price I paid for my Indonesia ticket, the new miles earning structure for the American Airlines AAdvantage program will look like this:
- Regular AAdvantage member: $801 x 5 mi/USD = 4,005 miles
- AAdvantage Gold: $801 x 7 mi/USD = 5,607 miles
- AAdvantage Platinum: $801 x 8 mi/USD = 6,408 miles
- AAdvantage Executive Platinum: $801 x 11 mi/USD = 8,811 miles
So instead of getting the full 22,478 miles in the current earning structure I would get 6,408 miles instead. Not exactly winning my loyalty there. The real winners here will be business travelers, who often purchase expensive last minute tickets, and people that travel short distances. For a Regular AAdvantage member, A $200 round trip ticket from DC-Providence will pull in 1,000 miles instead of the actual 713 miles flown.
So while my future of flight running is to be determined, you can see that there are (or were) certainly benefits of doing so.
Oh, and for all this, how long was I on the ground in Jakarta? About 18 hours. You can read about my actual time in Jakarta here.
Hello classmate Ryan. I too am part of Nomadic Matt’s course. Nice to meet you. I get the part about 44,956 miles but not the cost of $801. Why would you pay $801 when you can earn those 44,956 miles (and then some) with credit card sign-up bonuses? What am I missing? I live Canada and drool over the rich sign-up bonuses available to points hackers south of the border. With so many First Year Free cards, you could earn a couple of hundred thousand points for a fraction of the time and effort it would take to fly to Indonesia. Is Elite status that important? Lounge access is the biggie, but you can pick up passes on eBay or just pay the fee for a access. Or fly business class with your boatload of points from sign-up bonuses and get lounge access that way. I’m happy to see you’re into travel hacking and will look forward to future posts.
Hi Anne! Good question. I actually already had received the credit card bonus from both the American Airlines credit card and the US Airways credit card (those miles combined when those 2 airlines combined). Since my wife and I travel together, we need more miles, and we alternate which cards we sign up for just so we can have a little diversity in our points and miles portfolio. And elite status is important to us…when you add up the money saved on incidentals and time saved at the airport, plus the upgrade perks, it really makes it worthwhile for us. Plus, I enjoy seeing new destinations, so going somewhere like Indonesia is more than just accruing miles. Hope that makes sense!