I've never done a mileage run, but if I did, it would likely be to assure top tier status for another year and not necessarily to earn miles.
If people aren't willing to pay to sit in the forward cabin (ie: not willing or able to pay the market fare for such offering), then they should compare to the economy fare or the fare they would be willing to pay. Chances are, such pax would be best off just stick to cc-spending and otherwise necessary travel to accrue points.
Agreed. Sometimes it's better to pay the cash fare and earn "cheap" miles, sometimes it's better to spend the miles on an "expensive" fare.
I did one once. Lga-Bos r/t on a Sunday morning. I read the Times and had a bagel (things I would have otherwise done). I was home in time for lunch. That's it for me. The reason was to keep high status and not have to fuss with rounding rules.
I would also factor in the value of the benefits one would derive from elite status earned/retained if the part of the MR strategy is to earn/retain such status.
I did that last December -- SFO-LAX-SFO -- on a Saturday morning. My one and only pure (no-leaving-the-airport) MR. The sad thing was that I had booked that run in November based on my spreadsheet to sneak over the 100k line. Then MX struck and I got rebooked in Y on SFO-IAD at the end of November and slipped over the 100k line before my $100 MR. But I had nothing better to do that day, so I went anyway and at least earned a 1000 lifetime miles and 2000 RDM.
I've never done a pure MR. The closest was spending a day in Chicago doing some Chistmas shopping after realizing that I was less than two hundred status miles from NW's then top elite level. Before DL rollover, I would strategize late in the year about which trips could be postponed to the new year. Now that doesn't matter and I do keep an eye on the MQM balance and sometimes decide in favor of a long trip which is somewhat optional or just for fun. I also strategize carefully on purchased versus award tickets for the MQMs.
I see very little benefit in doing MRs or flying to collect miles if one is doing it on one's own dime, unless one is well off, in which case it really would not matter since one can afford it. I believe that FF programs are literally tailored for frequent flyers, who must be on the road a lot as part of routine work. If I traveled on my own dime, accumulating miles would not be a priority. I would just plan my trips to maximize what I would get out of each in terms of expanding my horizon about different cultures, ways of life, etc...Then, every once in a while, after I'd used my own dime to travel and have accumulated miles, I would use those miles to make getting to my next location as pleasurable as possible.
I like to do mini vactions over pure mileage runs. If I can do a hop to sju in an internationally configured 767 for $100 each way, get some sun and earn elite qualifying miles at 3-4 cpm along the way, why not?
This past weekend was my first deliberate MR...JFK CDG WAW AMS JFK...for $367, I added nearly about 9k MQM's towards the 125k I'll need to requalify for DM. I also saw a city I'd never been in (snow on the ground, icy mix falling was a bit unpleasant) and had the chance to spend time in NYC. Living in the UK, I know I'm going to get on a plane to go home to the USA to see friends or family or go back for work...maintaining status = access to decent seats, no baggage fees, lounge access, and the occasional operational upgrade...I did receive the OpUp JFK-CDG Saturday night...I'm sure being top tier certainly helped.
SFO-HKG (Y, CX) 70k miles + ~$150 HKG-DXB (J, CX) 40k miles + ~$150 DXB-ZRH (J, LX) 27.5k miles + ~$22 ZRH-BOS-SFO (J, LX and F, UA) 50k miles + ~$65
Sounds like your motives are similar to mine. You are right about non-flying miles and points. There is a limit to what you can accumulate, you can only get so many CCs until you start getting some rejections or until you have had them all and burned all those miles. Gone are the days so it seems of endless free miles from the mint. That game has yet to be replaced by anything that comes within a order of magnitude. All I have been able to figure out to gain non-flying miles and points is to incorporate every damn angle you can into daily life; Monitor blogs, buy every piece of crap that you need to buy anyway at a store via the shopping portals for bonus miles, take small freebies at programs you never think you will ever use, because those 500 miles with airberlin or emirates might be needed some years down the line (if they dont expire), take a long term view. Maybe start considering finding cheap sale items at the shopping portals and reselling the on ebay/criagslist. This can be profitable (see deltapoints.com the the recent huge bonus for buying at skymall where they bought cameras and tablets and resold). I did it a few times with TUMI luggage and some other smaller things. and the real miles gain would be much bigger if you can on a whim travel on fare sales and 2x, 3x bonus mile route specials. I dont have that kind of work schedule that allows that. but if you do, it certainly looks profitable,
No, I'd already moved all my AA points to Continental via points.com trades (I didn't have that many). When I was all done, I had 2k Avios left, so it's probably just as well that Business and First were sold out. Weird, I just did a check and a different date said 35k plus the same taxes I paid (same flight, couple of weeks later). I'm going to call BA. Update: called -- and a business fare is 120k, so it's just that there's a single seat open on that one flight and it's for fewer Avios than typical. First is 180k. Both were connections, not non-stops like I booked.
It's a really long flight. UA was quoting 125k in J for ZRH-SFO, so maybe that's why it didn't seem that high to me. (I did book through *A on a Saver award by jiggling dates around, though)
Thanks, btw, for some reason the web site incorrectly mis-calculated the Avios for that particular flight's seats, and I now have half my Avios back. Should have been 70k for J, 35k for Y on that segment. The only thing I can figure is that I had two sessions open in different tabs and it got confused, but fortunately I am booked on the correct flight.
Going places you want to see doesn't automatically negate the trip as MR! I've always earned 1K through only MRs & other leisure travels. Priced right, eventually the benefits will outweigh the costs. More important, I (& many others) enjoy spending the day/s taking flights across the country or world. Sorta the same way, folks used to spend the day going on Sunday drives. Now, we just meet up at an airport & enjoy a "fly".
