elite status

Tag Archives for elite status.

Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars: Day three summary – Sunday 10/30/11

The 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars concluded yesterday and it was an incredible weekend filled with an amazing amount of mileage and point tips that one could never process on their own. Airline miles I have pretty down pat, but I did learn a few great hotel point and credit card maximization techniques. Yesterday started…

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Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars: Day two summary – Saturday 10/29/2011

If there’s only one day you can attend a future Frequent Flyer Seminar series, it’s definitely the Saturday session. Yesterday was packed at the 2011 Chicago Seminars and featured an incredible amount of concurrent discussions on all things airlines, credit cards, hotels, miles and points. When booking your ticket for the event you select your…

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The 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars have arrived!

It’s officially here! Tonight begins the 2011 Chicago Frequent Flyer Seminars and I’ll be in attendance for the entire weekend. The event has sold-out and it promises to bring an uncompromised amount of education to all areas we mile and point fanatics care about. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and am certain I’ll pick…

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Mileage Run Opportunity: $208.20 nets 6,712 United Airlines elite miles LAX-MCI

From time to time when I find a great airfare I’ll immediately tweet some of the basic information – airline, fare, routing, mileage total and “cents per mile†calculation – and just now thought it might make for a good recurring category to feature here on my blog. For a detailed description of my process…

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My thoughts on the rumored United Airlines Mileage Plus changes

Ben over at One Mile at a Time gave many of us quite a shock last night when he posted details of the Mileage Plus program rumored to begin in 2012. Here’s a summary of what he learned: As for upgrade priority, the all mighty fare value on each segment will be the primary metric…

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Instant Hilton HHonors Gold plus free night and bonus miles for airline elites

Last Friday I received a letter co-branded with the Hilton HHonors and United Airlines Mileage Plus logos stating, “We’ve opened the doors to Gold status just for you.†Thanks, Hilton, I’m already a Gold and you’ve just opened up a brand new account and sent me a new card. Reading on, though, it’s a targeted…

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The evolution of elite level qualification in airline frequent flyer programs

Qualifying for elite status with an airline requires meeting a certain threshold the carrier has published, whether it be point, mile or segment based. Those thresholds have been periodically raised, lowered and adjusted even to the point of birthing new tiers. Delta’s fairly recent addition of the Diamond level at 125,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles is…

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Going for the American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum elite challenge

Last week I mentioned I was going for Gold status with American Airlines in their AAdvantage frequent flyer program. Having basically locked-in renewing my 1K status with United Airlines, my addictive behavior for flying even more is getting the better of me and I’m starting this week to fly American for the first time since…

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My United Airlines mileage tracking spreadsheet

A couple of months ago I noticed the spreadsheet I maintain that tracks my United Airlines mileage didn’t add up to what was showing online. I was able to quickly compare each segment’s mileage and discovered Continental Airlines and United use different mileage amounts for flights out of Denver. As far as I know that…

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United Airlines basically pays for my first class travel around the world

I thought I’d post an update as to where I am in re-qualifying for Mileage Plus 100,000-mile 1K status for 2012, and reveal just how much I’ve spent to get there & the end return-on-investment for my passionate hobby. As of this morning, here are my total elite qualifying miles (EQMs) and segments (EQSs): I’ll…

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