When I left California is December 2007, I made a promise to some dear friends that I would return to Carlsbad every year for their annual Christmas Party. So far, I have held my promise. The party always takes place on the first weekend in December. So the party is tonight. When I booked my flight a while back for this trip, it was prior to the end-of-year promotion by AA giving double elite qualifying miles AND double redeemable miles. At that time, I was figuring out my end-of-year flying schedule and realized I may need some extra miles to make my goal of Executive Platinum (AA's highest Elite level) for the next year. EXP requires 100,000 qualifying miles which is basically 100K miles Butt In Seat (BIS). AA had some good bonus promotions in the first 6 months of the year too for bonus qualifying miles. Anyways, I needed to fly from DFW to San Diego (SAN) this weekend. After some messing around, I found a way to fly from DFW to Miami (yep, heading the wrong way) and then direct to LAX; I would fly back home direct from LAX to DFW. Doing that would get me 4698 miles instead of the standard 2342 direct round trip (before double miles) between DFW and SAN. And it would only cost me an extra $100 in cost. So I booked it!
So here we are today. I am sitting in the LAX lounge writing this having done the DFW-MIA-LAX leg of my trip. I am waiting for a friend to fly in from the Bay Area so we can drive down to Carlsbad (about and hour and a half).
Of course, shortly after booking this itinerary, AA launched the promotion for double qualifying and redeemable miles. So in actuality, I'm getting 9396 miles (qualifying miles) for this trip and 14094 miles (redeemable miles); Only 25000 are needed for free domestic round trip tickets; so it a good chunk of miles. This trip is costing me 3.1 cents per mile flown, which is quite good actually.
Even better is that when I landed in MIA this morning, I checked my AA account and I saw 100,659 in qualifying miles year to date. That meant I had reached my goal, EXECUTIVE PLATINUM. This was due to other flights in November that I had flown for work and personal reasons. ALl of us flying under the Double Promotion didn't know when those double qualifying miles were going to hit. Evidently, AA decided to do it at month end.
Even better is that when I landed in MIA this morning, I checked my AA account and I saw 100,659 in qualifying miles year to date. That meant I had reached my goal, EXECUTIVE PLATINUM. This was due to other flights in November that I had flown for work and personal reasons. ALl of us flying under the Double Promotion didn't know when those double qualifying miles were going to hit. Evidently, AA decided to do it at month end.
You may be thinking I'm a bit crazy to do this, but keep in mind I flew both legs this morning in Business Class. Flying is not too hard when you are not in cattle class.
So here I am on December 1, Executive Platinum until through February 2014. This, hopefully, means more upgrades to Business Class next year for all my flying. The Mrs will surely smile as she enjoys the fruits of my labor.
Now if my friend Matt could just get down here already we can go celebrate at a Xmas party!
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