Next  Tuesday May 21st  myself and Kathy from “Will Run for Miles” will have a layover on a mileage run and will have time for lunch around noon in Austin Texas (assuming all our flights work out that is).

If anyone wants to join us or has some good ideas for a spot near the airport that would be great. Please feel free to comment below on the blog if you are game! – René

PS – #TheReason2BeDiamond day 1 all cleared!

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As you can see from the map above, from my first flight on Wednesday afternoon till my landing Saturday afternoon, I racked up almost 15,000 miles and did earn 15, 138 MQM’s and 30,276 RDM’s for flying and another 1905 RDM’s (2x$635 purchase price since I used my Delta Reserve AMEX and 635 SPG for my CrossoverRewards) paying for the tickets. Total haul on RDM’s was thus 32,181 – not bad at all and I will break down the cost more later on!

I drove to reposition to MKE Milwaukee airport. Google maps told me it would take about 3 hours from SBN South Bend airport (I am 30 min from there) and they were about right. I got stuck in some Chicago traffic and the trip took 3 ½ hours to get there and a little over 3 to get home. I took as few toll roads as possible outbound and then splurged and took the fastest way home.

MKE is nice. The $6/day lot is big and the shuttles run all the time. One pulled up and I literally tossed in my bags before I locked my van. Perfect. No TSA Pre Check at MKE, but the line was short and went fast so I could get to the Skyclub.

It is still a work in progress as the “luxury bar” is not yet done, but the space is nice and some of the chairs are comfortable and others really NOT!

7 of my first 8 segments were upgraded 5 days out. Once on board I moved my seat to let a couple sit together and plopped down next to the guy above. He says:

“Are you René? I read your blog and am on a mileage run I found on DeltaPoints”!

You have got to be kidding me!?! Leg one, in business, I get to ride with and meet George. He was finishing his run and was also upgraded on the leg back to LAX! Then, another long time reader and twitter follower Elijah is on his way into ATL so we meet briefly in the Skyclub (readers are really everywhere)! It was so good to fly with you George and fun to at long last meet you Elijah and I hope next time we have more time to chat.

The next two days really were mostly a blur and as I have talked about before that when you do a mileage run this long with just a few hours between each leg, the time begins to compress as you hop from east coast time to west coast time. I was totally stressed out about the up to 12 inches of snow that was forecast in MSP, but day one showed none and day two had just some flakes in the air. Both of the over nights were upgraded so I slept well and even ran into another reader getting off the redeye!

The one leg of the first 8 that did not get upgraded was a ATL-LAX 767-300 and I always pick row 26B if I can. It has less padding but I am all about leg room and this seat/row has it!

As you can see just how much room (much more than EC) and you will have both the tray table in front of you AND the one in your seat arm. Me “likeee”! I have already touched on the LAX Skyclub and my brief nap there before my day 2 night flight, but there were other musings along the way I wanted to share.

Most of us, me included, are just SICK of all the “enhancements” to the Delta program this year. One thing that Delta never ever seems to enforce is the Size Check (old size wise) box. I BEG you Delta to do this. If this were enforced and rather than allowing FREE gate check, Delta could make another few billion dollars this year and we would not run out of overhead space like we do now. This is the rare time I WANT a rule enforced, not winked at. How about you?

Now on to my last 4 flights. Only ONE of them, the last one home had cleared preflight. I expected the MKE-ATL to clear at the gate and maybe the ATL-LAX but as you can see, I ended up #1 on the upgrade list for BOTH of these flights with ZERO seats open in first class. I would rather, like the other day’s flight, to be a few slots down than to end in the #1 spot with no seats. Makes me CRAZY and is #TheReason2BeDiamond as I tweeted about. If I had been DM I would have made it on 11 of the 12 legs and maybe all 12 preflight. I look forward to reporting how things go on my next run late in May with a fellow blogger “Will Run For Miles” who is joining me on the next great adventure.

I used my phone for boarding most of the time, but checked in on my computer, printed the pass to a PDF, to get my free HOOU coupons, that I then sent to my phone, and each FA had NO problem putting in the code number into her/his hand unit to get me a free Woodford & Coke (thank you Delta). I also like that TSA Pre Check is showing up on the digital boarding pass as you can see.

So after two legs in coach and missing upgrades by just one I was ready for bed at the Sheraton Gateway LAX. I will review the hotel soon, but one fun thing I did was get my phone out to time how long it would take for a shuttle to get to me after my last 45 min wait for the Four Points LAX one. Before I had a chance to get the stop watch app on my phone going it pulled up. I just giggled and enjoyed the view of the planes taking off into the sunset for a while before bed. Amazing!

For my LAX-JFK (I got this routing BTW thanks to a schedule change after the MSP one got me home 2 hrs later than planned) I was #1 on the list. I dropped all the way down to #3 as a Platinum Medallion on a 6:AM flight on a Saturday. But as you can see with 11 seats open I scored the only battlefield upgrade of the trip and it was NICE.

The seat is much like the OLD 767-300 International birds. The service was also what I would call “international light” as there were mimosas to start and then a nice breakfast service. They have also found a great use for the remaining old horrid “Round Red” BE amenity kits, that is, use them on this route.

The only real irritation with the flight was the IFE or in-flight entertainment system. It has some very strange bugs going on.

As you can see, the titles and the links did not match up. On the next screen you just got whatever move it picked. So, you had to click on the preview and then hope that was the movie that started after that. Ah well. I know, #firstworldproblems!

We landed 15 minutes early in JFK and I went to the Skyclub. Chatted with a few people about points and such and then off to the gate, but my flight was delayed. I found it very funny that in NYC a  pigeon  stared down at me at my gate!

I can see why Delta is touting the new T4 so much and I hope it comes without the birds! And then guess what, my Pinnacle Jet was delayed by 2 hours. So back to the Skyclub and a $20 food voucher was printed for my dinner on the flight home!

Since this was my last flight as a Platinum, it is fitting that I had the ENTIRE first class cabin to myself. Seriously, I was the ONLY medallion on the flight and had my pick; I have never had that happen to me before.

So after a drive home that ended my 14,733 mile trip (if you count 400 miles driving round trip, I did break 15,000)! Now the math.

• My REAL cost for the trip was $635 for air so 4.2 CPM

• My haul of 32,181 is worth at least $322 so net 2.1 CPM (my math)

• I paid $24 parking, $15 tolls, and $68 in gas so $107 all-in.

So if you are keeping track, this year so far after my IST and SBN-LAX mileage runs I have spent a total of $1,293 of my own money to get 32,252 MQM’s (4 CPM) and well over 65,000 Skymiles. I also, as I crossed my Platinum Medallion threshold, could have picked 20,000 Skymiles but will use that to gift Silver Medallion to a reader for the SWAG Saturday gift in July. When I cross Diamond I get to pick 2 more Choice Benefits and will gift my wife GOLD and will pick 25,000 miles as my other gift to myself. Bottom line, even giving up 20,000 Skymiles, 90,000 total worth $900 brings my out of pocket cost down to just $393. I am just ONE BUMP away from break even for the YEAR! How sweet is that.

I was shocked that I did not get one bump in all 12 legs. I got very close a few times and at least one went with ZERO open seats and others with 1 or 2. Also today, as you read this, my AMEX Reserve card statement will close. At some point the 15,000 MQM’s from spending $30,000 this year will become available for me to choose whom I want to give them to (yeah me) and I will go from 112,000 MQM’s for the year to 127,000 and then after about 24hrs my Skymiles account should update to Diamond Medallion. The rest of my runs this year will be to build my totals for 2014 as I plan to rollover about 75,000 this year! – René

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Last week I started my long set of mileage runs to get me to Diamond Medallion. Most runs, that is two days or less, I like the redeye back. Now don’t misunderstand me here, I am not into pain and I am not saying even a first class seat is better than a hotel, but for a short run I do not see the need for a hotel night when I can sleep just fine on a Delta jet.

This trip I could not get the deal price unless I overnighted so I decided on the SPG Four Points by Sheraton LAX for 3000 SPG points it seemed like good deal. Plus, thanks to CrossoverRewards, Delta will be paying me some SPG points back and my SPG GOLD status would also result in some points back as an elite bonus.

As an SPG GOLD I was extended an upgrade from a standard king room to a mini-suite. It was a nice size room, with a sofa area and ample closet space. It was clean and had free bottled water and decent free wifi. All these are good perks I expect at a hotel. The bathroom was not as up-sized as the rest of the suite and I barely had room to turn around.

I was not in the hotel very long on this turn and there were some issues with my stay. The hotel had a bit of “damp” smell in the corridors. Also the room seemed a bit dated and tired.

The worst part of the stay was the bed (see photo). I hit the room and just wanted to crash as I had a 5:45AM flight the next day and was staying on east coast time. When I crawled in bed, the bottom sheet was pulled up to too high and my feet were on the mattress pad. YUCK! Do I call and ask for them to remake it or do I remake the bed myself? It was a king bed so I slept sideways in the bed. Not very comfortable and if a hotel is to get one thing right it should be the bed – right?

The other major issue was the hotel shuttle. Upon arriving I exited the airport, went the middle island, and walked down to the area for hotel shuttles. After about 30 min of waiting the hotel shuttle ZOOMED by on the outside lane at what seemed like 70 MPH! I called the hotel and was told that one must have been full and another would soon be there. Less than 10 minutes later another one did show up, but waiting almost ¾ of an hour for a hotel shuttle when the hotel is so close to the airport is not good! The Sheraton Gateway did have 2 come by before the first from Four Points zipped by.

Will I stay here again? Nope. There were enough negatives that I think it is time to move on. Next time I will give the Sheraton Gateway LAX a shot and see how that goes. – René
 

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On Monday I blogged about my marathon mileage run that starts tomorrow. At that time, 5 days out, 50% of all my upgrades had cleared. The rest, I was resigned to the fact that I would have to wait for so called “battlefield” upgrade, that is an upgrade at the gate (maybe).

Then today a very nice surprise came in my in-box from Delta. Two more of my segments had cleared. One of them was an MKE originating flight so only 1 hr, but still nice. The other was the trans-con on day one! The seats on the domestic 767-300 in business are not an amazing product (thanks PM&M for photos) but much better than the best coach seat, and I get dinner and drinks free so I was most pleased to score this pre-flight. Now I am at 67% with 8 of 12 cleared!

I guess I would love to know from readers how many times you have had the rare upgrade after your first 5+, 5, 3 or 1 day window has come and gone (this hardly ever happens to me)? – René

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Photo Credit Michaelwtravels.com

This Wednesday I start a 3 day mileage run. I fly nonstop for 48 hours and then get a night off and return home. Is flying this much a little crazy? Oh sure. Then again, let me ask you this, on a “day off” what will you do? Maybe sit in your comfy chair, have a beer or drink, watch a movie, maybe spend some time on your tablet on the web? Ya know what, that is what I will be doing too (when I get an upgrade that is)!

That is the “fun run” part of the trip. I do have some work things I am doing too, but I wanted to take the time to break down my mileage runs for the year. I intend to keep a running total of all the costs, MQM’s earned, as well as Skymiles earned. This way, as you track my year, you can see my logic. When a bump comes along, I will NOT pull that off the cost as I do that when I spend it later.

This trip looks like this so far:

• 12 Legs total
• Total MQM’s earned will be 15,000+
• Total RDM’s as a PM will be 30,000+
• Total cost was $635 all-in flight costs
• CPM is thus 4.2
• RDM value at least $300 thus real net CPM is thus down to 2.2

So, just think about this raw fact. If I can get just one single bump on any of the 12 flights for $400, to me, I am making $65 on this mileage run. That would pay for the gas to drive to MKE from SBN. I do expect at least 1 bump as many of the flights are very full. To earn 15k MQM for just my time is a huge win to me.

Keep in mind I already have 10K MQM I rolled over from my AMEX card last November. This  Delta AMEX Reserve card  is NOW also giving you, if you have not had the card for 365+ days, 10,000 MQM’s AND 10,000 RDM’s with your first purchase.

Next, I have my Istanbul run where I picked up 12K MQM’s at a cost of $396 or a CPM of 3.3. So, for the year, I have 27k from running, $1,031 spent, net CPM 3.8 and have earned 54,000 Skymiles.

The week after my run my AMEX statement will close and another 15,000 MQM’s will post for spending $30,000 for the year on that card and fittingly I will cross the Diamond Medallion threshold from my AMEX card, NOT from flying! I hope you fully understand how great I think that is (purist’s hate this, but I see it as jealousy so that is fine). Thus, the rest of my trips I will earn 125% bonus Skymiles on all the rest of my paid for trips.

How about upgrades? I look forward to reporting on my upgrade success. It will be a fun personal gauge of how things go at PM & DM and days of the week. So how do I look?

Of the 12 flights, 6 have cleared at the 5 day window ( it is 5+ for DM, 5 for PM, 3 for GM & 1 for FO). On Wednesday 3 of 4. On Thursday 2 of 4 and on Friday 1 of 4 (you see a trend). Also, the trans-cons that cleared were red-eyes, not the daytime flights. Now it will be up to “battlefield” upgrades for the rest. I expect all the non trans-cons to clear, maybe missing just one. The trans-cons, well, maybe 1 or 2, maybe. I see the need for Diamond Status. To score trans-cons, both in the upgrade window and at the gate I need DM status. Also if you are a GM or FO flyer, you can see as I have talked about before that if you want to score upgrades you need to fly both non-peak days and flights DM & PM don’t want to fly.

I will be tweeting all along this long run and if you want to share with the fun be sure to follow along on twitter! – René
 

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I booked a $202 roundtrip MKE-LAX mileage run for a Tues afternoon with same-night turnaround to a red-eye back to MSP. Only challenge was that I live in MSP, so I had to book a oneway MSP-MKE in order to pick up my trip, but I found a $70 fare so it was a go! Routing: MSP-MKE (ow), MKE-MSP-LAX-MSP(-MKE, which I planned not to use as I’d be back home).

I generally hate domestic red-eye flights as it’s not enough time to sleep, nor comfortable enough seats to snooze, but I noted that the LAX-MSP was a 767-300 and was wide open in F, so I took a chance that my GM status would get me up to my rightful place in front of the curtain As it turned out, I received emails from DL three days before my trip confirming the longer segments MSP-LAX-MSP. Nice!

I was on a 3:10p-4:22p MSP-MKE (MD-90…yuck!), with a planned 3h30m layover in MKE which I intended to spend in the SkyClub (AMEX Platinum via last spring’s Ameriprise first year waived deal). When F filled up I was still 18 of 34 on the upgrade list; I had picked my comp EC seat right behind F, and sat next to a guy who was from my hometown in CT. He’s PM and was 5 of 34 on the list. We had some iffy winter weather move in to the Upper Midwest, so I was a bit concerned about my return to MSP. So, when I got off the plane in MKE, I went right to the podium (same gate, as our ship was turning around for a return to MSP) and was confirmed on that next flight.

So, I got to spend 3h30m in my hometown airport (MSP) which I actually rather enjoyed. I arrived back from MKE at the end of the G concourse (formerly the “Gold”, for you nostalgia enthusiasts!), and my LAX flight departed from the head of the same concourse. They’ve recently done a huge renovation on the concourse and the eateries are all new, now managed by OTG group with at-table ordering via iPad which you can then surf while eating, drinking and topping up the charge on your various electronic devices. I ate at Shoyu where the old Wolfgang Yuck used to be right across from the Customs area. I had an awesome bowl of Soba with Wild Mushrooms, plus Edamame, Unagi (freshwater eel nigiri sushi, not Ross Geller’s version!) and a Sapporo. Airport prices – $45 with 20% tip – but it was really tasty.

They also renovated the little shops and eateries (ex-McDonald’s space) at the entrance to G gates 1-6. Good variety of food and sundries to grab on the way to your flight. I browsed a bit, then made my way to the nearby SkyClub. I have to say that I really don’t care for this one at all; it’s all just one big room, it’s unattractive, kinda beat-up and there’s no longer the easy entry/exit by the aforementioned shop area and the connector between F and G concourses. However, I really like the one on the C concourse (near B). My UConn women’s team was in the National Championship so I sat at the bar and watched the game until boarding time.

My MSP-LAX-MSP trips were uneventful (which is good when you’re 40k feet above the ground!). I was in 4A on a 757-200 on the way out so no individual video but I read then nodded off for an hour or so thanks to a couple of glasses of wine. Very bumpy for much of the flight but I’m a good flyer as was my seatmate. We arrived LAX a few minutes early so I had about 50 minutes in the SkyClub. Yuck. It just seemed end-of-the day tired in there, snacks hadn’t been refreshed for a few hours and no energy. I read a bit then made it back to the gate to board my red-eye home to MSP. 767-300 with the big seats and good recline but no leg rests. I had 3A but there was a couple hopeful of sitting together so I moved over to the far aisle seat. A pre-departure cup of box wine, a Melatonin and I barely made it through the take-off roll (2:57am the time my body was on). Arrived back in MSP with time to scrape the snow off my car, drive 15 minutes home and drive my kids to school.

Observations/Takeaways:

• - 4072 MQM’s, 8144 miles with GM bonus + 544 miles ($272 airfare on AmEx SkyMiles Plat = 2x miles) for 8688 total

• - CPMQM = $.067; CPM = $.031

• - The $70 MSP-MKE oneway was a bummer, but still a good MR; last year I had to make a $142 MSP-MDW roundtrip on a December Saturday morning as I was going to be 700 MQM’s shy of GM. I’ll call this a “pre-emptive MR”.

• - I was pleased to get in F for the MSP-LAX-MSP segments; this was a fair amount of flying in a short time, with a red-eye. Fortunately, I’m pretty compact (5’6″) but like to have room to stretch nonetheless. Not sure how much I’d like a IST MR like the one Rene wrote about recently!

• - My decision to turn right around in MKE (if available) was a good one, and harkens back to my days as a Northwest employee traveling on non-rev passes: get as far as you can, as soon as you can because you never know what might happen. – John

**********************

John thanks for this and permission to post and a great summary of what someone can do/enjoy/see on a mileage run! I will be doing this run about 1x a month all year so hope to see you all up in the air, in MKE or LAX or SFO along the way! With all the less than amazing news from Delta as of late, this made my day – thank you John! – Rene

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Not to beat a dead horse (why would anyone ever do that anyway?), but the amazing MKE-LAX mileage run deal just will not go away. I mean, when 01JAN2014 comes around, and you had a chance to book a few back to back days in October, and pick up 10,000 MQM’s just over $300, you will look back and say why did I not just fly?

I am in for a few days in October. My only repositioning cost is either a train ride to MKE or a drive. Hard to beat that deal and I just wish I had more time to add more at these rates. Anyway, hope to see you on a “fun run” one day too – René

PS – Many SBN-LAX dates April/May for $254 GRT for SBN!

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Wanted to pop this one up even with a somewhat high cost per mile since it is a nice way to enjoy a weekend in Hawaii and add a huge chunk of MQM’s to your total early in the year.

You can fly from  JFK via SFO to HNL and back via ATL to JFK on say May 3-6 and get almost two full days to enjoy in the sun (you can pick longer stays too and still stay in the same price range)! I put this up on FlyerTalk as well and another FT’er pointed out that if you route to ITO you can get the price down to about $500 and lower your CPM. I guess if you have to pay a little more for your MQM’s, doing so in Hawaii is a nice way to go (better than IST to me anyway)! – René

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I think Delta wants everyone to be Diamond Medallion this year at these prices. Sorry I could not post this sooner (I did tweet it out) but the fare looks live via ATL to get this at the best CPM. Thanks to the CokeandTaco for this latest one!

The GREAT thing about this one is it is a weekend run. After work Friday fly out and back Saturday.

Also, the Rookie post will be LATE tomorrow and will not make the daily e-mail blast so please check back to the blog by lunch-ish time! – René

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With a HT to a new FT’er, iloveomaha, if you are in ICT (oh why oh why) or in LAS and want a single day turn with no red-eye, this one may be for you. While the CPM is not a home run (5cpm), it is not all bad either for a day trip.

The NEVER ENDING gift of MKE still has respectable 4.6 CPM runs to LAX for 5000+ MQM’s many many dates all year long for under $250 all in.

So, if you have some ETV’s to burn, a few back to back days could be a nice way to pad your Delta totals. Plus, the way I look at it, if you like me value a Skymile at 2 cents each, and you are GM+, you are break even on the trip in value! – René

EDIT: LAS←→FLL is also in play at 4.4cpm

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