Technically, I landed before 11am.
I then went to Starbucks, Trader Joes and grabbed some Chipotle before noon.
It was an eventful Saturday, okay?
So, why am I crazy and why did I fly to Atlanta and back in the same day?
I completed what travel nerds like to call a Mileage Run.
(It was really a status run, but you’ll see the details below.)
Preface: Us travel greeks tend to do some crazy things. A bit ago, Delta sent me a targeted email offering me Gold Medallion status for the next 3 months, as well as the next year if I completed 3 roundtrip flights before a certain date. Knowing full well that I wasn’t going to try make Silver again for next year, I found this offer especially enticing.
As a “lowly” Silver Medallion member, I still enjoy some benefits. Gold offers a bit more that I won’t bore you with (and some may find silly) including Sky Priority boarding and free C+ (formerly Economy Comfort) seats 72 hours before the flight.
Now, would I fly 3 RT flights specifically to get Gold status? Probably not. Seems like quite a bit of money just for those benefits.
But, I already was planning on taking 2 roundtrip flights anyway for upcoming trips that I had not yet booked.
So, are those Gold benefits worth the cost of 1 flight? For me, yes.
I just had to make it work:
- It had to be a weekend flight so as to not interrupt my work.
- It had to be an early flight so I still had most of the weekend to be productive.
- It needed to not cost me an arm and a leg.
- It needed to provide Biscoff cookies.
This past week, I saw the price drop for the earliest morning flight available and snagged it.
After I complete the next 2 flights, I’ll be Gold until 2017.
Take a look at how it all went down. (Hover over for captions.)
FLL -> ATL
I hopped off my flight in Terminal B, headed to Terminal A for my next flight, made a quick pit stop at the ladies room and then waited about 10 minutes to board my plane back to Fort Lauderdale. (My flight to ATL was delayed about 30 minutes, otherwise I would have gladly hit up Caribou Coffee. <sad face>)
ATL -> FLL
I landed on time and had the hubster swing by the airport to pick me up after he played a round of golf. All in a day’s work, amiright?
Does this sort of status stuff matter in the grand scheme of life? Nah. It’s important to keep that perspective, certainly. Plus, in the travel world, Gold isn’t much. But for me, the creature comforts it provides made it worth it to just hop on over to Atlanta for a half hour and fly home.
We all have hobbies, I guess I can include a mileage/status run as one of mine now.
I don’t find that so odd at all and can totally understand why you did it. I didn’t realize how much of a difference the little perks that come with an airline status can make until I earned United Silver. Only the first level but still, it helps. I haven’t flown a flight like you have to earn/keep the status but I have paid a little more for a United flight simply to earn the miles towards status. Plus I get to upgrade free to Economy Plus seat at 24 hour check in mark and the difference I paid for this flight was less than if I had purchased that seat. My favourite perk is the priority check in counter and security line. What a difference that has made in some airports!
Thank you Stacey! Glad you understand and I totally agree — the priority check in and security lines are key! PS – I took a look at your site and love it. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
Good for you for doing that! Airfares in the US are so much cheaper than in Canada and we don’t have such “deals” for mileage runs as in the States (I think, although I really must look into it more!) Getting those extras with one’s flight status would be nice. For me, I have now gained over 200,000 Aeroplan points due to credit card sign up bonuses (ie. American Express), but I only keep the card for a year. I then use the points for business class flights. Sadly, the taxes on most flights are awful. Thanks for your informative post!
200,000 Aeroplan points! That’s awesome and those are really good miles to have. I’ll be flying business class for the first time overseas in a few weeks. Eeek!