Since I was pregnant and had a baby last year, I was only able to fly for about seven months. In that time I was able to achieve Gold Status with American and A-List with Southwest. So far this year I’ve gotten A-List again with Southwest, which is great. However, I am still only Gold on American. In about 7 weeks I will fly to Manila again, and would really, really, really like to have Platinum again. Right now I am 10,336 miles away, and have four trips scheduled before Manila. At first glance figured I had it in the bag, but my travel plans changed. Originally I was supposed to do only one trip each to BNA, YYZ, RDU, and ORW, but now instead of going to Toronto I am going to Nashville twice. If I do what I typically do and take the shortest travel time possible (going through DFW) I will get 8,592 miles—1,744 short. Oy.
So I started looking at alternate routes. Since I am a business travel and my company pays for my flights, I won’t pick anything that costs more. Plus, since I schedule my travel through our online travel portal my options are a bit limited. It makes me nervous to take anything longer than the shortest possible trip heading out (in case there’s some sort of issue or delay) but I have no problem doing it on the way home. So with those parameters in place, I was able to find flights that went through ORD instead of DFW for 3 of my 4 trips home. Great! I thought. That will get me there! Um, no. It gets me to 10,097. That means I am 239 miles short. OMG.
Y’all, I don’t know what to do to get those 239 miles. I know technically at this point I could do the Platinum challenge, but I would like to avoid that if possible. So do I need to do a mileage run? Or are there any other options? If there is any way to do this without spending additional money, bonus.
I know some of the basics on getting status and maximizing mileage, but there are far greater minds than mine in this community. If you’ve got any suggestions, I appreciate it!
One option is to take one short flight for the 500 min minumum or do it roundtrip so you dont need someone to pick you up or rent a car. Not sure which airport you are flying out of. If you have a long layover at DFW, You can take a roundtrip to Austin. Going to cost some money but you can guarantee you’ll be PLT in time for your trip.
Have you also thought about flying out of another airport that is over 240 miles further away than where you are starting from? I would try Chattonoga or Atlanta. Those are just the closest airports AA flies to ORD. Chattonoga wouldn’t be enough so you would need to do two or three of these. Atlanta would work but its also short of 239 at about 205 miles.
One thing to keep in mind is also your hours.
I don’t know about you, but my company pays me when I travel for work outside regular business hours. I have to get special permission from my manager to change away from the less direct travel methods to something that would require meto spend more time on the road…
Especially because the hours I’m on the road, though I might answer a mail or two, or get *some* work done, are essentially empty hours otherwise in terms of work.
@Skwok That is brilliant. I will try to see if there are any cities I can fly into that are a little farther away but still in driving distance.
@Anne Alas, I do not get paid for hours I am traveling. I’m glad that you do though 🙂
Find an additional connection on one of those flights – connect in ORD and DFW, or STL, etc. Doesn’t matter how many miles, since the 500-mile minimum will cover you.
Many AA fares that allow connections in multiple hubs also allow double connections.
Check to see what the rates are for a hub to hub RT flight for AA. With United, they can be as cheap as $150, not “free”, but I’d pay $150 to get/keep my gold status.
How do you plan to travel to Manila from the US?
I do not see AA flying into Manila.
how about your Manila trip，isnt that going to give miles？
I believe she wants status before her flight to Manila. I’m guessing she wants lounge access but could be for the 100% bonus RDM instead of 25%.
Also, the airports near Nashville flies to either ORD or DFW. I was hoping for a short hop back over to Nashville or another close airport, but I don’t believe there are any as there are no AA hubs near Nashville. Just ORD, DFW. She could try flying through MIA and ORD but that’ll may cost a lot more.