Mileage Plus Premier

After 3 consecutive year of barely missing the elite qualification miles (missing only about 2000-5000 miles), this year I finally manage to hit the mark and be upgraded to Premier elite status. This means 25% more miles per miles (easier to keep up the elite status), and complimentary upgrades to next class based on availability. No more huge fucking lines at United Economy check-in lines!! Shorter lines at red carpet!!!
No really, the line for economy check-in for United at any US airport is fucking ridiculous. Every time I get to the airport the United economy has a huge crowd, while others will only be light to moderate. It actually forces you to add one more hour for on top of the recomended 1 for domestic and 2 for international, and after 9/11 its more of 2 for domestic and 3 for international.
Wooohooo!

Consider this, if you are very close to being upgrade to elite member, making a "mileage run" is not that bad. For example United has now a $184 flight from Dulles to Vegas, that is 2066 miles for or one way, so being a round trip, its a total of 4132 miles for only $184. If you don't want to spend absolutely nothing more than $184, you can make it so that your stay in Vegas for maybe 2-3 hours and fly back in the same day. So basically you spend about 2-3 hours in the airport and fly back. Granted my trip to SFO was mainly because I wanted to make a quick visit to Misako, but the added miles were a bonus for me.

Dana for example, might have a harder time to do a mileage run because he departure airport is in Kona, middle of nowhere, so any flights for her toward the mainland will be ~$400+. But check this out; there is a flight from Kona for $388 to NYC through NWA, but I know she has United so she needs a different airlines, but wait, US Airways is only $411, so she can get the miles to her United because US Airways is Star Alliance! This means she can get about ~9954+ miles for a round trip flight from Kona to NYC. She could then take a china town bus and visit her friends over in DC.
The only downside for a PURE mileage run is time flexibility, but usually you can make a compromise between price and miles by making it a hybrid trip, an actual trip with maximized mileage and low cost.

My trip to San Francisco to visit Misako only cost me $256, that pretty damn cheap for SFO flight. It was a hybrid trip for me, since I only needed 3,000 miles to be upgrade to elite status, but I wanted the trip to be meaningful, thus why I flew to SFO to visit Misako instead of Las Vegas, which would have cost me only $184 and gotten enough miles (~4000 miles).

Oh did I say I qualified for another free domestic flight? hahaha.
Tokyo, sooo want to go again and visit Eri-chan! Added bonus of ~13,568 miles. Oh yeah with the elite 25% bonus for Premier members, its total of ~17,072 miles! heheh. That more than half of miles needed to maintain Premier status. HAHA

So I'm going to Tokyo next year anyways, and I have to go to Rio again before August, so that's about 29,050 miles, and IF I MAKE A STRETCH to add another Tokyo trip in the same calendar year with a mileage run to SFO, that puts me over 50,000 miles! Over 50,000 miles means that I would be upgraded to Premier Executive which give 100% elite mileage per mileage flown + Star Alliance Lounge access for the duration of the status! You heard that right, you get TWICE the mileage per trip! God that would rake in some much miles for FREE flights! Making the stretch is, well, not easy, but putting in 2 trips to Tokyo in one calendar year doesn't seems impossible or unreasonable, hard though. So let's say I make the stretch and get bumped to Premier Executive, I would have to maintain 50,000 every year, it sounds bad but its not bad at all, since Premier Executive give 100% bonus miles, its in fact basically flying 25,000 actual miles. Which I've been close to for the last 3 years.