Frequent-flier status seekers go the distance

It is a ritual of fall that only hard-core business travelers can understand, and it’s all about racking up frequent-flier miles.

I’m talking about a quirky but highly valued maneuver called the mileage run. It’s flight taken for no other reason than to increase your yearly air mileage and thus achieve or maintain a higher level of frequent-flier status in the coming year.

For business travelers, it’s no small thing. Various levels of status with the airlines can mean far more than free flights. Often it is good for better seats, priority boarding, first-class upgrades, airport lounge access and more.

Even bona fide road warriors scratch their heads wondering who in their right mind would voluntarily fly more after having already put in tens of thousands of flight miles. They ask themselves this -- even as they themselves partake in a mileage run.

“It’s OK to realize that the whole mileage-status run mind-set is a touch irrational and keep doing it anyway,” read one post on FlyerTalk.com, an online community of frequent fliers.

I must admit that I can relate. In late December I boarded an overnight flight to Boston -- for one purpose.

I landed, had a quick cup of coffee and got right back on the same plane in the same seat and returned to Los Angeles. I never left Logan International Airport.

That trip allowed me to continue into 2006 with Premier Executive status in United Airlines’ Mileage Plus program, the middle of three tiers of elite status. Most other airlines have similar programs.

Here’s how it works on United. At 25,000 miles flown in one calendar year, you reach Premier status. Among other perks, that entitles you to free upgrade coupons, access to its airplanes’ Economy Plus sections, which have extra legroom (an important perk when you are 6 feet 4 like me), and entry to faster security lines at some airports.

In addition, you get a 25% mileage bonus in the year ahead. Instead of accumulating one frequent-flier mile for each mile flown, Premier passengers get 1.25 frequent-flier miles.

For 50,000 miles flown, you graduate to the Premier Executive level. It includes Premier’s perks plus 100% mileage bonuses -- or two frequent-flier miles for every mile flown -- and priority over Premier-status passengers on standby lists.

At 100,000 miles, you reach the “1K” level, at which you get priority over others for standby plus six very valuable systemwide upgrades good for international flights.

To qualify for those and other perks, thousands of frequent fliers like me, who this fall find themselves just short of the mileage they need, are performing the same sort of shenanigans that I did last year to Boston.

Randy Petersen, frequent-flier guru and publisher of FlyerTalk.com and Inside Flyer magazine, said as many as 1 million mileage runs would be flown this year.

For the uninitiated, this may seem a bit mad.

Perhaps. But consider the numbers and my $300 whirlwind flight to Boston. Thanks to that trip, I maintained my Premier Executive status and the 100% mileage bonus. And I calculate the extra miles I accrued to be worth $450. And that doesn’t count the less quantifiable passenger-comfort benefits that make flying so much better.

Sound confusing? It is. But for frequent fliers who may be near that magical threshold to the next level and need a few thousand cheap miles to make it happen, advice abounds.

At FlyerTalk.com, there is a forum dedicated just to mileage runs. And this time of year, it is abuzz with requests for advice and examples of mileage runs cobbled together that maximize mileage at minimal cost.

Albert Williams of Portland, Ore., has been a member of FlyerTalk for about a year and it’s paying off this fall.

He spends half his workweeks on the road and knew that this year he would be flying about 60,000 miles for his job and several thousand more miles on international flights for pleasure. As the year-end approached, he found he was just short of United’s 1K level.

And his fiancee, Margaret McLain, also of Portland, needed more miles to lift her from Premier status to Premier Executive, also on United. So they decided on a joint mileage run.

Williams started his research at FareCompare.com, a website that finds and compares low airfares. It has a tool that enables travelers to determine the lowest price per mile for a flight (www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk). It was designed with those who are planning mileage runs in mind, FareCompare Chief Executive Rick Seaney said.

On the site, Williams found that a trip to Orlando, Fla., could be had for pennies per mile. But to get enough miles for McLain to qualify for Premier Executive, a nonstop flight would not do.

“I played around with other routings that would boost up the mileage,” he said, using another website, www.itasoftware.com, to actually plot their flights. Despite finding the site a bit difficult to navigate, he created their perfect prenuptial mileage run.

On Dec. 9, they are scheduled to fly from Portland to San Francisco to Washington and would arrive late that night in Orlando. The next day after only six hours on the ground, they plan to fly back to Portland via Chicago, Kansas City, Kan., and Denver. Total miles flown would be 6,756 -- or just 15 miles more than McLain needs to earn Premier Executive status.

At $239 apiece for that Orlando trip, the pair would get their upgrades, and it would be well worth it, they said. Williams figures that the six systemwide upgrades that United awards at the 100,000-mile level are worth $12,000 alone in international upgrades, not to mention all the other perks of that elite status.

“I probably spent way too much time doing this,” he said. But for $12,000 in upgrades? “I think it’s worth the amount of effort.”

I tested the FareCompare tool and found it very useful. I found it a fun way to try to determine where I might go, at what price and on which flights I could travel in a way that could put me over the 25,000-mile level and give me Premier status for 2007. It’s lower than my Premier Executive status this year -- but better than no perks at all.

I sense a quickie weekend to London in my near future. Or maybe Copenhagen. I wonder how Berlin is this time of year.

See how easy it can be to justify a mileage run?

james.gilden@latimes.com