4 ms·

That echos my experience really closely. I spent almost 4 years traveling twice per month with each trip lasting between 3-6 days, and each day, due to work sch

That echos my experience really closely. I spent almost 4 years traveling twice per month with each trip lasting between 3-6 days, and each day, due to work schedules, being 12+ hours long. At the end of those 4 years, I couldn't tell you anything about the actual cities I visited, but I can still describe the intricate details of the hotel/conference centers in which I basically lived.

Scoundreller 8y ago
But how many million tax-free hôtel and airline points did you accumulate?
- ac29 8y ago
  A million miles is a lot. If you flew roundtrip from New York to London twice a month, it would take over 6 years to have flown a million miles: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    You can get that down to about 1.8 years if you go London to Auckland return twice a month. Sounds terrible.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    You don't need to fly close to a million miles to get a million "miles"/points. Miles are based on spend now, not on distance traveled, so it's easy to rack up a million when you're flying business or first class. As an example, let's say you're a regular business traveler flying a $5k business class round-trip from NYC to London on American Airlines. You have the highest status level which gives you a 120% bonus on miles earned. Each dollar spent on the flight thus earns you 11 miles, so that one round-trip is worth 55k miles. Source: https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/aadvantage-currency.jsp https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/aadvantage-... But wait, there's more. Of course you also bought the $5k flight on your AA credit card, which gives another 2 miles per dollar spent, which puts the total up to 65k miles earned for one 7k mile round-trip flight. Or maybe you put it on your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which gives you 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points for travel spending, so 55k AA miles + 15k UR points. Now imagine that you're doing this trip several times per month and the miles/points add up very quickly; you can get to a million in no time.
    - skellera 8y ago
      What airlines include card miles in your million miles count? Having a million miles is different from the million miles status which seems to be based on the first kind of miles you mentioned.
      - CydeWeys 8y ago
        That wasn't the asked question though. And getting a million flown miles isn't all it's cracked up to be; you get a lower level of status guaranteed for life, but given that you're still actively traveling frequently for business you're gonna have a much better level of status anyway. And it all depends on the airline anyway. American Airlines, for example, only gives you gold status (the lowest level) for life at 1M miles.
        heelix 8y ago
        Delta did lifetime silver for 1M miles, which was their lowest level. They did give a nice Tumi suitcase at the 1M (or was it 2M?) actual miles mark, but I don't think it does much outside of a normal high status... probably zone one boarding, or something like that. Once you hit diamond status, upgrades domestically were pretty common. International... not so much. The flexibility was the really nice thing - they always would go out of their way to get you on the route you wanted if possible. With status multipliers (but flying meat space), the most I ever hit was 623k miles in a year. I suspect it was close to 300k 'real' miles. Our travel person was booking 'round the world' tickets to save money at that point.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    It’s kinda a jab at the inflationary nature of the programs. They devalue existing miles but remain competitive going forward by requiring, and giving, more miles for the same trip.
- goostavos 8y ago
  Hotels? none. It was always comp'd by the host org. Miles? Ultimately not that many -- or not enough to be of long term value. It was enough to get high enough in the status tiers for reliable upgrades, but for the most part, a few ad-hoc spontaneous flights and that giant bank of miles you built up over the years evaporates over night. It's a weird carrot on the stick that you kind of fall into. To ensure status, I would take purposefully crappy flights just to rack up the miles. Looking back it was a silly thing to chase and a really stupid use of time.
  - klank 8y ago
    I had a couple year stint where my job involved me flying 1-2 times a month. Not crazy compared to the road warriors but a decent amount of flying (almost all the flights were from one coast to the other so always long). After going through that, and playing the airmiles game, airline miles seem to only exist to trigger human emotions around the fear of losing out and the same kind of dopamine dependency that's exploited by grindy video games and gambling. You need 5million experience to level up, and dammit, it feels so good when it rolls over.
  - m463 8y ago
    I think of the movie "Up In The Air" with George Clooney.
joachim4 8y ago
What was your job ?

Scoundreller 8y ago

But how many million tax-free hôtel and airline points did you accumulate?

ac29 8y ago
A million miles is a lot. If you flew roundtrip from New York to London twice a month, it would take over 6 years to have flown a million miles: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-LON
- lostlogin 8y ago
  You can get that down to about 1.8 years if you go London to Auckland return twice a month. Sounds terrible.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  You don't need to fly close to a million miles to get a million "miles"/points. Miles are based on spend now, not on distance traveled, so it's easy to rack up a million when you're flying business or first class. As an example, let's say you're a regular business traveler flying a $5k business class round-trip from NYC to London on American Airlines. You have the highest status level which gives you a 120% bonus on miles earned. Each dollar spent on the flight thus earns you 11 miles, so that one round-trip is worth 55k miles. Source: https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/aadvantage-currency.jsp https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/aadvantage-... But wait, there's more. Of course you also bought the $5k flight on your AA credit card, which gives another 2 miles per dollar spent, which puts the total up to 65k miles earned for one 7k mile round-trip flight. Or maybe you put it on your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which gives you 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points for travel spending, so 55k AA miles + 15k UR points. Now imagine that you're doing this trip several times per month and the miles/points add up very quickly; you can get to a million in no time.
  - skellera 8y ago
    What airlines include card miles in your million miles count? Having a million miles is different from the million miles status which seems to be based on the first kind of miles you mentioned.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      That wasn't the asked question though. And getting a million flown miles isn't all it's cracked up to be; you get a lower level of status guaranteed for life, but given that you're still actively traveling frequently for business you're gonna have a much better level of status anyway. And it all depends on the airline anyway. American Airlines, for example, only gives you gold status (the lowest level) for life at 1M miles.
      - heelix 8y ago
        Delta did lifetime silver for 1M miles, which was their lowest level. They did give a nice Tumi suitcase at the 1M (or was it 2M?) actual miles mark, but I don't think it does much outside of a normal high status... probably zone one boarding, or something like that. Once you hit diamond status, upgrades domestically were pretty common. International... not so much. The flexibility was the really nice thing - they always would go out of their way to get you on the route you wanted if possible. With status multipliers (but flying meat space), the most I ever hit was 623k miles in a year. I suspect it was close to 300k 'real' miles. Our travel person was booking 'round the world' tickets to save money at that point.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  It’s kinda a jab at the inflationary nature of the programs. They devalue existing miles but remain competitive going forward by requiring, and giving, more miles for the same trip.
goostavos 8y ago
Hotels? none. It was always comp'd by the host org. Miles? Ultimately not that many -- or not enough to be of long term value. It was enough to get high enough in the status tiers for reliable upgrades, but for the most part, a few ad-hoc spontaneous flights and that giant bank of miles you built up over the years evaporates over night. It's a weird carrot on the stick that you kind of fall into. To ensure status, I would take purposefully crappy flights just to rack up the miles. Looking back it was a silly thing to chase and a really stupid use of time.
- klank 8y ago
  I had a couple year stint where my job involved me flying 1-2 times a month. Not crazy compared to the road warriors but a decent amount of flying (almost all the flights were from one coast to the other so always long). After going through that, and playing the airmiles game, airline miles seem to only exist to trigger human emotions around the fear of losing out and the same kind of dopamine dependency that's exploited by grindy video games and gambling. You need 5million experience to level up, and dammit, it feels so good when it rolls over.
- m463 8y ago
  I think of the movie "Up In The Air" with George Clooney.

joachim4 8y ago

What was your job ?