If you're already travelling a lot for work, an occasional mileage run to push you up in to the next tier can make a lot of sense. Being up in the next tier ca

If you're already travelling a lot for work, an occasional mileage run to push you up in to the next tier can make a lot of sense. Being up in the next tier can earn you multipliers of the miles you actually fly and other perks, so it can be a fairly rational decision. The only time I did an explicit mileage run (as opposed to taking a longer route to get to where I had to go anyway) I did a short hop from London to Madrid in First Class on a really cheap ticket, spent the day walking around being a tourist, and then probably paid for the ticket in the amount of booze I guzzled at the rather excellent Iberia lounge on the way back. That was to keep good status with American. Having good status with American can making flying - gasp! - pleasurable.