Search through travel forums, and you will find stories of frequent flyers who have endured insane mileage runs to earn miles or maintain airline or hotel status. Most recently, my friend Xavier who writes the travel blog “The Luxury Travel Expert” did an extreme mileage run with a return flight on an Emirates A380 in Business Class Düsseldorf to Dubai and then straight back from Dubai to Düsseldorf, with just a 3-hour stop-over in Dubai. He made use of a pricing error and an unusually low Business Class fare (€750 EUR per person).
After taking this rather extreme run, his comments were, “it was a pretty crazy and exhausting adventure as I only spent 3 hours on the ground and arrived back in Düsseldorf 16 hours after I left. And although I am now an Emirates Gold Member, I won’t do another mileage run in the near future as sitting in an aluminum tube for hours with no destination is not only a waste of time but also undermines one’s health.”
My Own Experience
These mileage runs are common practice among points & miles addicts. I have to admit that I have done a number of mileage and mattress runs (mattress runs are the equivalent to mileage runs but in the hotel sector). In the past, I have booked many nights at the Holiday Inn Express in Poole and an equally uninspiring Holiday Inn airport hotel to achieve status and for bonus miles for my stays at the Intercontinental Park Lane.
I also recently booked 3 flights in a widely covered and insane Iberia airline sale to grow my Avios balance. I didn’t actually have to take my flight for this offer, so the risk was only whether Iberia would honor all the bookings made by frequent flyers who had no intention of flying that particular leg (so far they have).
Is It Worth It?
It depends on the value you put on your status and miles and points and the value you put on your time and health. This is something that will vary hugely from person to person.
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