I made my first mileage run today. If you’re wondering what a mileage run is, FlyerTalk succinctly defines it as “trip itineraries designed solely for gaining maximum miles and/or points for no other reason than to gain the miles and/or points.” Although my motivation was to make sure I had enough miles to maintain status with United for 2007. I was less than 1500 miles short of making Premier so I had to go for it.

After a quick consultation with the FlyerTalk boards, I settled on a mileage run inside California, basically a SFO-SAN round trip with a stop at LAX on the way back. The SFO-SAN leg was completely full on a 757, which was a bit surprising. In order to get home faster, I put myself on standby flights for the next two legs. United’s EasyCheck-in was actually quite competent at allowing me to do that myself. The SAN-LAX leg was on a little Embraer 120 prop jet…arguably the most ghetto plane I’ve ever flown on. I barely made it to the earlier LAX-SFO flight, but was one of the last people onto the plane. I did have an amusing conversation with the crew as I boarded:

Me: Whew, glad I made this flight!
Them: Where did you start from today?
Me: Uh…San Francisco. I just flew in from San Diego.
Them: [Staring at me quizzically] Are you a pilot?
Me: No, I just really need the miles. I’m this close to making Premier for next year and couldn’t let it go.
Them: Ah, I’ve heard of people doing that before!
Me: Yeah, there’s more of us than you probably know.

One other interesting note during the mileage run, I got to see the Texas A&M football team boarding their charter flight at SAN after getting a severe beat-down from Cal in the Holiday Bowl the day before. Woot.