A frequent flyer will sometimes do a "mileage run" to get the miles necessary to get or maintain status with an airline. When the airline sweetens the deal by offering bonuses, the mileage runs multiply. Various offers from American Airlines, for example, have led to a rash of AAdvantage members booking flights from Chicago (ORD) or Dallas (DFW) to Los Angeles (LAX) or San Francisco (SFO). To earn those all-important BIS (butt in seat) miles, some fanatics have gone so far as to book daily round trips between ORD and LAX for five or ten days in a row: fly ORD -> LAX in the early morning, get off the plane but stay in the terminal then board the next flight back to ORD, get a few hours sleep, and start all over again the next day.
I like having status with AA, but I'm not nearly so driven as that. Make me a reasonable offer, though, and I'll gladly plan a trip.
Right after AA announced it was entering bankruptcy, they also decided to offer double elite qualifying miles on all flights through the end of January. It's been a month since we got back from Italy, so we took this as a clear sign that it was time to travel again.
Bueno, entonces, we're off today to Madrid for five nights. The convenient flights are non-stop from DFW to MAD, it's easy to get into the city from Barajas airport, and we found a good deal on a hotel right across the street from the Prado.
I'll be taking snaps and writing more, of course, but until then here's my Flickr photos from our trip to Madrid in March 2010.
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