After over a month away from a jet it was fun to get back in the air. Mileage runs are just fun; you don’t really have to go anywhere and wherever you end up is just as good as the next. Sure you have to go somewhere, but that is really about it. Just enjoy the ride and the adventure. Plus, there is always something new to learn on each trip.

This was sure the case with this positioning run. An early morning drive to South Bend, soon to be International, (SBN) airport and a somewhat longish CRJ200 ride up to Minneapolis (MSP). I long for the day when a CRJ700 or better graces the gates of my home bit of tarmac.

I will say this, the Skywest crew was great. The pilots feathered the smoothest landing I have ever had in a CRJ200. But enough about Barbie jets. The ERJ170 was waiting for me in MSP. But I would rather have not been on it as there was an option to connect via DTW if the flight was oversold. I checked in at the Skyclub and they said 1st was oversold by 2 but coach was open with 4 so it would go out under. This sounded confusing and so I headed very early to the gate and asked if they were oversold. Gate agent (GA) said it was fine. What I should have said was, ‘but I hear that 1st is oversold’ as what happened was the last two who were upgraded were downgraded to coach. Sounds bad right? Wrong! They got $200 in vouchers and a free upgrade cert for the downgrade (What kind of cert is this? I have no idea). I should have asked if they were oversold in 1st and offered to downgrade for vouchers. Lesson learned!

So off to Kansas City (MCI). It was a beautiful day to fly as well as work on Delta jet engines.

No matter how many times I fly I never ever get tired of just staring out the window at the world below.

Including, as we approached MCI, the sharp turn allowing an almost straight down look at Kansas Speedway!

Then it was just time to wait for my friend Graydon to arrive and enjoy a non-SkunkyBeer while I waited.

Not a Skyclub but a nice place away from the masses. So everything so far had gone perfect. What could go wrong from here? Well that is for part two of this run tomorrow on a “slightly” delayed MD88 and reader Graydon!

The return from MCI did go smooth as silk as well with my upgrade clearing on the way home just as it had on the way out. No bumps and uneventful. But how about the numbers?

I paid for the positioning flights with FlexPerks points. I have been collecting them for almost nothing via bonus deals and card churns, but let’s just say for simplicity’s sake I did as I talked about HERE and it cost me $94 to get the 20,000 points. The cost of the ticket was $353 and I only earned 2130 MQMs & 4793 Skymiles for the flights. That, if I were paying the CPM or cost per mile for this would be an atrocious 17 CPM. Problem was I had to find perfect flights to match up with my mileage run and under $400. But keep in mind my real out of pocket was just MAX $94 so that brings me down to 4.4 CPM that is truly a respectable cost for a run.

Are we learning yet? – René
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Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer.

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