A Miami Mileage Run: The totals & the flight home

A Miami Mileage Run: The VIP lounge at MIA & positioning flight
A Miami Mileage Run: The run to Phoenix
A Miami Mileage Run: The Sheraton MIA & time in Miami
A Miami Mileage Run: The Delta Skyclub in MIA
A Miami Mileage Run: The totals & the flight home

What a fun run this was. I mean I just love flying and seeing the world from a 1st class Delta seat. That plus time with friends and family makes it just about perfect. Also I got to see a lounge I had never been to, have a beer at a famous golf club, visit another SPG property and see the refurbished MIA Skyclub. Oh and pickup a bunch of points along the way at a VERY nice price. I went 100% on upgrades on this run and, as I have talked about before, went 20 for 22 for the month of September, that is for flights that I had a shot to upgrade on. Not too shabby. But I am jumping ahead.

My lunch on the ride home was good if not a little unexciting. It was turkey, bacon cheese on wheat toast. Then again, for that combination, it was very tasty indeed but I would not have ordered it myself in a restaurant!

I was really hoping for a bump along the way but alas, that did not happen today nor on this run at all. All my flights were just good, on time, and worked like just about all my 100 flights this year on Delta.

So now on to the interesting stuff, that is just what this adventure cost me? The run itself was very cheap at $208. I used two $50 e-Gift vouchers & just paid the rest with my Delta AMEX Reserve card for the final $108 (at least I got 2x points that way). For the flight down I found a $378 rate out of SBN so 20k FlexPerks wiped that out. Thus my only airline cost was $108. I earned all-in:

• 10,133 MQMs at 1.1 CPM
• 23,016 Skymiles worth at least $230

I did have a few days of parking at SBN, $24, and the fees from the MIA Sheraton, $35 and did burn 7k SPG points for my hotel room.

Also, after I initially booked, there were some rather drastic schedule changes to the run that allowed me to improve the yield even more than when booked and yes, before you ask, you get the credit for the route you do eventually fly. I have to say it was a bit funny, after checking what were all the legal routes, my conversation with the medallion rep that went something like:

(me) I have a schedule change & will not make my connection
(rep) Yes I see that let’s see what we can do.
(me) May I share the flights I would really like?
(rep) Oh sure what did you have in mind

I then share leg by leg – MIA-ATL-LAX-PHX-ATL-LGA-MIA

(me) Can we do that, it seems to be a legal route.
(rep) That only gives you a little over an hour in PHX
(me) Yep that will be perfect for me
(rep) OK if that is what you want!
(me) Yep txs for the help.

So what can you, dear reader, take from this little adventure down into mileage run land? Plan ahead, book ahead, when the mighty schedule change hits you look for how you can turn your lemons into lemon-aid and the many ways you can add to your Delta totals for very little out of your own pocket!– René

PS – Don’t forget I am giving away a $100 Delta e-Gift card this week

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