Fotoeins Fotografie

86 percent “round the world” for $315

By HL fotoeins on 5 Jun 2012

OK, I admit it – the title to this post is a little misleading, because I’m referring to the distance I’ve traveled during the first five months of 2012, the distance equivalent to 86-percent of the way around the world.

But still, there’s a big chunk of miles around the planet for a small chunk of change.

But first, here’s a little background …

Over the last ten-plus years, I’ve flown a total of over one million miles with American Airlines and their Oneworld alliance partners. This means a few key things:

• some “we love you” elite-status, which means faster check-in process, no “first checked-bag” fees, early boarding, and some use of the airport lounges,
• faster accumulation of miles “earned” by flying,
• and I’ve a chance to use these miles to see friends around North America in a short period of time without breaking the budget.

Using miles to fly within North America

I began the North America portion of my around-the-world (RTW) trip the first week of 2012. With over 300,000 frequent-flyer miles in store, I’ve traveled throughout the continent by redeeming miles (plus taxes) for the following flights.

Date	Destination	Route	Miles Traveled & Used	Taxes & Fees ($ USD)
Jan 4	Vancouver, BC	SFO-LAX-YVR 1-way	1418 | 25k	5.00
Jan 19	Honolulu, HI	YVR-SEA-HNL return	5608 | 35k	66.00
Feb 21	Los Angeles, CA	SEA-LAX 1-way	954 | 12.5k	2.60
Mar 2	México City	LAX-MEX 1-way	1553 | 17.5k	24.90
Mar 10	San Jose, CA	MEX-DFW-SJC 1-way	2374 | 35k	47.20
Mar 20	NW Arkansas	SFO-DFW-XNA 1-way	1745 | 12.5k	5.00
Mar 26	Houston, TX	XNA-DFW-IAH 1-way	505 | 25k	5.00
Apr 3	Toronto, ON	IAH-DFW-YYZ 1-way	1424 | 12.5k	5.00
Apr 10	Minneapolis, MN	YYZ-ORD-MSP 1-way	770 | 12.5k	61.26
Apr 17	Washington, DC	MSP-ORD-DCA 1-way	946 | 25k	5.00
May 2	Nassau, Bahamas	BWI-MIA-NAS 1-way	1130 | 17.5k	5.00
May 29	Vancouver, BC	NAS-MIA-DFW-YVR 1-way	3058 | 30k	83.50
TOTALS	—	routes map	21485 | 260k	315.46

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Note that the equivalent frequent flyer miles reimbursed amounted to a total of 260,000 miles. With plane tickets obtained by redeeming miles, the actual miles flown came to a total of just over 21,485 miles, which would be the equivalent of making my way 86-percent around the world (with the Earth’s circumference equal to about 24,900 miles).

All of the flights were intracontinental, but that was still a lot of miles flown in the first five months of 2012.

Disclosure: No Connection, Unpaid, My Own Opinions. I have not received any compensation for writing this content and I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein. Full credits for the map are found here. This post is published on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-1sP.