Technically, I landed before 11am.
I then went to Starbucks, Trader Joes and grabbed some Chipotle before noon.
It was an eventful Saturday, okay?
So, why am I crazy and why did I fly to Atlanta and back in the same day?
I completed what travel nerds like to call a Mileage Run.
(It was really a status run, but you’ll see the details below.)
Preface: Us travel greeks tend to do some crazy things. A bit ago, Delta sent me a targeted email offering me Gold Medallion status for the next 3 months, as well as the next year if I completed 3 roundtrip flights before a certain date. Knowing full well that I wasn’t going to try make Silver again for next year, I found this offer especially enticing.
As a “lowly” Silver Medallion member, I still enjoy some benefits. Gold offers a bit more that I won’t bore you with (and some may find silly) including Sky Priority boarding and free C+ (formerly Economy Comfort) seats 72 hours before the flight.
Now, would I fly 3 RT flights specifically to get Gold status? Probably not. Seems like quite a bit of money just for those benefits.
But, I already was planning on taking 2 roundtrip flights anyway for upcoming trips that I had not yet booked.
So, are those Gold benefits worth the cost of 1 flight? For me, yes.
I just had to make it work:
- It had to be a weekend flight so as to not interrupt my work.
- It had to be an early flight so I still had most of the weekend to be productive.
- It needed to not cost me an arm and a leg.
- It needed to provide Biscoff cookies.
This past week, I saw the price drop for the earliest morning flight available and snagged it.
After I complete the next 2 flights, I’ll be Gold until 2017.
Take a look at how it all went down. (Hover over for captions.)
FLL -> ATL
I hopped off my flight in Terminal B, headed to Terminal A for my next flight, made a quick pit stop at the ladies room and then waited about 10 minutes to board my plane back to Fort Lauderdale. (My flight to ATL was delayed about 30 minutes, otherwise I would have gladly hit up Caribou Coffee. <sad face>)
ATL -> FLL
I landed on time and had the hubster swing by the airport to pick me up after he played a round of golf. All in a day’s work, amiright?
Does this sort of status stuff matter in the grand scheme of life? Nah. It’s important to keep that perspective, certainly. Plus, in the travel world, Gold isn’t much. But for me, the creature comforts it provides made it worth it to just hop on over to Atlanta for a half hour and fly home.
We all have hobbies, I guess I can include a mileage/status run as one of mine now.