Qualified for AA Executive Platinum for 2014 with 103k Flight Miles

So after about 8 months of flying on weekends and three weeks of vacation, I finally made it to Executive Platinum with AA! My last flight was on the Finnair MAD-HEL-JFK. I got back to JFK Sunday afternoon and my miles posted sometime this morning as I was still booking flights last night as an AA Platinum member.

I qualified with 100,000 flight miles and I started January 7th. I did it the hard way, not like some who had the “fast track” invitation to get to EXP by flying 30k miles in the last three months of the year. By about early May I already had 63k EQM with all the great deals I got for the first few months of the year.

How I kept track of all the numbers were on a Google spreadsheet that I updated constantly every time I would book a flight or planning flights. This is just a small section of the total spreadsheet I keep as calculating RDM and EQP could be a challenge. I had to break out each major leg of the trip to calculate it each correctly. I was only 14 miles off of my EQM number on AA, which took minor adjustment during the year.

During midway through the year, I also added my award flights as well to keep track of how many miles I flew total this year, which was a pretty insane number for me as I only flew about 60k miles the year before and about 40k the year before that. I do not think I will be flying this number of miles for the next two years until I get more vacation time. I hope to fly enough for EXP next year.

		Miles Flown	EQM	RDM	EQP
Trip 1	BOS-NRT-PVG-LAX-JFK	16779	16,444	36,130	17,909
Trip 2	PVG-HKG-BKK-HKG-PVG	3656	3,656	7,312	5,484
Trip 3	JFK-LHR-JNB-LHR-JFK	18144	18,144	36,288	18,144
Points	BOS-SJU-STT-MIA-BOS	4107
Trip 4	JFK-DFW-SCL-MIA-JFK	11468	11,468	26,423	14,955
Trip 5	BOS-MIA-GIG	12951	12,951	25,902	6,476
Jetblue	BOS-IAD	413
Points	IAD-LAX-PPT-HNL-SAN-BOS	13315
Trip 6	BOS-DFW-SEA-ANC	9340	9,340	18680	4,670
Trip 7	BDL-LAX-SFO	6054	6,054	17162	3,027
Trip 8	BDL-LAX	5054	5054	15162	2,527
Trip 9	BOS-ORD	1734	1,734	3468	867
Trip 10	BOS-DFW-PDX-LAX-BOS	6623	6,623	13246	3,312
Points	BOS-CDG	3448
Points	CDG-DUB	489
Points	DUB-FRA-MUC-PEK-SYD	11225
Points	SYD-AKL-SYD-LAX-BOS	12789
Trip 11	JFK-HEL-MAD-HEL-JFK	11900	11,900	23800	5,950
US Air	BOS-RIC	474
Total		149,963	103,368	215,578	83,320

Here is a short summary of the trips I took this year.

• Trip 1 (Jan): Work trip to Shanghai. Flew coach out and business class back. Got a deal where pay M-fare coach, get first class (if available). If not, fly as Y.
• Trip 2 (Jan): Mini work trip to Thailand to visit three customers. Managed to stay for Saturday and Sunday morning for some sightseeing. Great food there.
• Trip 3 (Feb): MR deal with BA, paid about $900 to JNB to visit grandmother there. Wife went along, got her into the lounges for the first time. She was super excited. Slight issue with her temper and security at JNB about her knitting needles. Told her I would leave her at the airport if she gets detained next time.
• Trip 4 (April): Mistake fare for business class to SCL for about $900. Booked it for the Santiago Marathon. First time in South America and a day later, finished a marathon with a new PR of 4:40, a few minutes faster than my previous PR.
• Trip 5 (May): MR deal MCO-GIG (~$330). Managed to get it ticketed from Boston for $600 and cashed in on extra segments between MIA and MCO to make it 4.96CPM. Day trip to Rio to check out the sights and enjoy the sun. Already had Brazil visa from work.
• Points trip (End may-early June): Trip to Tahiti with my wife. Got inspired by MillionMileSecret’s second honeymoon as I had a stash of AA miles. Went right after wife finished medical school so great trip. Also celebrated our third anniversary.
• No more flying until after labor day.
• Trip 6-10 (Sept): Every weekend I went on a mileage run to the west coast. One was pure MR up to ANC. Other times, stayed overnight. Managed to train for my marathon during these weekends.
• Trip 9: Chicago Seminars and Chicago Marathon
• Points: Massive two week trip running the Dublin and Auckland Marathon within the same week. Spent five days in Sydney
• Trip 11: Mileage run to Madrid via Helsinki on Finnair. Wife joined but she flew to DUB on Avios business on Aer Lingus, then coach to Madrid. Then with me back to Helsinki with her in business, and then business HEL-MUC-BOS on Lufthansa. Missed booking her on LH F MUC-BOS by a few hours as United office wasn’t open early Saturday afternoon US time.

Trip 6-10 I have blogged about but still have to finish up writing about my time in Auckland and Sydney and Europe. I’ll circle back to the first five trips to backfill some additional history for this year.