Thanks to my mastery of procrastination, I’ve managed to ‘book’ myself into a corner as far as reaching 100k revenue miles this year is concerned. At the beginning of the year I though I would get ahead of the curve and booked a ‘Mileage Jog’ to Anchorage to pick up approximately 9000 miles and to take in a couple of days of planespotting. Then things were a bit quiet until the Spring and Summer with 1 trip to Hong Kong and a few minor runs within the US. With airfares at their peaks during the summer and not much going on as far as needing to be in Europe was concerned, I decide to practice my advanced procrastination skills, until now.
The beginning of Autumn marks the beginning of what will be a very busy Mileage Run season for me over the next 3 months. To get things started, I’m off to Dubai later this week for 3 days to mark my first visit to the Middle East (I’ve decided to not count my trip to IST as Mid-East eligible). I’m looking forward to seeing the city in person after seeing so much of it on the internet and various travel shows. My wife is looking forward to me visiting the Gold Souk (obviously I can’t come home empty-handed) while I’m looking forward to my rounds of golf and plane spotting from atop the Sheraton Deira which actually caters to plane spotters and understands our disease. I won’t be staying at the Sheraton, but they still allow Plane Spotters to use their rooftop for a very nominal fee. As a bonus there is a roof-top bar to take advantage of in between arriving and departing aircraft. The trip to Dubai, thanks to some creative routing in the USA will yield approximately 18,000 miles. Not bad.
Two weeks after I return from ‘DXB’, I’ll be off to Munich for a weekend to visit with friends from Lufthansa Social Media and to take in an FC Bayern Munchen football match. It will be my first FC Bayern game that I’ll see in person (I’ve been a fan for years) so I’m genuinely excited about the 3 day trip! I think there will be enough time for a day trip to Salzburg or Innsbruck as well. Chalk up another 11,000 miles.
After that run, I’ll be off to Frankfurt to be there when Lufthansa Cargo celebrates the arrival of their 1st Boeing 777 Freighter. The date has yet to be announced, so that trip will be on very short notice as it’s expected sometime in October/Early November. Add another 10,500 miles to the tally.
Then in early November my wife and I are going back to Hong Kong for our second visit this year. She fell in love with the city during her first trip this past May and who am I to say no to visiting one of my favorite cities in the world…..not to mention the great plane spotting. This time we’ll finish off her checklist of places to visit. On our last trip we ran out of time to visit Lantau and the Peak, so these will be the first places we go to. We also plan on visiting Macau this time as well. Add another 17,300 miles to the abacus.
If that isn’t enough, it’s back to Germany and Slovakia over an extended Thanksgiving Holiday break. If schedules and logistics work out, I’ll be attending Lufthansa Group’s internal Social Media conference in Frankfurt and then fly on to Vienna and cross into Slovakia to visit a wide assortment of cousins, aunts, uncles and a very healthy 99 year old Grandmother. At least 17,000 miles to the balance sheet (have yet to decide if I’ll fly in First or Business for this one so a few extra miles will hit the account).
That brings me to December which has yet to have anything booked, but I think the momentum of October and November will carry over and there will most certainly be something added to the December calendar. South America and Australia are still missing from my list of visited Continents, so it may be high time to go!
So as it stands, between now and the end of the year it looks as though I’ll cover at least 73,500 miles (most of it on LH except for Dubai and Hong Kong) with what’s already on the books. This will be my busiest/most concentrated stretch of long-haul travel that I’ve experienced– I wonder how I’ll come out on the other side……
A hat tip goes to Michelle of Miles, Points and Mai Tais, whose post on her own Mileage Run Marathon motivated me to put together my own version.
