Questions and Answers

Hi Ben!

First off, I think you and Ford are the cutest couple ever! My boyfriend and I have been following your blog pretty religiously for a couple years. I wanted to get your opinion on something before I attempt to book it.

I am currently an EXP with AA and looking to requalify for status as cheaply as possible as I do not plan to travel extensively for work this year. While perusing your blog, you mentioned that qatar was having an insane special on business class flights from BKK-LAX. Well, that fare is no longer available but I did find something perhaps even cheaper.

This is for HBE (Alexandria Egypt)-LAX for $1,200 for virtually all dates after March in BUSINESS class.

Per my calculations, and correct me if i’m wrong… this routing would be

HBE-DOH in Qatar First (A) 1,391 miles base
DOH-LAX in Qatar Business (I) 8306 miles base
LAX-DOH in Qatar Business (I) 8306 miles base
DOH-HBE in Qatar First (A) 1,391 miles base

So as an exec after bonuses this would be a total of 71757 redeemable miles and about 30,000 EQM with about 4,100 EQD.

In order to get to alexandria, I was thinking of booking a positioning award from LAX with the routing LAX-JFK-HEL-FRA-DOH or similar. In addition, to minimize taking vacation days from work, I would travel the routing on say Fri-Sat Positioning, SUN-Mon HBE-LAX and book the return flight for the following weekend. Rinse and repeat 3 times for Executive Platinum Status for ~$3600 and AA miles for positioning (not including the 210k+ miles received from flying this).

What do you think about this plan?

Hey! I just wanted to repost this question so that it is in my account that I created:

Hi Ben!

First off, I think you and Ford are the cutest couple ever! My boyfriend and I have been following your blog pretty religiously for a couple years. I wanted to get your opinion on something before I attempt to book it.

I am currently an EXP with AA and looking to requalify for status as cheaply as possible as I do not plan to travel extensively for work this year. While perusing your blog, you mentioned that qatar was having an insane special on business class flights from BKK-LAX. Well, that fare is no longer available but I did find something perhaps even cheaper.

This is for HBE (Alexandria Egypt)-LAX for $1,200 for virtually all dates after March in BUSINESS class.

Per my calculations, and correct me if i’m wrong… this routing would be

HBE-DOH in Qatar First (A) 1,391 miles base
DOH-LAX in Qatar Business (I) 8306 miles base
LAX-DOH in Qatar Business (I) 8306 miles base
DOH-HBE in Qatar First (A) 1,391 miles base

So as an exec after bonuses this would be a total of 71757 redeemable miles and about 30,000 EQM with about 4,100 EQD.

In order to get to alexandria, I was thinking of booking a positioning award from LAX with the routing LAX-JFK-HEL-FRA-DOH or similar. In addition, to minimize taking vacation days from work, I would travel the routing on say Fri-Sat Positioning, SUN-Mon HBE-LAX and book the return flight for the following weekend. Rinse and repeat 3 times for Executive Platinum Status for ~$3600 and AA miles for positioning (not including the 210k+ miles received from flying this).

What do you think about this plan? If anyone in the community has thoughts, please feel free to chime in!

hi [USER=2673]@Shawn S[/USER], welcome! If you have the time and money to do those runs and you enjoy it, it might be OK but the question is if you are not going to be traveling extensively otherwise why bother chasing status? The real value of status comes with help during travel so I’d make sure all this time, money and energy is a worthwhile pursuit for you.