In some of our articles, you might find the term Mileage Run. That’s what we call flights that will get you a maximum of miles. Of course, without spending a fortune.
You can differentiate between Mileage Runs that will get you a maximum of award miles and those that will earn you a lot of tier miles. The latter is the more comfortable option since there are quite some loopholes for earning tier miles with cheap tickets. Award miles are very often connected to the ticket price or at least to a booking class and. Consequently, it is harder to find Mileage Runs for award miles.
Another form of a Mileage Run is the so-called Segment-Run. Instead of trying to earn as many miles as possible, the goal is to fly as many segments as you can while spending as little money as possible.
There are various ways to book a Mileage Run. Forst of all, there are super cheap or error fares. But also conventional connections can become a Mileage Run if you add as many layovers as possible. Especially trip to the USA can become Runs due to the many routes that the airlines offer.
Since airlines don’t treat each other equally within their alliance, you should take a good look at the terms and conditions of your frequent flyer program. In some cases a specific booking class with one carrier can earn you double the miles then it would have when flying another airline.
If you want to search for Mileage Runs, have a look here.