I Went To China & All I Got Was A Free Ticket To Paris.....

I'm fully aware that I promised trip reports on my recent shenanigans in Vancouver and Tokyo, but getting the pictures ready and on a media format that makes it easy for me to include in a post has been troublesome. It'll be here soon!

Just a quick update on the future travel schedule of your dutiful writer....

New York City, NY

August 29th

American Airlines, Economy

ORD-LGA-ORD

Delhi/Agra/Fatehpur Sikri/Jaipur, India

September 2 - September 14

American Airlines, Business Class

ORD-DEL-ORD

Beijing, China

November 10 - November 17

American Airlines, Economy Class

ORD-PIT-ORD-PEK-ORD-DFW-PIT-ORD

After a whirlwind year, those three trips still seems massive to me. I'm pretty excited to be going to the two most populous countries in the world only two months apart. I'm sure that one or two additional trips will creep their way into my schedule as well. Atlanta seems to be calling my name lately, and I have enough miles on United for a North American round trip itinerary waiting to be cashed in. I've thought of saving them for something better but likelihood that I'd accumulating any more miles on United in the near future is pretty slim.

The New York and India flights are pretty straight forward, I get to climb on a plane in Chicago and end up deposited at my location when I get off that same plane. The China itinerary is a bit more ... complicated. American Airlines is currently running a promotion that allows you to double the amount of elite qualifying miles (EQM) earned on flights by flying out of certain airports, and triple the amount of redeemable miles (RDM). RDMs are the miles you get from an airline that you can use to get free stuff with. A lot of people collect the miles for awhile and get a free ticket somewhere, but you can also get free magazine subscriptions, ipods, and hotels stays. The list of free junk you can get goes on and on and on. For someone interested in traveling, RDMs are a huge commodity. With this in mind.....

I looked at the cities the promotion was good out of (Raleigh/RDU, St. Louis/STL, Nashville/BNA, and Pittsburgh/PIT) and discovered that flying to Beijing (PEK) from PIT was a reasonable $800. What does that all mean? Let's look at the math:

Flying from Chicago to Beijing directly would mean:

$1400 for the flight, 13,158 EQM and 26,316 RDM. Keep in mind, the 26,316 in RDM is enough for one round trip ticket on American Airlines to most locations in the US and Canada.

Flying from Pittsburgh to Beijing would mean:

$800 +$99 for the flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh, 26,316 EQM, and 65790 RDM. The 65,316 is worth almost enough to do 3 round trip tickets on American to most locations in the US and Canada, or one round trip ticket to Hawaii, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Europe, or Japan.

So for the $900 I spent on my ticket to Beijing, I ended up with enough miles to make another free trip to just about anywhere in the world that I would want to go. Think of it this way, when I bought my ticket to Beijing, I got a trip to Paris/Buenos Aires/Tokyo for free. A 2 for 1 sale. I get to spend a week in China seeing some amazing sights and eating amazing food, and when I get back to Chicago, American Airlines will thank me for my business by giving me another flight for free. Love. It.

The elite qualifying miles (EQM) were a big draw for me too, as it actually solidified my elite status on American Airlines and its Oneworld partners for another year much faster and easier then I thought I was going to do this year. That's a topic for another blog post this week though.

Safe Travels,

Leo