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He ran the miles in record time.
A California man devised an ingenious way to achieve United Airline’s coveted Platinum status before the year’s end — by taking six flights in one day for around $500.
“It’s cool that it was able to be completed in such a short timeframe!” Stephen, a self-described “aviation geek” from San Francisco, told The Post. “Many people have done status/mileage runs over the years, but doing one that stayed within a few constraints (one day, short flights, under a certain $$) was a fun challenge for me.”
Stephen’s mile-high marathon saw him fly from San Francisco to Reno and back, roundtrip from San Francisco to Sacramento and finally, from San Francisco to Los Angeles and back — and all within 12 hours.
Stephen initially detailed his sky-high Christmas shopping spree in a post taking off on Reddit.
“First flight departed at 8:40am and last flight arrived at 8:29pm,” he wrote on Reddit. “There were some ground stop delays at SFO, but luckily all connections were similarly delayed, so everything went off without a hitch.”
Why go on this epic flight binge? The frequent flyer said that he had embarked on “a lot of long-haul flights to Korea” and “direct flights” to Orlando, Florida for work this year.
This placed him just six flights away from United’s Platinum status, which grants flyers perks ranging from three free checked bags, automatic Group 1 boarding, and priority check-in.
Stephen told the Post that he wanted to go on a flight with his wife Europe and wanted to use the “plus points that they give you with Platinum to upgrade us on an international flight to business class.”
“So that was kind of one of the main motivators,” the United Mileage Plus member, who was also curious to see if this speed run could be achieved on the cheap. He reportedly grew up with mileage on his mind, having been a Mileage Plus Member since 2002 and having a dad who was also a “frequent flyer.”
To qualify for this status, one must complete 45 premier qualifying flights and accumulate 15,000 premier qualifying points (PQP), or 18,000 premier qualifying points (PQP), which can be earned by redeeming miles, requesting upgrades, and using the United Card.
As Stephen didn’t want to spend a boatload of money to be ushered into this elite fraternity — which is how many flyers go Platinum, he said — he decided to attain it via a combination of flights and miles.
The Californian ended up using a combination of 60,000 miles and $500 on this sky-high sextathlon — tickets that would’ve normally run him approximately $1,100.
As for the route, Stephen said he was initially thinking of flying to Los Angeles and then Palm Springs and onward to Las Vegas, until he learned via Google Gemini that there was a better way to achieve his goal.
“That’s where Gemini was like, you might be better off just taking short flights out of SFO and back to SFO,” he explained.
Naturally, taking back-to-back flights all day might sound like a flightmare, but the flight buff said that the trips were surprisingly comfortable.
The life hacker told the Post that the San Francisco to Reno round-trip leg was on a “spacious” Bombardier jet, where he didn’t have anyone sitting next to him, allowing for plenty of room.
And that wasn’t all.
“There was Starlink Wi-Fi on that flight, which is amazing,” Stephen exclaimed. “And I flew to Reno, deboarded the plane, and then sat at the gate for 15 minutes, had a coffee, and then it was time to board again.”
He added, “While many people see airports as a hassle, I genuinely love the experience; the logistics, the engineering, and the perspective you only get from 30,000 feet.”
In addition, while there were some ground delays in San Fran, the connections were similarly postponed, thereby preventing a domino effect that could’ve derailed his mileage mission entirely.
“It was like the delays compounded a little bit, and luckily that kept everything aligned throughout the day,” said Stephen. “It was like, yeah, if one of these goes down, the rest of the day is screwed.”
While many commenters praised Stephen’s dedication, others felt that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
“This is absolutely not worth it but good for you, I guess,” said one critic.
“Was just thinking the Gold to Plat jump isn’t worth this,” another sniped.
But for Stephen, the mileage run was as much about the journey as it was the destination.
“It wasn’t really so much about, oh, I really care about Platinum Status,” he said. It was just more like, ‘All right, I’m an aviation geek, can I do this?’”
While certainly unique, Stephen isn’t the only one embarking on mileage speed runs to achieve/maintain airline status.
“Flew Austin to Taipei and back a number of years ago when status was based on miles only,” claimed one airline savant. “Got ~15,000 miles for around $900, and that got me to Platinum, 75k flown miles. I’ve also done a 6 PQF, Austin>Houston>Dallas>Houston>San Antonio>Houston>Austin, all in a day to keep 1K a few years ago.”
Meanwhile, last year, a flyer named Keith described on social media how he planned to become a 1K before the year-end deadline by booking three flights in a day — Washington DC to Newark, Newark to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to DC.
“I want to get all the benefits, all the things when you become a 1k member, I’m not about to let that s–t go down the drain,” he declared.
