Up in the Air

If you haven’t seen a road warrior type of movie since Planes, Trains and Automobiles, then watch for the upcoming movie “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney. Based on the 2001 novel by Walter Kirn, Clooney plays Ryan Bingham who flies around the country firing people. Living a life of nameless hotel suites, salted almonds and rental cars, his main goal of acquiring one million frequent flyer miles is at risk when his company downsizes. Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking), Up in the Air is scheduled to be released later this year.  Maybe we should all meet somewhere to watch this, and do our part to help the economy and achieve our own personal goals of more air miles!

Since we are about half-way through another mileage-earning 12 months, are you starting to monitor what your frequent flier mile accumulation has been for the year?  No frequent flier wants to get to the end of the year and realize that they were just a few miles short of attaining status on an airline.  That could mean you’ll be walking to the back of the bus (a.k.a. Coach) in the next year on a consistent basis.  By the way, I use Mileport.com to monitor the balances in my frequent flyer and loyalty accounts with one easy-to-update screen.

What crazy flights have you taken in order to reach a mileage milestone level for status?  I’ve read of travelers who fly to another continent and back in the same day just to pick up miles that they need. There are also travelers who say they do their best work in-flight, so they fly many long flights to get their work done while accumulating air miles.  I tend to agree here on getting quality work done in-flight, but I haven’t yet bought an airline ticket just for the sake of working in my office chair in the sky. I have, however, been known to do a bit of Christmas shopping in order to cross the finish line on reaching a particular status with an airline.  A few years back, I was a couple thousand miles short in the last few weeks of December and wasn’t going to be traveling for business over the holidays. So one Friday morning, I woke up early at home, grabbed a big empty duffle bag, drove to the airport and flew from Orlando to Minneapolis.  Any good shopper in the U.S. knows that the Mall of America, our largest indoor mall, is in Minneapolis.  And lucky for me, it met the number of miles I needed to reach status and I got all of my Christmas shopping done in one jammed-packed day before flying home that evening with a very full duffel bag.  (Important note: There is a train to the Mall right from the airport, so there is no need to go outside in the cold weather – a great benefit for a Floridian and an easy way to get a bit of shopping done with a long layover.)

So while we await the release of George Clooney’s next movie “Up in the Air”, let us know what crazy things you have done (or would do) to reach your frequent flier goals.  And if the movie just happens to come out in December as the year finishes up and we’re a bit short a few miles, we may just need to meet in some faraway city in order reach our status.  That sounds like fun! 

Hope to see you Up in the Air!