2014 Mid-Year Travel Report

Where has the time gone?

I can’t believe that six months ago, I’d already rung in the New Year in Sydney, Australia — it seems like yesterday!

As the mid-point of the year has now come and gone, I figured it was that time of the year to compile my travel statistics for the year thus far.  Though I’ve taken a couple wonderful trips, my rate of travel lags FAR behind my pace in 2013.  This is due a number of reasons:

• This year, I’ve focused on burning the tons of miles that I accumulated from flying over 150,000 miles in 2013
• This year, I’ve taken a few very long trips instead of a dozen quick trips and weekend getaways
• This year, I’m no longer taking trips “just because” due to the new Premium Qualifying Dollar requirement instituted by United.  This reduced the incentive for me to look for and fly cheap tickets for random weekends to various places, since status is no longer calculated solely by the distance one flies — there’s a dollar spent aspect to it now.

Despite a large reduction in distance traveled, I’ve still had an incredible traveling year thus far in 2014…

My trips thus far have included:

• The last Two-thirds of my trip to Australia in January
• A trip to see the family in Tampa in February
• A work trip to New Orleans in April
• 2.5 weeks in Europe for a 12-night cruise and 4 days in Ireland in May
• A weekend in New York in June

2014 Mid-Year Travel Statistics

It appears that so far, I have:

• flown 21 flights to 19 airports
• flown 26,417 miles
• visited 5 countries (3 new:  Australia, Italy, Greece)
• visited 4 continents (1 new:  Australia)
• Crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice and the Pacific Ocean once
• flown 9 airlines (5 new:  Virgin America, Qantas, Hinterland Aviation, Ryanair, AerArann Islands)

  

For comparison’s sake, by this point in 2013, my year-to-date travel looked like this:

• 49 flights to 28 airports
• 94,176 miles flown
• 7 countries (6 new:  Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Turkey, UAE, Japan)
• Crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean Twice

  

The Quest for United Airlines Premier Status

As previously mentioned, United’s addition of the Premium Qualifying Dollars criteria to the Premier Qualification process almost entirely diminished all incentive I had to seek out low fares for weekend trips that would accumulate miles.  I simply haven’t done that at all this year, and as such, it’s evident that I haven’t even tried to re-qualify for Premier 1K.   In addition to this, most of my vacation time this year has been taken up by two very long trips (Australia and Europe), so I just don’t have the time off to take long weekends frequently.  Sadly, I haven’t really gotten to enjoy my United Premier 1K status, simply because they’ve taken away much of the incentive to actually fly United.  I’m not sure that’s the point of a loyalty program.

Yup, that’s only 5 flights for 4,264 miles and $954 spent.

By contrast, at this point last year, I was here:

That’s 42 flights for 85,387 miles — just a slight increase over this years’ totals, huh?  By this point last year, I’d already qualified for Premier Platinum status (75,000 miles) and was well on my way to Premier 1K (100,000 miles), which I achieved in August.

Though I may not be a high-value customer for United, that is still quite a bit of business they are losing from me.  Then again, the fact that I’ve been burning miles instead of paying and earning them has a major hand in my lack of Premier qualification – I simply haven’t been paying for flights this year.

The Rest of 2014…

I do have quite a bit of travel planned for the rest of the year.  The biggest trip is another mileage redemption — an around the world trip in October to Munich for Oktoberfest, Bangkok, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo in first class.  This trip was booked using most of my balance of US Airways miles.  The rest of my planned trips this year are largely paid trips, as my mileage accounts are now pretty much decimated!

Future travel in 2014 (projected)

• Charleston, SC for a Bachelor Party in August
• Auburn, AL for the Arkansas @ Auburn football game over Labor Day Weekend
• Las Vegas for BAcon (Boarding Area’s Blogger Conference) in September
• Munich for Oktoberfest
• Bangkok, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo after Oktoberfest
• Weekend trip to Iguazu falls in Brazil and Argentina in November

With these trips, my total travel for 2014 is projected to be:

• 41 flights to 35 airports
• 67,208 miles flown
• 13 countries visited (3 new:  Australia, Italy, Greece)
• 5 continents visited (1 new:  Australia)
• Crossing the Atlantic Ocean three times and the Pacific Ocean twice
• Flights on 17 airlines (8 new:  Virgin Australia, Qantas, Hinterland Aviation, Ryanair, AerArann Islands, JetBlue, China Eastern, ANA)

  

Again, for comparison’s sake, here were my year-end statistics for 2013:

• 89 flights to 37 airports
• 151,864 miles flown
• 7 countries (6 new:  Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Turkey, UAE, Japan)
• Crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times and Pacific Ocean three times
• Flights on ten airlines (3 new:  TAM, LAN, Cathay Pacific)

Though it looks like a major decrease in distance traveled this year, I’m certainly making up for it by taking long trips to some incredible destinations.  In fact, I’ve spent more time away from home this year than I did at this point last year, meaning I’ve spent much more time at these destinations instead of flying to the a destination, so that’s a good thing!  After all, the destination is what travel is all about… right?