Well, it was not my intent to do any other mileage runs in the near future, but Alaska Airlines sent me an email this morning and I’ve just purchased a ticket.
A bit of background: the last two years I’ve spent tons of nights in hotels, but my flights have been few and far between. The handful of flights I did take were mostly on miles. That meant Dec 31st was the demise of my MVP status with Alaska Airlines (free bags, exit row seats, etc…) and frankly, I was dreading it. Especially since it gives you better seat selection and bags with Delta and American and I’ve got the long American Airlines to Boston flight coming up.
The email I got this morning said, “fly 4 segments between 1/15 and 3/15 and you can earn your status back.” Since it normally “costs” 20,000 miles or 30 segments this is a DEAL! I did some searching and while I could find something sub-$200, it was a weekday and I’m among the working. So on January 26 I’m getting up at the crack of dawn to fly to LGB by way of SEA for a total of 35 minutes on the ground (sorry LA relatives). It was $226, but on the way home from New York a guy spilled wine on my bag so they gave me a $50 discount code. $176 for the next year of MVP status again? Yep. Totally worth it.
Wow Susan that is great! So what is a segment?
A segment is just a leg of a flight. So if it is non-stop – which is not the same thing as direct – it’s one segment. If you stop somewhere (AND there are two flight numbers) it’s two segments. I’m going round trip to LGB, but stopping in Seattle both ways to knock out all 4 segments at once.