Mileage Run to Copenhagen
I have to admit I have been a bit trigger happy the past few months on booking mileage runs. Just a few weeks ago I spent about 20 hours in Hong Kong. This past weekend I flew a mileage run to Copenhagen on Delta in Economy. I had a total of 18 hours on the ground and was able to enjoy a sunny day in the city.
Mileage Run to Copenhagen
Introduction
Part 1: SEA-BUR-SEA-CDG-CPH
Holiday Inn Burbank-Media City
24 Hours in Copenhagen
Hilton Copenhagen Airport
Part 2: CPH-AMS-SLC-SEA
Aviator Lounge CPH
Aspire Lounge (41) AMS
Delta Sky Club SLC
Booking
Last month there seemed to be an issue specific to a few online travel agencies in which I was able to book a ticket from Burbank (Los Angeles area) to Copenhagen for $194.44. While I live in Seattle, it is very easy to fly SEA-BUR so I decided to purchase a flight. All of the flight segments were on flights that earned miles with Alaska Airlines, my frequent flyer program of choice.
The routing ended up being all over the place. BUR-SEA-CDG-CPH-AMS-SLC-BUR. While you can “drop” a flight at the end of a ticket, if you miss any flights earlier in the itinerary, the rest of your flights will get canceled. So even though my transatlantic flight left from Seattle, I did have to physically fly the first segment which meant adding an additional flight to the start to get to BUR. I decided to drop the last SLC-BUR leg and instead fly SLC-SEA to save some time.
In reality my final routing looked like this: SEA-BUR-SEA-CDG-CPH-AMS-SLC-SEA on a total of four different airlines. The cost of the positioning flights was $252.20 for a total trip cost of $446.64
The non-Alaska metal flights (Delta, Air France, KLM) each earned 50% Elite Qualifying Miles (miles needed for MVP status with Alaska); so for the total trip I only earned 8,557 EQM (compare that to my AA mileage run to Hong Kong where I earned nearly 20,000 EQM). Had I not needed to position to BUR this would have been a great value of 2.8 cents per EQM. With positioning flights it raised it to 5.2 cents per EQM which is not a great deal. In comparison, my AA mileage run ended up at 2.8 cents per EQM; mainly due to the fact that no extra positioning flight was needed and AA flights earn 100% EQM with Alaska.
Due to the fact that I have MVP Gold 75K status, I was able to earn bonus redeemable miles. Total redeemable miles for the trip came in at 19,253 (or 2.3 cents per redeemable mile).
I had to spend a night in Burbank on the way down as my flight back to Seattle was at 7:00am. This added time and cost of a night at the Holiday Inn (I used points I received for free from a promotion, however it is still a cost). I also had one night at the Copenhagen Hilton.
My mileage run to Copenhagen only had me traveling over one work day and I was able to work remotely so it didn’t require any vacation time.
If I was just looking for miles there would be cheaper and WAY easier ways to earn them. However I am always up for an adventure and a new city.