MrPickles Invents “Miles per Minute”

November 7, 2012 - Rick

I read a comment on Frequent Miler’s blog from MrPickles about a new measurement of success in the travel game.

Miles per Minute

The measurement takes into account your mileage earning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. In other words, what miles are you earning per minute without doing a thing? I came up with some of the obvious examples of perpetual earning like the 100 miles per thousand dollars on deposit with Bank Direct each month. Just leave your money sit and earn miles per minute. Another example might be automatic payments from your mileage earning credit cards for utilities, cell phone charges, internet, any reoccurring bills you need to do nothing for other than just leave the bill paying system alone after setup.

Can you add any other opportunities to the discussion? What other “no-brainers” are you involved in? and what is your current miles per minute earning rate?

MrPickles claims 1.28 miles for every minute he is alive and breathing. I came up with .925 collectively for Katybug and me. How are you guys doing?

http://www.facebook.com/ianyenlee Ian Yen Lee

Maybe I don’t read forums enough, but I feel like people should start measuring miles runs with miles/time spent on itinerary vs just CPM because more legs means more wait time, which potentially means more waste. I would totally rather do a direct flight out to Asia and accumulate miles instead of an itinerary 15% cheaper, domestic, hitting up to 8 legs.
http://www.batteredluggage.com/ W Brian Duncan (aka IPBrian)

I need to get better at just keeping track of what I am earning apparently. Is there a reporting feature in Award Wallet? If not that would be a great feature request!
http://twitter.com/Mileage_Update Mileage Update

I’m confused. There are 1,440 minutes in a day. So Mr Pickles is earning 1843 miles/day and Rick is earning 1324 miles/day or 39,744 miles/mon? That doesnt seem like a lot. We’re in the 200k-300k/mo range. And I know many that are much bigger than me.

Scottrick

He’s not counting a lot of miles and points earned through travel or credit card sign-up bonuses. This is passive earning. But MrPickles also has a lot of business expenses, which is why his number is higher than for most people.

Poptarts

Surfing the web using an airline miles toolbar. I use Hawaiian Airlines MilesFinder.

http://emarket.hawaiianairlines.com/toolbar_download_learn_more?browser=ffie
http://twitter.com/TheMrPickles The Mr Pickles

I misspoke when I posted that I was earning 1.28 miles per minute, I have looked at the numbers again and the actual calculation is much different. I don’t count any hotel earning points unless they actually get transferred to an airline. I do have a lot of company charges that go on Hilton and SPG Business cards and those are not counted either.

I don’t take into account any miles earning where I have to actually do something to earn the miles other than the initial set up. For example I don’t count credit card charges, flying on a plane, Blue Bird accounts, use of an ATM card, or going to Walmart to buy money orders with a SunTrust DL debit card. I also don’t factor in sign up bonuses for credit cards like the current one 100k Amex Business Platinum card. I don’t count one time transfers from say Membership Rewards to BA where I netted over 800,000 Avios with the 50% bonus because these are not reoccurring monthly.

What I count is strictly passive activity. I do count business use earning for business purchases made by my comptroller where I am not involved in the activity. This also does not include credit card use on 2% cash back cards. My list is not conclusive and I have left off many of my mile earnings activities. This should be considered an example. When I originally mentioned 1.28 miles per minute, I did not consider many factors and I am sure if I did a complete audit my totals would be much higher.

Here is the math,
Max out the checking accounts at:

BankDirect and BBVA Compass Bank* for >40,000 American Airlines per month
Max out 2 accounts at Fidelity annually for ~16,666.66/AA mo (200,000 miles for $200,000 deposit)
Annual business electric bill at 31,200 on SPG->AA = 3,016/AA mo
Annual business phone/internet at 9,420 on SPG->AA = 785/AA mo
Annual business manufacturing supplies minimum of 90,000/month @ 1.5 miles on UA Club card 1,620,000/12 = 135,000 UA miles mo

Summary:
195,467 combined AA and UA airline miles per month/1440 minutes mo
= 135.74 miles per minute all passive earning

*BBVA Compass Bank took over Guaranty Bank’s AAirmiles accounts and still honor those old account holders original miles earning scheme.

http://twitter.com/Mileage_Update Mileage Update

Thats more like it. I agree it would be too hard to count the transfers and all the other variable mileage monthly totals (esp. in a post)
http://www.facebook.com/chris.gainer.14 Chris Gainer

Mr Pickles,
Can you post a link to the 100k AMEX Business Platinum card? I can’t seem to locate it. Thanks!

http://twitter.com/TheMrPickles The Mr Pickles

It is a targeted offer, but for some reason I get one via mail every three weeks with no name attached to the offer. Everyone that I have given one to has been able to redeem the offer. I already have a long waiting list for future offers. I am only giving them to people tha I have actually met with at a seminar or a DO.

http://www.facebook.com/chris.gainer.14 Chris Gainer

Thanks for the info – that is the card for which I was getting ready to apply, so I didn’t want to miss out. I guess I need to attend a seminar and introduce myself.

Daniel

Why not change this to Miles per Hour, that way you can relate to a speed. A few months back I was earning 6.68 points per min. (401 pph) every day for about 7 months. These were not miles though but were very useful for a lot of other things
Pingback: The Week in Review « Points Envy
Pingback: The Week in Preview « Points Envy

MrPickles Invents “Miles per Minute”

Related Posts