Monthly Archives: February 2011

Have Diesel, Will Travel

by Rachel

We’re going on vacation tomorrow!  After our trip to Zomba last February, we decided that we need to get away for a few days once a year.  There’s a lot of Malawi that we haven’t seen yet, so we’re headed north this time: a rain forest, a lakeshore stop, and the best national park in Malawi.

There was only one problem.  Diesel.  We’re in the middle of a fuel shortage again, and without diesel, we weren’t going anywhere.  So this morning, Rachel woke up determined to get fuel.

The search started at 7:15am.  No diesel anywhere along the main road through town.  By 10:20, we’d gotten a tip that cars were starting to line up outside one of the gas stations on our side of town.  Matt was busy studying to teach in Sunday School, so Rachel grabbed Abigail and they took off for the diesel adventure.

This cute little munchkin waited so patiently!  We parked our car in line and sat in the shade in front of the BP convenience store, and she played for about an hour and a half, then fell asleep for about an hour.

Finally!  The fuel truck pulls in.  Unfortunately there were so many cars waiting to get fuel that the fuel truck couldn’t get through the parking lot!  That took a bit of sorting out…

And we don’t have a picture of actually getting fuel, because Rachel and Abigail were rescued by our friend Kondi who traded us cars so that Abigail could finish her nap in her own bed.  He waiting another hour and a half while the fuel truck unloaded and the cars in front of us filled up.  What a friend!

So we’re off on vacation!  We have a full tank of diesel and a full 30 liter jerry can as backup.  We don’t know if we’ll find fuel up north, but we’re going to try and see how far we can get!

An Infrequent Flyer’s Guide to Using Frequent Flyer Miles – Part 1

by Rachel

(Matt) Over the years, I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles.  I imagine that if I could have somehow consolidated them, I could fly around the world… but they’re gone.  I lost some because I didn’t get around to signing up for a membership card with Northwest or Swiss or some other “random” airline.  I lost some because I didn’t have my card when I was at the airport.  And most of them were lost because they expired before I did anything with them.

I think I knew all along that frequent flyer programs were designed for, um, frequent flyers.  And the last several years, I’ve been more of a “take 1-2 really long flights each year” kind of flyer.  Any guesses how many miles we fly from Lilongwe to Nairobi to London to Los Angeles?  (See the bottom of this post for the answer. )

So is there some way to do something with all those miles besides let them expire?  I’ve determined to figure it out, and share the results with you.  Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Set Your Expectations

Again, the people who benefit most from frequent flyers are ones who fly often.  If, like me, you fly far, but not all that often, it’s good to put aside the idea of a free flight to Australia every year.  To get an idea of what you can expect, head over to milecalc.com and guesstimate how many miles you’ll fly in the next year.

Here are a few global landmarks to give you an idea of how many miles you’d earn:

  • LA > NYC and back:  4,924
  • LA > London and back:  10,912
  • LA > Tokyo and back:  10,964
  • LA > Moscow and back:  12,188
  • LA > Sao Paolo and back:  12,306
  • LA > Johannesburg and back:  20,770

Now, here’s approximately what you can redeem them for:

  • 500-5,000 – Magazines, travel accessories, flowers
  • 5,000-30,000 – Upgrade from coach to business class within the US, Caribbean, or Central America
  • 15,000-50,000 – Upgrade from coach to business class from USA > Europe, Asia, or Australia
  • 50,000-100,000 – Free RT flight within the lower 48
  • 70,000-150,000 – Free RT flight to Central America, the Caribbean, or Hawaii
  • 100,000-300,000 – Free RT flight from LA > Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa (be sure to drop by!)

In other words, plan on paying for that trip 8-10 times before you get it for free.  And you’ll need to fly there 2-3 times in coach before you can get that free upgrade to business class.

While it may be discouraging to see that they don’t go as far as we’d like, it is nice to see that most flyer mile collections can be used for something. The trick is to collect enough of them to use them, which we’ll cover in the next post.

ANSWER FROM ABOVE: Our most recent flight to LA: Lilongwe to Nairobi to London to Los Angeles was 21,166 miles round trip.  To fly through South Africa adds 1,500 more.  (Compare your latest trip at milecalc.com.  Got a longer trip coming up?  Commiserate with us in the comments.)