A few weeks ago I flew from Philadelphia to Las Vegas. Twice in 4 days. On one trip I stayed in Vegas for 2 nights. On the other trip. I did a straight turn PHL-LAS-PHL. It was on that last trip that all the fun happened.

US Airways had $80 RT fares back in November and it seemed like a cheap way to rack almost 9,000 miles towards elite status early in the year. So I shouldn’t have been surprised on my flight from Philadelphia to Las Vegas to hear the lady one row up telling the flight attendant and her seat mate that she was doing mileage runs on an $80 fare.

I excitedly piped in that I was doing the same thing and the passenger behind her asked how she found out about these cheap fares. She mentioned several forums she followed (I do as well) and that there were several blogs on BoardingArea.com that were really helpful. In fact, it was Frequent Miler’s post on using this fare as a shortcut for the US Airways Preferred Status Trial challenge that had inspired her to do her first set of mileage runs, which were these flights.

At that point, I felt awkward. More than a year later I still can’t believe that Heels First Travel is on Boarding Area and I always feel shy about telling people. But if I didn’t, it would probably come out sooner than later and that would make it even more awkward! So I ‘fessed up and it turns out my fellow mileage runner, Linda, was a reader. 🙂

When we landed in Vegas with 15 minutes until we boarded our return flight, I invited Linda to pop in the lounge with me to recharge our electronics for a few minutes and grab a drink. On the way I heard someone calling my name. It was Debra from Traveling Well For Less!

Turns out she was on our flight back, also doing mileage runs and also upgraded! So with promises to catch up on the plane I hurried on to the lounge to plug in my phone and laptop for whatever extra power 10 minutes could give. That’s when I ran into Greg of Frequent Miler! Also on the flight to Philly, also upgraded to First!

The three of us headed to the gate to meet up with Debra, when I met a 4th blogger — Julian who writes the “Bet you didn’t know” column on Greg’s site. He was also on our flight and had just been upgraded 30 seconds after buying a burger for his expected stint in economy.

It was quite the lively group in the First Class cabin and several passengers were nice enough to switch seats so some of us could sit together. I wound up next to Julian and got to enjoy a french fry “amuse bouche” prior to take off. Ha!

We were up frequently during the flight to visit the others and I’m sure the other first class passengers were wondering what was going on. In fact, halfway through the flight someone asked “I’ve heard you all talking about miles and points and trips! Who are you? What is this all about?” 🙂

It was fun to catch up with everyone and swap travel stories, and as always, I learned a few new tips and tricks from them that I hadn’t known before. Before the flight ended we had to take a selfie (with my selfie stick), pulling in another mileage runner from economy whose upgrade hadn’t cleared. Good times!

Were you on the Philadelphia/Las Vegas flights? Did you run into any old friends or make new ones?

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