Parked in the alley behind my apartment in Los Angeles, I sat with an X-Acto knife in one hand, a pair of scissors in the other and as many boxes of cereal as I could cram into my compact car. I had very little time to come up with the 16,000 miles I needed for free air fare to India. These 160 boxes of cereal were just the ticket.
I had planned my trip to India based on how far I could get with the miles in my American Airlines frequent-flier account. I had 94,000; I needed only 70,000 for a coach ticket to New Delhi, thus saving me about $2,000 in air fare. I planned to go during the Christmas holidays, and even though it was only August, flights were beginning to fill. Taking one of the few remaining coach seats on Japan Airlines, or JAL, an American affiliate, with availability even close to when I wanted to travel, I reserved my seat and began planning the land part of my trip. JAL holds reservations for up to 30 days, but you can call back and reserve them again for another 30 days up until two weeks before departure.
I had remembered to re-reserve my ticket in September, again in October, but by November I was so engrossed in planning that I forgot to book my ticket. When I checked again on the first Saturday in November, my reservation had expired. The only seats were in business class, which required 110,000 miles. I was 16,000 miles short. I had already put down a nonrefundable $5,000 for my land costs, so I begged the agent to check for anything even remotely close to my now etched-in-stone land travel dates. Nothing. My options looked dismal. I could buy a business-class ticket for $4,487. Or I could try to earn 16,000 miles.
My credit card is linked to my miles at a dollar-per-mile rate, but a $16,000 shopping spree didn't seem cost effective. My long-distance service pays five miles per minute. To make it, I'd have to talk for 53 hours. Pass. But halfway down the page on my mileage summary statement was a promotion: Earn 100 miles per box on participating Kellogg's cereal on a promotion that lasts until November 2002 (or while supplies last). At 100 miles per box, I could get 160 boxes of cereal at, say, about $4 a box, for $640. That was better than a $4,500 ticket. My quest had begun.
I zipped to the supermarket. Making eye contact with no one, I nonchalantly pushed my shopping cart to the cereal aisle, searching for the American Airlines airplane on the front of the boxes that read, "Earn 100 AAdvantage miles." The "participating cereal brands" were not the kinds of cereal I would actually want to eat. No, this offer was good only on the many brands formulated to promote health and regularity. Cracklin' Oat Bran, All-Bran Extra Fiber, Bran Buds, Just Right, Complete Wheat Bran Flakes, Raisin and Strawberry-filled Mini Wheats, Product 19, and Mueslix. I began to pile boxes into the cart, managing to cram in about 50. In line, I pretended I was just another shopper. No one said a word at the first two grocery stores.
At the third and final store, the cashier asked, "Is this for your own personal use or a group?"
"Group," I said matter-of-factly. I would worry about which group later.
No one thought to list it in the specs of the car owner's manual, but you can fit a lot of cereal into a Saab—160 boxes, actually, with just enough room to see out of the rear window. How would I explain this if I got stopped or had a wreck? Fortunately, I never had to work that one out, but I did have to figure out how to get the coupon off the back of all 160 boxes. Arriving home, I calculated the number of trips it would take to get 40 bags (four boxes per sack) to my second-story apartment and decided instead to remove the coupons in the car.
