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.
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