Return flight without leaving the airport

I am going to dare to ask and risk being chastised. What is the main reason people here do status runs? Is it to maintain SG, WP or WP1 status, move up, long term LTG aim or something else?
I can't quite get my head around spending 24 hours and decent money for an improved future flying experience.
Is flying J or F precondition to doing a status run or would you do it in Y?
 
I only do a status run if i can get a long weekend break out of it as well, and if the extra legs dont eat into the weekend too much. This year it was combined with NZ J sale and DSCs to move up to Platinum because I was within 300 SCs of qualifying anyway from other travel.

Going forward I would only do it if close to requalifying or moving up. I wouldnt bother if a long way off; and never in Y (unless I was just 20SCs short in which case a sale fare to MEL or BNE could be justified); but id still leave airport to catch up with friends.
 
Rich said:
I am going to dare to ask and risk being chastised. What is the main reason people here do status runs? Is it to maintain SG, WP or WP1 status, move up, long term LTG aim or something else?
I can't quite get my head around spending 24 hours and decent money for an improved future flying experience.
Is flying J or F precondition to doing a status run or would you do it in Y?
Click to expand...
Basically if you think future benefit is worth current cost (time/$/inflight experience). A sale JQ red-eye MEL-PER return run nudged me over the line when I was within cooee of WP (turnaround in PER with same crew back to MEL, I think they thought I may have been a ‘courier’.
JQ - Some will shudder but I felt worth it as a means to an end.
 
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Have done SYD-SIN-SYD
Very expensive
Daughter was on a tight schedule and was flying NRT-SIN-HEL

Her main ski boot developed a crack in the hard shell. She could have got a new boot but no time due to tight race schedule and the new boot would have required several visits to fit exactly.

She had an older pair at home and she only needed the shell, so I flew SYD-SIN, swopped out the boot shell and flew back SIN-SYD. All airside

I would also have done SYD-SIN-HEL if her flight was NRT-HEL direct. But not a round trip remaining airside🤣. It was serendipitous that the flights were booked via SIN

I've also done EK SYD-AKL-SYD all airside as well to bump up SC to get Tier status as I wanted to burn some FF points

I was not stopped /questioned but if they it would have been easy as I have a timeline developed in iPhone messages re purpose of trips
 
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Quickstatus said:
Have done SYD-SIN-SYD
Very expensive
Daughter was on a tight schedule and was flying NRT-SIN-HEL

Her main ski boot developed a crack in the hard shell. She could have got a new boot but no time due to tight race schedule and the new boot would have required several visits to fit exactly.

She had an older pair at home and she only needed the shell, so I flew SYD-SIN, swopped out the boot shell and flew back SIN-SYD. All airside

I would also have done SYD-SIN-HEL if her flight was NRT-HEL direct. But not a round trip remaining airside🤣. It was serendipitous that the flights were booked via SIN

I've also done EK SYD-AKL-SYD all airside as well to bump up SC to get Tier status as I wanted to burn some FF points

I was not stopped /questioned but if they it would have been easy as I have a timeline developed in iPhone messages re purpose of trips
Click to expand...
Was that cost effective vs getting new ski boots?
 
Rich said:
I am going to dare to ask and risk being chastised. What is the main reason people here do status runs? Is it to maintain SG, WP or WP1 status, move up, long term LTG aim or something else?
I can't quite get my head around spending 24 hours and decent money for an improved future flying experience.
Is flying J or F precondition to doing a status run or would you do it in Y?
Click to expand...
Might be worthy of a new thread but honestly I just want that shiny card. It's totally irrational at every objective level so I can't even pretend it's justifiable. All my runs have been in J and F (although I'd do it in Y if I needed those last few SCs) and frankly have been some of the most fun travelling I've done. I've had runs where I didn't leave the airport and did turnarounds (sometimes on the same aircraft I came in on, with the same crew) in DRW, TSV, CNS, DPS and AKL. At AKL I did explain briefly I was on a status run and was let on my way promptly.
 
Captain Halliday said:
Was that cost effective vs getting new ski boots?
Click to expand...

You mean "value"
Cost of SYD-SIN-SYD return was certainly more than ski boot, as flights were last minute. Mitigating it was that the flight was in whY

Where it passed the value calculation was that there was no time to buy a new boot and properly fit it as they were flying onward HEL-KAO - not a lot of boot shops near the arctic circle, and would have caused a DNS (did not start) in one or more races.
 
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justinbrett said:
It really depends on the country.

NZ for an Australian citizen? Doable.

Other countries not so much.
Click to expand...

I disagree. While some places can ve problematic (eg needing visa even for turn-around), most are fine in my experience. Over the years I've done international turn-arounds hundreds of times in dozens of countries, with limited issues.
 
UK, Greece, Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, France, South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Colombia, and many more.
 
Kiwi_Flyer said:
UK, Greece, Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, France, South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Colombia, and many more.
Click to expand...

You have made return flights to all of these places without leaving the airport?

:rolleyes:

Call me sceptical...
 
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Captain Halliday said:
Presumably crew.
Click to expand...
Nup, their hobby is flying (as well as some work related).

There was a flyertalk meeting in BNE on the 25th.

20th Annual AGM: BNE Sat 25 Feb 2023 - FlyerTalk Forums

Qantas | Frequent Flyer - 20th Annual AGM: BNE Sat 25 Feb 2023 - Finally getting around to planning the AGM this year - thanks to all who have reminded and cajoled me Bundy Bear og and nlagalle Where: BNE QC (in 2019 we were positioned next to the QC Bar, in a roped off area, in the QC -...
www.flyertalk.com

Kiwi Flyer is a P1. They flew from NZ to SYD then to BNE for the meeting at the Domestic Qantas business lounge/QP.

After that they went to the International terminal and flew EK First to DXB and then LHR.

I believe they were back in NZ a few days later.
 
I did a day trip to Australia from NZ. Leave 6 am, arrive about 8 am, in Sydney CBD by 9 am, client visit then back to the airport and back to WLG by 12:00 am. No questions asked anywhere, but then I just looked like any other business traveller.
 

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