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Addicted to Miles
The Travel Critic · June 7, 1999

Mileage junkie. Point-head. Incentive enthusiast. Call Robert Backie any of the above and he probably won't deny it.

The Phoenix sales manager for a semiconductor equipment company has gone to extremes to reach the elite frequent-flier status on America West Airlines. When he travels to London, he books a layover in Houston or Newark instead of taking a nonstop. That way, he can collect the bonus miles the airline offers for flying from those cities.

He puts "everything" on his American Express mileage affinity card. "We will not spend big money at any place that does not take American Express as we see each dollar lost as a mile lost," he says.

His long-distance service is rigged to collect points. Even airport parking allows him to collect miles. "Are they addictive?" he asks. "You bet."

With more people than ever flying - the Air Transport Association counted a record 614 million passengers last year on U.S. scheduled airlines, compared with 599 million in 1997 - more passengers are getting drawn into the point-collecting habit.

Mileage maniacs are enticed to visit cities, hotels and restaurants they might otherwise skip, all to collect points that are by most industry estimates worth no more than two cents per mile - and falling. Northwest, for instance, has raised the award level for international tickets - a round trip from the U.S. to Beijing has gone from 60,000 to 90,000 miles.

But that hasn't put a damper on the mile collection craze. Continental Airlines chalked up a 35 percent increase in point redemption from 1997 to 1998, according to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At Southwest Airlines, the redemption rate jumped by nearly 16 percent, and at United it was up by 14 percent.

Travelers have amassed a total of 3.7 trillion miles between credit cards, hotels and airlines, according frequent-flier guru Randy Petersen. "If everyone cashed in all their miles tomorrow, the American public could fly free for about 37 days," he estimates. "Of course, if that were to happen, then airline stock prices would tank big time."

It's one thing to collect, but it's quite another for it to be a compulsion. The only real evidence that mileage mania is becoming a serious health problem is anecdotal - war stories recounted in airline newsgroups or tales swapped in an airport lounge.

The stories are nothing if not troubling.

Christopher Bielinski wanted enough miles for a free ticket so badly that he went with an itinerary that called for layover in Minneapolis on the way from Albuquerque, N.M., to Orlando. "The only thing it cost me was time," says the Denver information systems consultant.

Richard van Dijk, a project manager for an electronics company in Cupertino, Calif., has rerouted his schedule from San Francisco to Philadelphia to hit Houston and collect more points. He's even flown around the world to maximize miles. "Miles are addictive," he admits, adding that even after travel lost its luster, he couldn't stop collecting points.

Does this kind of behavior represent an illness or is it just good old-fashioned consumer loyalty? That all depends, says Kathleen Mojas, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills, Calif., and author of an upcoming book about narcissism. "I think that in general, collecting airline miles represents a socially acceptable addiction," she says. "It isn't a problem that requires treatment unless it's interfering with your life."

Mojas says there are three ways of telling if your addiction is a problem. First, if you are booking long detours that take away from time spent with your family, you may be a hooked. Ditto if you're spending money you don't have in order to collect points. And finally, "if you spend money just to get the miles, you may have a problem," says Mojas. Running up a tremendous phone bill to collect the bonus points, for example.

I interviewed a number of hard-core mileage collectors for this column, too. Travelers with more points than they probably know what to do with.

The consensus among these top fliers is that there's absolutely no problem. "Miles are not addictive," one traveler insisted. "I am not a mileage addict." Never mind that denial is in itself evidence of a problem.

I would like to think that everyone from the occasional traveler who dabbles in miles to the most ardent mileage fanatic can quit anytime. But I'm not so sure. With more ways than ever to earn these bonuses, it's almost impossible not to get sucked in by an incentive whirlwind.

It's certainly good for the airlines, hotels and credit card companies. But is it good for the consumer?

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.