DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

When I moved to Michigan five years ago, I gave up a lot of things - the least of which was my frequent flyer status on Alaska Airlines, my preferred airline back in Portland. Here in Michigan, I have been flying Delta almost exclusively. I graduated to the second highest frequent flyer status two years in. This year, unbeknownst to me, I was very close to hitting an even higher status- Diamond. However, it looked as though I would be a few miles short. 

I turned to my friend, Amit, who is a connoisseur of airline points. He recommended I take a "mileage run," taking a flight purely to wrack up the miles necessary to achieve the mileage status goal. Therefore, I booked a round trip flight to Chicago - on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest travel days of the year. I landed, spent an hour on the ground, and then headed home on the same plane that had brought me there. That trip, coupled with my flight to San Antonio the next day for Christmas, put me over the top!

In many ways this quest for Diamond Status parallels the hustling I have been doing these past few years to get back to where I was before the move or to soar to even higher heights. It has not been easy, and along the way, I have been humbled so many times. On this day, though, I could see how far I had come and exactly the ingenuity and countless miles it to took to get here. I'll savor this moment, knowing that the mileage clock and the achievement clock resets anew each year. Here we go again!