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After four crazy years of extreme globe-trotting, a United frequent flyer named Carl Brothers has officially crossed the four million lifetime miles mark with United Airlines and secured the airline’s lifetime Global Services status. His milestone flight occurred yesterday from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD).
Brothers began his ultra-ambitious mileage run in 2021 with one goal in mind: earn lifetime Global Services status. United’s million miler program is widely considered the most rewarding among the US airlines. Global Services offers access to upgrades, dedicated check-in lobbies at United hubs, personalized airport assistance, and more. United also lets members who achieve (two, three, and four million miles flown) the ability to choose a travel partner residing at the same address to receive a matched status. This also applies to one-million-mile flyers, but that changes in 2027.
To reach the lifetime goal, Brothers took almost weekly flights to Singapore Changi Airport (SIN), Melbourne Airport (MEL), and Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD). Over 2.2 million of the miles were flown on Boeing 787-9 aircraft. I wonder how many of those flights were in Polaris®.
His annual flying is staggering:
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2022: 1,072,812 miles
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2023: 931,113 miles
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2024: 1,128,303 miles
In total, he took over 100 ultra long-haul trips, including 95 roundtrips to Singapore. This reminds me of a former colleague who flew to Singapore two weekends in a row in order to complete the miles needed for her one million mile/Premier Gold® status. This takes it to another level. There is no word on how much Brothers spent on this endeavor, but even if he flew in Economy he would have had to spend several hundred thousand dollars.
Anthony’s Take: Four million miles is no easy task. I’m closing in on two with United, but that has taken me around 20 years. Congrats to this mileage runner and newly minted lifetime Global Services member.
(Featured Image Credit: unitedmillionmiler via Instagram.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
