I fly a lot for work, and I’m only 3,000 miles away from United Premier Gold – which is equivalent to Star Alliance Gold (which is awesome).  So, Dad and I are making a long weekend mileage run to San Francisco in December.  Daughter Person is going to stay at Grandma’s, and I’ll get my 3,000 miles (4,800 some actually) – and my Gold status for next year.  I lost my Gold status when Daughter Person was born, and this past year I only had Silver – I had Gold the year she was born – just in time to not be able to enjoy it 🙁

IAD to SFO is a hub-to-hub flight for United, so it’s really quite cheap: $350 each round trip.  We don’t have the best flight times (leaving IAD at 6:30am!), but they’re not horrible, and it’ll be just us this time.