Whew! 2024 was absolutely the most aggressive year of flying I have ever done in my life! And that is an understatement. I flew to 10 countries and numerous domestic destinations as well achieving a handful of travel bucket list items! Despite the challenges and logistics of traveling a lot, I managed to successfully pull off every trip getting to where I needed to go, even if it required utmost flexibility or creative solutions. And I learned many things along the way. So let’s talk about my 2024 travel as a year in review.
Before we get started, here are my final stats, according to Flighty (iOS only).
- 100 flight sflown
- 145,533 miles flown
- 14 days, 20 hours in the air
- 42 airports
- 11 airlines
Why did I travel so much in 2024?
Before I explain why, I should mention that because I am a new-ish employee at the airline, I only get two weeks of paid vacation a year. These hours don’t rollover so I have to use it or lose it. Additionally, my particular organization at work allows me to “work from wherever” for a week. In other words, I only had 3 weeks worth of time to fit all my fun trips in. Otherwise, I had to do a lot of epic weekend-ing.
“Visit Family 2024”
My primary goal for traveling in 2024 was to visit every aunt, uncle, and first cousin on both sides of my family. Growing up, my family used my dad’s flight benefits frequently to visit family members in southern California and to a lesser degree, my family in Canada. And even more rarely, family the Philippines. I started working for the same airline my dad retired from in 2023, so I decided in 2024 to dedicate my use of travel benefits to visit family…with a way more ambitious and aggressive goal of seeing everyone within 12 months.
So, in order to visit everyone, I had to go to the following places:
- Texas
- California
- Florida
- New Jersey
- Maryland
- Illinois
- Alaska
- Saskatchewan, Canada
- Ontario, Canada
- Manila, Philippines
- Sydney, Australia
- Singapore
[insert group pics of family here, but I don’t have permission to post them so…you, the reader, get this cool bracketed line/placeholder]
Was I successful? YES! I was able to see and visit every aunt, uncle, and first cousin on both sides of my family except for one cousin the Philippines! She was not feeling well at the time I was in the Philippines and couldn’t meet up so I will have to visit her specifically when I return in 2025. Apart from the obviously-very-far-away-destinations, I accomplished most of these family visit trips in just a weekend!
Business Trips
Mixed in with all these personal travels, I also had business trips. My work sometimes requires visiting suppliers and maintenance facilities for aircraft, and that had me go to the following places in 2024:
- North Carolina
- California
- Texas
- Hong Kong
Luckily these work trips were uncommon, and didn’t interfere with my personal travels because my business trips were during the week.
Chasing Flagship First
Also, towards the beginning of the year, I also flew to the following places for the explicit purpose of flying Flagship First (American Airlines’ highest class on 3-cabin, long-haul aircraft). I wanted to do this because American Airlines will soon remove these First Class cabins, and I wanted to experience them before they disappeared! These trips had me go to:
- London to Miami (B777-300ER)
- New York-JFK to Los Angeles (A321T)
Weddings At Destinations
I also attended four weddings in 2024 of various friends. Two were very local to me, and two of them were international:
- Prince George, BC, Canada
- Menorca, Spain
Going to Prince George required going to Vancouver, and I decided to make a long weekend of it along with another friend of mine who also attended the wedding.
My friends that got married in Spain asked me to read at their wedding, and I had a crazy time making that happen coming straight from a work trip to North Carolina. The logistics of flying standby internationally is pretty risky, but luckily it all worked out for me in the end. But barely.
Housemate Hangouts
My housemate, who also works at the same airline, and I got to hang out in a few places too:
- Bogota, Colombia
- Corpus Christi, TX
The trips I took with my housemate were just weekend trips. For Bogota, he was tagging along with a friend of his, and I tagged along with my housemate. And for Corpus Christi, we hung out for food, aircraft carrier touring, and beachside beer-drinking.
Other personal trips
And then lastly, I took a few fun trips on my own:
- San Antonio to visit a friend for a weekend
- Philadelphia to visit a friend for a weekend
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN for the Mall of America for day trip clothes shopping…twice
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a day trip
- Midland/Odessa and Amarillo, TX in the same day to grind out getting to 100 flights for 2024
How did I travel so much in 2024?
100 flights in 2024. That’s a ridiculous amount! And I even purposely spent the last weekend of 2024 to fly 4 more flights just to get that count up to 100. I know, I know–I’m terrible!
Ok, I should make the disclaimer here that I … am not rich, lol. Yes, I am an engineer, and I make a decent engineering salary, but I am not oozing cash monies to live like a travel influencer or professional traveler. But I also work for an airline, wherein I get the flight benefits.
Like I mentioned in The Three Ways I Fly, if I travel using my flight benefits, it is basically free unless I fly internationally where I’ll then have to pay taxes and fees. But those taxes and fees are often nowhere near the cost of a normal plane ticket.
Breakdown of the Ways I Flew
So with all that said, this is how my 100 flights broke down:
As you can see, almost 90% of my flights were using flight benefits as a nonrevenue standby passenger whether personally or on company business. Much of that flying came from visiting family in North America. The ZED flights largely were because of visiting family in Canada and Asia, and the rest were from the wedding in Spain.
The business trips as a nonrev were mostly domestic locations, particularly on both US coasts. And towards the end of the year, the trips to/from Hong Kong were for work.
Cost of 100 Flights
On the other hand, I only paid for 13 flights using miles or with money! Looking back, that’s rather bonkers to me! Sometime in March/April of 2024, American Airlines ran a 5000-mile sale wherein domestic flights only cost 5000 AAdvantage miles, one-way, if flown on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday in May. I used this once to get myself to California to visit family. The only other time I used miles was to book Singapore Airlines from JFK to Singapore for the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight. The rest of my paid flights were either to Alaska to visit family, getting out of Colombia on a confirmed seat with Spirit Airlines, and both weddings in Canada and Spain. And actually, the wedding in Spain was an unplanned paid ticket to get myself unstuck in Madrid!
Like I mentioned earlier, I am not super rich even as a career engineer. I tend to be thrifty and leverage ways to fly cheap if I can. Even if that means to do nearly 90% of my flying “for free”.
Were all those nonrevenue flights for free though? No, no they weren’t. When I use my flight benefits, domestic flights are free. No out of pocket cost, but I will get taxed on the imputed income. For international flights, I still have to pay the taxes/fees associated with the flight out of pocket. Flying out of London is the worst with nearly $200 of taxes/fees due to their air passenger duty fees. Canada averaged around $50-$60, and Brazil was like $30.
How much I spent on airfare-related costs
So with that said, the total amount of money I spent on airfare-related costs, including paid tickets, paid upgrades, taxes/fees, etc was:
$4178.29
…over 100 flights in 12 months. That’s pretty crazy! For that same amount of money, you can fly First Class one-way on a premium airline intra-Asia or one-way Business Class on a US legacy carrier to an international destination!
How much I didn’t pay
Another metric I kept track of was the “Would Have Cost”. I took a 9% pay cut to work for the airlines, and I determined that I would need to fly roundtrip once a month to either coast assuming roundtrip tickets cost $300-$400 to make up for that pay cut. So for 2024, whenever I booked/listed as a nonrevenue passenger, I also looked up the price of the paid ticket and tracked it. My “Would Have Cost” for 2024 was:
~$72,000
…over the same 100 flights in 12 months. That sounds like a lot, but I should disclaim that I frequently booked/listed for my nonrevenue flights as last-minute one-ways, which are often way more expensive than if one were to book roundtrip tickets ahead of time. Also, since I was successful at flying Flagship First on AA’s B777-300ER and A321T aircraft, those ticket costs were like ~$15,000 and ~$1700 respectively. Also, I was able to get upgraded to Business Class on company business travel flights, and that was probably like another ~$13,000+ that I didn’t pay for (or expensed).
$72,000 vs. $4200 is quite the difference! I think that difference alone is a great argument for encouraging people to work for an airline! LOL! Look at how much you’re NOT paying for, in terms of airfare!
What did my 2024 travel look like?
Thanks to the Flighty app, I have some great infographics to review how my travels looked like in 2024. I’ll briefly discuss each metric and infographic.
Flight Counts – Month and Weekday
Of my 100 flights, 74 were domestic, 26 were international, and 14 were long haul. I’m not sure what Flighty considers long haul, but I feel like 14 is a fair number based on where I flew. Looking at the month and weekday breakdowns, it looks like I flew the most flights in September. During September, I had a day trip to Minneapolis/St. Paul to go to the Mall of America, went to Canada to visit family again, a work trip in North Carolina, and the wedding in Spain that required multiple legs. Interestingly, December was also high and it similarly had work trips, another Mall of America run, and grinding flights to hit 100 flights. Lastly, the flights per weekday is pretty fascinating too. Like I mentioned earlier, I had to pull off most of my trips in just a weekend, so it makes sense why most of my flights happen on Friday and Saturday with Sunday having a lot because I often flew on Sunday to get back home in time for work on Monday.
Flight Distances
Now these are some crazy distance stats! Apparently I flew 145,000+ miles in 2024. That’s 5.8x around the Earth! That is so ridiculous, lol. I knew my longest flight in miles would also be my longest flight in terms of time for New York to Singapore with Singapore Airlines. What surprised me was flying Iberia Airlines from Mallorca to Menorca for a total of 82 miles. The islands of Spain are fairly close together, so it makes sense that flying an island hopper flight would yield my shortest flight by distance.
Flight Times
Regarding time spent in the air, apparently I spent 14.8 days worth of time flying in 2024! Haha, weirdly it doesn’t feel that way since a lot of my flights were short-haul domestic. For the shortest flight time, Flighty says 35 minutes for Mallorca to Menorca with Iberia, but I actually clocked it in at about 23 minutes. Very short flight, but I was really tired and so it felt even shorter than that as I tried to nap on it. The longest flight time goes to the world’s longest nonstop flight with Flighty clocking it at 18 hours and 52 minutes. But! I clocked it at 18 hours. Either way, that is a freakin’ long time to be on a plane between New York and Singapore on Singapore Airlines. Luckily, I booked Business Class for that flight!
Top Airports
Considering I am based in DFW, it totally makes sense that I have the most airports visited listed as DFW. What surprised me was Calgary (YYC) as I didn’t think I had visited that airport that many times, but I suppose I did visit Saskatoon (YXE) three times last year and had to connect in YYC. Probably the dumbest thing to me is having a count of 6 to London Heathrow (LHR) without having ever gone outside of the airport! I’ve never been out and about in London!
Top Airlines
As for my top airlines flown, it is no surprise that American Airlines wins for both number of flights and for distance since I am DFW-based. I surprisingly flew WestJet quite a bit, but that was to help me get around Canada. The distance stats are interesting in that some airlines I flew the least amount of times but for some of the greater distances like Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, British Airways, and Spirit.
Here’s the breakdown, with a little more detail:
- 75 flights were with American Airlines
- 7 on WestJet (YVR, YXS, YXE, YYC)
- 5 on Iberia (MAD, BCN, PMI, MAH)
- 4 on Cathay Pacific (HKG, MNL)
- 2 on Alaska Airlines (ANC, BRW)
- 2 on United (YYC, SFO)
- 1 on British Airways (SYD-SIN)
- 1 on RyanAir (MAH-BCN)
- 1 on Singapore Airlines (JFK-SIN)
- 1 on Southwest (ORD-DAL)
- 1 on Spirit (BOG-FLL)
Top Routes
Apparently I flew 76 routes in my 100 flights in 2024. DFW-SAT is interesting to me as the most flown route, but I did have multiple business trips there as well as a fun weekend visiting a friend. As I mentioned above about JFK-SIN as the world’s longest flight, it makes sense that it is the top of the distance list. I also had a few trips involving flying over the Pacific Ocean so that explains the next few routes. I realized in mid-typing this paragraph that the distance is a summation of distance per those routes because DFW-YYC being 4571 miles confused me as I know it is only ~1500 miles one-way. But multiply that by 3x…
Countries & Territories
Not gonna lie, this countries infographic confused me, but I realized that it is counting the amount of countries per geographic region. It makes sense because I only went to Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, and Singapore for Asia, and Colombia and Brazil for South America. Still, not counting USA, 10 countries in 2024 is pretty aggressive, lol.
Delay Report
Now this is a pretty interesting summary. 41% of my flights were delayed. I’d say a majority of that 41% were like 30 mins to an hour delay. But certainly the worst one was that 18 hour delay for CLT-LHR with American Airlines. That plane went on mechanical delay in the midst of Hurricane Helene arriving. I had to sleep at the airport, but I made good use of lounges to mitigate being stuck during the day. Also, since 75 of my 100 flights were on AA, it makes sense that the worst airline for delays was AA lol.
Arrival Performance
Interestingly, Flighty tagged 55% of my flights as arriving early. I guess that’s the crazy thing that even if your flight is delayed a little bit, sometimes a flight can make it up in the air. Thankfully, none of my 2024 flights were canceled or diverted. However, I will say that because of my ability to be super, super flexible with nonrevenue standby flying, I can easily change away from a flight that gets canceled. In fact, I recall that a British Airways flight from LHR-BCN I originally listed for ended up getting canceled, as well as a DFW-TUL flight. But in both cases, I switched plans and flew alternate flights.
Airport and Airline Performance
These are some interesting stats as well. I’m surprised that SNA gave me more departure delays than DFW. But I suppose it makes sense because SNA is a smaller airport that also operates general aviation aircraft on the same runways as commercial flights so traffic can get backed up. Cathay Pacific having the most late arrivals is also surprising to me because I didn’t fly too many flights with them, but I suppose I recall encountering lots of turbulence NRT-HKG that probably required some maneuvering around, and then also some circling HKG-MNL resulting in later than scheduled arrivals.
Continuing the theme of delays, these were my most delayed flights. I already talked about CLT-LHR above. AA2075 was another long mechanical delay that had me stuck in Orlando all day, but it actually worked well in my favor because it helped open up a lot of seats with everyone changing their travel plans so that I could actually get on a flight home as a nonrev. AA2659 was fun because it stranded my coworkers and me–we got to hang out in the lounge and have dinner at the airport together. Got to know my coworkers better, haha.
Aircraft Stats
This is the summary of the aircraft I flew in 2024. Apparently I flew 22 different types of aircraft with the most frequent being the Boeing 737-800, which I know is one of the main workhorses of the American Airlines fleet. Note that most of my flying were in the back of the plane, with only a handful being up front. I’m also an aisle seat guy, and it seems most of my seat assignments ended up being that way anyway. I think it’s a setting on my flight benefits profile?
Aircraft Types
For more breakdown of aircraft types, I am not surprised that the B737-800 and A321 aircraft are my most flown both in count and time as these are the most widely used aircraft on American Airlines. Interestingly enough, as far as distance goes, even though I only flew on Boeing 777-300 (B77W) aircraft 5 times in 2024, I flew it for the longest distance just barely past B738. Looking back, I wish I had flown the B787 and A350 more as I appreciate their capabilities for a more comfortable cabin environment that leave me less fatigued while flying.
Class and Seat
Another look at the breakdown of where in the aircraft I sat across my 100 flights in 2024. I sat in First Class 11 times, but I believe these are mostly domestic First Class. As far as true international, long-haul First Class happening for me, I only sat up there once when I did Flagship First chasing earlier in 2024. I find it interesting that 17D was my most popular seat to sit in, but I believe it’s usually an aisle seat on an overwing exit row for AA’s B737’s, which were my most flown aircraft. So maybe that makes sense. Flighty introduced Leisure and Business categorization late in the year so the stats are not accurate whatsoever (and I felt lazy to go back through all 100 flights and categorize accordingly).
Most Frequent Tails
Even before Flighty, I actually started keeping track of my flights’ registration numbers to find out if I ever sit in the same aircraft more than once. American Airlines has a huge fleet of aircraft, so the chances of flying the same aircraft is pretty low. But, somehow I was able to at least fly multiple tails twice in 2024. Even more surprisingly was doing so on WestJet! Looking back, I kinda hoped that I would fly the same aircraft thrice, but that didn’t happen. Ah well. And to be honest, my last four flights of 2024 were immediate quick turns–I think I spent like 10 minutes in Amarillo’s (AMA) airport after landing before boarding again! Same aircraft, both cases.
Aircraft Age
Most of American Airlines’ aircraft are on the newer side, and I know for a time, AA had the youngest average fleet age among the big carriers in the United States. Still, I was surprised that N929AN was the oldest aircraft I flew at ~25 years old, which was DFW-MSP in mid-December. I don’t recall it looking rough so I suppose AA did a good job maintaining it!
Reflecting on my 2024 travel
Admittedly, 2024 was a very, very aggressive travel year. Most miles and flights flown ever in my life! And the fact that much of it was personal and weekend travel is pretty dang crazy!
Air travel is inherently risky, schedule-wise. With so many variables at play just to have a flight leave or arrive on time, it’s insane that I managed to accomplish much of my travels without too much interruption.
What went well
Successfully visiting family
I knew visiting family on both sides of my family tree was particularly ambitious due to the geographical distances I had to travel. But I definitely felt justified in pursuing this goal because mid-year, one of my first cousins unexpectedly passed away (may perpetual light shine up her) about a month after a bunch of my extended family came to visit her for her PhD graduation party. Since I have a handful of elderly family members and/or sickly ones, I just never know when my previous visit will be my last. Therefore, I am really glad I was able to hang out and reconnect with basically 98% of my extended family, and that, to me, is truly amazing.
Experiencing Flagship First, both domestically and internationally
Chasing Flagship First the two times I did it were important to me because I literally have projects at work aimed at removing those First Class cabins! And I’m glad I was able to experience them before we start removing them off those aircraft fleets. Back in January, I flew all the way to London just to turn around and fly back somewhere where I had the best chance of getting Flagship First on B777-300, which ended being Miami. In early February, I flew to New York JFK and did the same thing for Flagship First on A321T, the special-configured aircraft fleet with three cabins that fly our transcontinental routes. I ended up flying to Los Angeles for this.
While it is disappointing that American Airlines won’t have a proper First Class on long-haul aircraft anymore, the new Business Class cabins look amazing and will be more private. Sorry, can’t/won’t say when we’re actually removing these cabins!
Enduring and surviving traveling to Spain
For the wedding in Spain, I had a rough time getting to Menorca. Between having to make decisions on-the-fly and buying a last-minute ticket, having my checked luggage left in Madrid, and just feeling crappy from long travel days, this was my most physically and mentally taxing trip. I even cried when I reunited with my left-behind luggage! Lol. But despite all these challenges, it all worked out in the end, and I was still able to make it to the wedding with no further issues. The wedding and reception were so much fun, and I had a blast working virtually from Barcelona and Madrid for the week.
Checking things off the bucket list
When I went to Singapore, I actually accomplished two major travel bucket list items:
- Fly on the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight (SQ23 JFK-SIN)
- Fly round-the-world (DFW-JFK-SIN-SYD-LAX,SAN-DFW)
That was a crazy trip because of combining Pokemon Go Fest in NYC, visiting family in New Jersey, Singapore, and Sydney…and making it in time for my cousin’s memorial in southern California. All within the span of 10 days. The whole trip was crazy, but probably the craziest part was that I only spent about 24 hours in Sydney! This trip also marked me attempting to fly nonrevenue ZED flights in Asia, and that went surprisingly smooth if not anxiety-inducing waiting for a confirmed seat on a different airline.
Glorious “firsts”
Oh, speaking of accomplishing goals… I also got to visit places that I had never been to before! Like, actually out and about and not just the airport!
- Utqiagvik, AK
- Winston-Salem/Greensboro, NC
- Barcelona, Spain
- Menorca, Spain
- Prince George, BC, Canada
- Bogota, Colombia
Similarly, these are the airports in 2024 I flew to for the very first time in my life:
- BOG (Bogota, Colombia)
- GSO (Greensboro, NC)
- DAL (Dallas Love Field, TX)
- BRW (Barrow/Utqiagvik, AK)
- YXS (Prince George, BC, Canada)
- PMI (Mallorca, Spain)
- MAH (Menorca, Spain)
- BCN (Barcelona, Spain)
- MAF (Midland, TX)
- AMA (Amarillo, TX)
It’s pretty cool that my world travels in 2024 weren’t just limited to places I had been to before, and I got to experience and see various destinations that were new to me. Sorry Sydney, Tokyo, Madrid, and Singapore–I’ve visited y’all before!
Traveling minimally
Somehow, in my two really long trips (the round-the-world trip, and Spain wedding), I managed to fit everything I needed in just a rollaboard carry-on luggage and a backpack. Clothes, toiletries, specialty items like a suit. Granted, I had to do laundry on these trips, but still. Pretty amazing that I can travel minimally enough without checking a bag!
And actually this largely comes from nonrevenue standby flying wisdom. I lose flexibility when I check a bag due to nonrev policies in place so as much as possible, I will not check a bag when flying nonrev.
What I could have done better
Not forgetting to pack stuff
You would think that I basically lived out of a suitcase with such frequent trips in 2024. But every now and then, I would forget something. Luckily, I never forgot really essential items like a passport or credit card, but there would be times I’d forget somewhat necessary things like my eyeglasses or a belt. In fact, I realized about mid-way through my flight from Dallas to Tokyo on my way to Hong Kong, that I forgot to pack a belt! I actually “entered Japan” just to shop at the Uniqlo in Narita Airport’s departure hall to buy a belt before my flight to Hong Kong. To mitigate not forgetting things, I have plastic drawers of travel essentials that are ordered by frequency of necessity–so things in the top drawers are things I bring with me on nearly every trip. And if my trip was domestic, I always had the backup of stopping by a Walmart or CVS or something to pick up anything else I would need.
On the other hand, there were a good handful of trips where I felt like I carried too much. Like, packing clothes that I didn’t wear! These just added weight that I’d have to lug around since I don’t check bags. It’s not really problematic though, and I think it’s okay to pack some “just in case” items without going overboard.
Responding well to actually getting stuck somewhere all day
When I visited my cousin in Orlando earlier in the year, I ended up getting stuck at the airport for 8 hours. Looking back, I wish I had figured out how to fly ZED much sooner in order to have ZED backups to get out of MCO airport. All American Airlines flights looked bleak with seat availability and on top of that, a plane or two got delayed due to mechanical issues. At this point, I hadn’t yet figured out how to fly ZED, but I wish I had since the opportunity to do so probably would have gotten me unstuck faster. Lastly, I think it was from this trip that I decided that I would always pack as if I’m going to work on Monday, perhaps even straight off of a flight. Just in case.
Saving money
I could have definitely saved on costs. While I did mention above that my total airfare spending in 2024 was $4178.29, that was just airfare! That’s not even including other travel-related costs like parking, lodging, and food. I spent a little over $12,000 on all travel-related expenses in 2024, which means my average monthly expenses for travel was ~$1000/month. My most expensive trip was Spain largely because of the hotel stays and the unexpected $650 plane ticket. Alaska was also up there since I paid for actual plane tickets. Looking back, I could have leveraged more of my points and miles to save on travel costs. But I am a hoarder. Luckily I didn’t have to spend a lot of money visiting family other than food (usually paying for meals), and I saved on lodging by staying with family members primarily. So I guess while I could have saved more money by leveraging points and miles, overall my travel costs could have been so, so much worse!
Conclusion
2024 was a very, very aggressive year of travel for me. But! I didn’t travel for the sake of traveling. I utilized my flight benefit powers and travel savvy to reconnect with nearly all of my extended family, reconnect with far-off friends in person, hang out with my housemate in different places, and got to experience many new places. Oh and I got some new pants and shorts at the Mall of America.
While I did save a lot of money by mostly not paying for airline tickets and not paying for lodging for most of my trips, I could have lowered my overall costs by leveraging points and miles as well as being thrifty with food.
Looking back, I have no regrets, but I certainly won’t be traveling so aggressively so willingly to the same level I did for 2024, lol.
Now…time to apply for my New Zealand electronic travel authority and to figure out how I can be in Hong Kong and El Salvador at the same time in 2025…
While I’m off doing that, lemme know how your 2024 travels went down in the comments! What was the most resonating place you visited? And why did it resonate?
PS If you want to see more pictures of my adventures, check out the ‘gram, especially the highlighted stories!