Last week, somewhere between the Minneapolis and Dulles airports, Kongo’s mileage odometer on Delta rolled over one million miles.  That’s a lot of miles for a little monkey and it came with a nice note from the pilot and a glass of champagne.  Delta awards gifts for reaching this milestone and Kongo picked out a new piece of Hartman roll aboard luggage to replace his aging Coach bag which was starting to show its miles even after several overhauls at the luggage store.

He’s already logged 130,000 miles this year and is off to Omaha next week, then more back and forth between San Diego and Washington DC.  In September he goes to Budapest and Prague and there’s a long getaway weekend planned for New York City.

All those miles result in plenty of stories, interesting people, and a few hassles.  Memorable occasions include landing in Atlanta when the nose wheel wouldn’t come down, seeing the space shuttle on the tarmac at Dulles, nearly coming to fisticuffs over a reclining seat and dueling air vents, and sitting next to a convict in handcuffs.

Getting all those miles means a lot of perks…and when you travel as much as this monkey you have to work on the perks.  Kongo always buys low cost non-refundable tickets but gets upgraded about 98% of the time.  Not bad.  He also has free membership in the Sky Club, early boarding, and short security lines in most airports (OMA isn’t one of them).  If you’re a frequent traveler pick an airline that is convenient to you and stick with it.  Same with hotels and rental cars.  The free miles also result in lots of free air travel for Kongo’s kids and Mrs. Kongo.

Travel safe and have fun!