Baseball Teams and Frequent Flier Miles

Related Articles

American Airlines Employee Harasses Passenger: promises upgrades, lounge passes, in exchange for “friendship”

January 14, 2020

Man Questioned by the Secret Service for MSing through Money Orders

October 29, 2019

E-Sports Champion Loses Title and Prize Winnings After Supporting Hong Kong; Interviewers fired for letting him express support

October 8, 2019

I started reading an article on ESPN about the amount of travel sports teams have to do and how there’s disparity between East and West Coast teams.

From Jim Caple:

“[T]he Dodgers just completed their fourth trip to the East Coast to play against NL East opponents. (It was their fifth overall cross-country trip.) The Athletics are at the tail end of their fourth trip to the East Coast to one of the five AL East teams; and next month, they will make their fifth trip to the state of Texas. The Mariners, likewise, have four trips to the East Coast and five trips to Texas this season. The Angels have four trips to the East Coast and SIX trips to Texas on their schedule.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox make just one trip each to the West Coast to play the three AL West teams. They also make a single trip to play interleague games against NL West opponents; but even so, they are only making half as many cross-country trips as the West Coast teams do to play the same number of series on the other side of the country.”

Now where I thought he was taking this was to point out the disparity in frequent flier miles between the East Coast and West Coast teams.  While the players and their families rack up EQMs and redeemable miles from the West Coast, the East Coast teams need to make due with half.

This could be the difference between redeeming for a trip to Thailand vs. a trip to Akron, Ohio!

But no–the author of the article ignore the elite status, the lounge access, and the international first class travel to focus on how it could hurt their playing performance to fly that much.  Pfft.

Missed opportunities, folks!

Disclosure: Most teams actually use charters, or even private jets, to get around. 

Unnecessary disclosure: I do not fly around on a private jet.

Gratuitous disclosure: I am not a baseball player.

Post Added Disclosure for Clarity: The chartered flights mean baseball players don’t actually get airline miles 😉