Virgin believes 50 miles qualifies as well.
Any course that exceeds the marathon length of 26.2 miles qualifies as an ultra, though many events focus on distances of 50 kilometers, 100 kilometers and 100-plus miles.
US Airways even sells access to its "preferred" status: a traveler who is short 1,500 miles to qualify for a particular elite tier can pay a $249 fee to close that gap.
Mr. Petersen also pointed out that travelers who need only 500 to 1,000 miles to qualify for a free ticket should look for other ways to narrow the gap, such as redeeming their award ticket online.
Some road warriors have so many frequent-flier miles sitting in their accounts that they have no hope of using them up, or no desire to cash them in to spend even more time away from home, while other occasional fliers have too few miles to qualify for any travel award.
My choice was to read the fine print yet again or to take the lazy way out and vow to earn a mere 175 more miles to qualify for an airline ticket worth, say, $534.50 (the amount American Airlines wants to charge me to fly round-trip to Lexington, Ky., next month).
Offered at the airline's discretion, these include upgrades for a company's passengers even if they have not earned enough miles to qualify; matching the cheaper fares of another airline, and creature comforts like shuttle rides between connecting flights so that travelers do not have to walk through an airport terminal.
Today, most airlines have squeezed much of the reward out of their reward programs, demanding more miles to qualify for flights, large swaths of blackout dates, and a smaller and smaller window in which to use them.
The great thing about both of these programs is that they allow you to transfer as little as 1,000 points to your individual frequent flyer accounts, so if you need a couple thousand extra miles to qualify for an award, you don't have to buy them at expensive prices from the airline, but can just top up your account.
The two 125-mile qualifying races were won by Michael Waltrip and Jeff Gordon, the defending Winston Cup champion.
