'World's most frequent flyer' who paid $290,000 for unlimited flights over 30 years ago has racked up a ridiculous amount of miles
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: ua1flyer/Instagram
Whether you like it or not, traveling is part of life, but you’re probably not traveling as much as this guy.
We’ve come such a long way since the Wright brothers crafted their wooden plane contraption, and decades on, you can travel from one end of the world to the other for a pretty penny.
There’s also been major advancements, such as the banning of smoking in the air, people actually have reclining seats now instead of metal dining chairs and of course, we had the creation of Concorde.
Basically, travel isn’t what it used to be, but many people haven’t had the luxury of flying through all these changes.
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Unless you’re Tom Stuker.
Stuker has probably flown the most out of any other person in the world, so he knows a thing or two about air travel.
While you might think he had to be rich-rich to afford his flights, it was all down to his savvy purchase years ago.
The New Jersey car dealership consultant racked up an amazing number of miles thanks to his 1990 purchase of a United Airlines 'lifetime' pass.
If you’d have bought one of those tickets now, you’d probably spend a fortune, but at the time, Stuker spent 'just' $290,000 back then and revealed that he's spend the last 30-plus years traveling like a 'sultan' thanks to the "best investment of my life."
On May 17, 2024, Stuker officially crossed a huge achievement when it comes to the amount of miles he’s accumulated, and he won this feat during a United Airlines flight from Newark to San Francisco.
Thanks to his bucket list which includes over 300 trips to Australia and over 120 'honeymoons' with his wife, he was able to get to the tens of millions of miles.
Officially, Stuker has raked up 24 million miles flown since the 90s and you’re probably sitting there trying to remember what a plane looked like from your trip to Sacramento when you were five.
In total, the consultant managed to accumulate his miles by visiting more than 100 countries.
Just to give you an idea of how long those miles stretch, it around 24 times the distance of Apollo 11 which covered about 953,000 miles (1.5 million km) when it took Neil Armstrong and his colleague astronauts to the moon.
While you think it might be enough for him to just enjoy, he’s still accruing air miles while flying, and it’s given him perks like no other.
With this, he could redo his brother's house and he also was given $50,000 worth of Walmart gift cards which he cashed in on a single day.
He also won the chance to cameo in an episode of Seinfeld by bidding 451,000 air miles on a charity auction.
If you want to get even a fraction of the service that Stuker gets when he flies with United, he’s got some handy tips for you so that you’re treated like royalty.
He revealed to the Washington Post: “She’s the head attendant. I always say, ‘I remember you! You gave us such great service last time. I wanted to thank you again'.
"Even if I’ve never met her. I guarantee she’ll bring you all kinds of free stuff."