[Batsu]

Indeed, miles is just a nice name for reward points, but you're not quite on target with the calculations. In American Airline's AAdvantage program, you earn miles per dollar spent (for example, CitiBank's AAdvantage card earns 1 mile per dollar spent[1]). However, it takes a static number of points depending on your departure and arrival locations[2].

On top of the $1 = 1 mile business, for whatever reason, lots of airlines hand out frequent flyer miles like candy. American Airlines used to give you 1,000 miles ($500 worth, as you get double points with AA services) just for booking a vacation through their service... the pudding is another example of this. There's lots of potential for bonus miles, basically.

So, depending on how you want to look at it, doing this without rewards, he earned $1,250,000 worth of miles for around $3750. With rewards, it could be anything, but surely he paid the minimum amount.

[1]: http://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/faq2.do?screenID=801&s... [2]: http://www.aa.com/pubcontent/en_US/disclaimers/free-ticket-a...