BEATING THE AIR FARE HIKES
By - Sally Solo

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Think air fares are sky-high now? Just wait. Airlines are passing along rising fuel costs, and Congress has just stuck travelers with a higher ticket tax. According to research by American Express, domestic coach fares rose 17% this year -- before the latest hikes. But some of the most frequent fliers won't even notice. Disc jockey Tom Joyner has racked up 4.5 million miles, counting bonuses, in five years. He has a bi-city career: Mornings he plays soul music for listeners at KKDA-FM in Dallas, where he lives; afternoons he does a show in Chicago at WGCI-FM. In between, he flies back and forth. In April , before the big price hikes hit, Joyner paid $150,000 for a pass that entitles him to unlimited travel on American Airlines for the next five years. (His family uses his free miles.) Rodney Bowman, a courier for United Security in Omaha, has 653,334 miles in his United Airlines account, earned by shuttling cash, artwork, and blank credit cards around the country. An FBI retiree, he always flies on short notice and says fare hikes will hit his employer hard. Donn Spector, a building products sales representative from Denver, has piled up over 750,000 miles on Continental. He used some of his miles recently to rescue a stranger from the effects of rising fares: ''I sat next to a woman on a flight, and she was saying how she couldn't afford to take her mother on a trip. So I got her a trip.''

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCES: USTRAVEL SYS.; AMEX AIRFARE MGT. UNIT CAPTION: FREQUENTLY FLOWN ROUTES