Image: 1950s United Air Lines 100,000 Mile Club 7-Star Member Plaque

Description: United Air Lines "100,000 Mile Club" Member Award Plaque (with 7 stars for additional awards). c1950 Made by: A.C. Rehberger Co, Chicago, ILL, 8 1/2" X 6 1/4" The plaque's sculpted cast medallion represents a UAL DC-3 circling the earth four times which roughly equals 100,000 air miles. (The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901 miles). Each of the seven stars on the plaque represents an additional award. The engraved signature is that of William A. "Pat" Patterson, the President of United Air Lines from 1934 to 1966. For a passenger to achieve 100,000 flight miles on UAL in the 1950s was a rare accomplishment compared to now as UAL was then still an exclusively domestic US carrier (it did not gain its first overseas route until 1983) with a relatively limited route system, air fares were still heavily regulated by the CAB and thus not discounted and quite expensive compared to other modes of commercial travel, and a very large percentage of intercity passenger traffic was still carried by rail and bus.
Title: 1950s United Air Lines 100,000 Mile Club 7-Star Member Plaque
Credit: "The Cooper Collections of Aviation History" (uploader's private collection) Digital image by uploader.
Author: Centpacrr (Digital image)
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
Attribution Required?: Yes