Tommy,
By chance your query was a topic of last weeks AOPA email newsletter.
See below.
Julian.
==> EXPERT ADVICE <==
FLIGHT TIME: THE FINER POINTS OF LOGGING CROSS-COUNTRIES
You can log cross-country time anytime you land at an airport other than
your point of departure, regardless of the distance between those points,
according to FAR 61.1. But a closer look at the regulation reveals three
more ways to log cross-countries. If you want to apply cross-country time
toward a private or commercial pilot certificate or instrument rating,
you can only count those flights in which you landed at an airport more
than 50 nautical miles straight-line distance from your departure point.
Now, let's say you are applying for an airline transport pilot certificate.
Then you can count any cross-country flight that was greater than 50 nm
straight-line distance from your departure airport, regardless of where
you landed. The cross-country rule changes yet again when applying time
toward a sport pilot certificate: Then you only have to land at an airport
25 nm straight-line distance from the departure airport. Makes perfect
sense, right? To learn more about the finer points of logging time, AOPA
encourages you to contact its Pilot Information Center (800/USA-AOPA) and
check out its online subject report
(
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/topics/logbooks.html ).