I got very interested in MRs when I started reading this forum over a year ago. I read the stickies, mastered routing tables, played with ita, etc etc.
But I have
never been able to successfully find a bookable UA MR from DEN at less than 4 cpm. The recent posts by VPescado inspired me to try again... but I just don't seem cut out for this.
I'm looking for a classic MR from DEN in July; classic meaning:
1. I'll go anywhere, at any times; I just want EQMs
2. I want to be flying as much as possible (no hotels, if can be avoided)
returning in 24-36 hours.
3. I want to get EQMs on UA/UX/TED (or if need be, codeshares, tho
then I don't get miles toward 500-mile upgrade certs)
4. I want to minimize cpm, in particular < 4 cpm
I realize summer is working against me here, but I'll have a new baby in August, so it has to be now. I'd like to get as many miles as possible for between $200 and $500. And, since this would be my first MR, I'd like the routing to be as ridiculous as possible.
I've spent at least 30 hours on this with zero success. The closest I've come was yesterday when I found DEN-PIT-IND-CLT-TPA-IAD-IND-CLT-DEN for $196, Jul 12/13 (5946 miles, 3.3 cpm); this was on ITA and I couldn't book it anywhere (ual.com, orbitz, etc). The problem seemed to stem from the fact that ual.com wasn't finding all the US codeshares and/or inventory in the fare bucket sold out as I tried to book.
Dreammaps no longer shows a cheap DEN-TPA fare for UA, so now I'm stuck with a higher fare to MCO or SFO (the latter just went on sale last night). It's possible to do an SFO trip with the usual dance around PSP, LAX, LAS, SBA, for extra miles, but the cpm on all the itineraries I could find were more like 5.5 cpm. Yuk.
I'm pretty frustrated at being so bad at this after having spent so much time reading. Maybe someone with more experience could advise? (Advice like: stop living in DEN isn't helpful
)
john//