Punki

As I plot my year 2000 miles, I am thinking about some of the terrific mileage run deals many of you have reported in 1999.

How (where) do you find these great deals?

newself

Punki,

A lot of the fares that I found have been from word of mouth in "our little community". From time to time, I have logged on an airline website, used the multiple airport button and the select connnections by time button and put in different routings.

One that I was told about and have checked out on CO has been LAX-EWR-FLL roundtrip with a Saturday night stayover. I have found the fare to range from $201-280. Of course, some of the airlines will not let you use the multiple airport feature. You just have to roll up your sleeves and start checking them out. Hope this helps you!

dilbert

First I check out frequently
http://www.bestfares.com/travel_cent...s/newsdesk.asp when I have trip coming up. Secondly I customized the travel page in my.yahoo.com which I check regularly.
By doing this, I got DCA-SEA/LAX $188 RT and DCA-SNA $210 RT this year. So far the best deal I gotten was $170 DCA-DEN and $170 DEN-HNL in 97.

Happy New Year!

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Dan
"It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do, that makes life blessed." - Goethe

dg1

Somewhat similar but different at the same time I probably will be doing segment runs since my only hope of qualifying again for Chairman's Preferred will probably be segments. What I do is look for two small airports that are geographically close to two hubs both carrying Southwest.

This works in the case of CLE and BWI, so I can often go CLE-PIT-PHL-BWI-PHL-PIT-CLE for $60 R/T. (10 bucks a segment) with only 1 night stay required (BWI Airport Marriott rewards points)

I also often use Travelocity's Best Fare Finder and plug in random airports which have other airports close to them. I once found a fare from CAK-MDT for $40/4 segments by looking for fares PIT-PHL.

This probably works best in the Northeast with USAirways since US serves most of them and there are a lot of airports in a small amount of space, but it might work elsewhere. Good luck.

MileKing

Will someone please explain to me how going from DCA-DEN (or should it be IAD) for $170 is a good "mileage run"? Yes, the fare is excellent compared to normal fares on that route, but as I see it you are getting only 2928 miles. If you are an elite member and qualify for 100% bonus miles, you would be getting 5856 miles. Even so, that works out to 2.9 cents/mile, not such a great deal when I can buy miles for 2-2.5 cents/mile from most airlines. I agree if you are one or two flights short of hitting a certain elite level this may make sense, but otherwise I don't understand why one would waste money in this manner. Please help me understand why these "mileage runs" are such a draw.

Sheryl

In addition to the suggestions already made, subscribe to the weekly e-saver e-mails from all the carriers you would want to fly. I think you can register at http://www.smarterliving.com to receive one all inclusive weekly e-mail, but personally, I prefer getting them directly from each airline.

Periodically checking the various airline websites can't hurt either. That's where the CO incredible deals to NRT, Europe and Latin America appeared.

Hammertoad

Mileking, It's fun! It's (relatively) cheap! You get miles! Plus you get to spend a leisure day somewhere (hopefully) neat; and if you're really lucky you get to meet up with some other FlyerTalkers that either live there or are passing through just as you are.

Cheers,

'toad

dilbert

MileKing, I fogot to mention that I had $25 AA Entertainment coupons with brought down the prices to $145 from $170 on DCA-DEN and same for the DEN-HNL. With taxes the DCA-HNL via DEN trip came out $298 and I netted 11,220 miles or 37.65 miles/$.

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Dan
"It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do, that makes life blessed." - Goethe


[This message has been edited by dilbert (edited 12-28-1999).]

OnePassMan

Does anyone know of any good last-minute deals to London/Paris (from CA) for mileage run purposes? I just need one trans-atlantinc segment in 1999!

Thanks!

onedog

OnePassMan:

AA is having an LAX to CDG sale of $399. I've seen better (last years LAX to LHR for $279 was pretty good) but if you are looking to go, $399 isn't too bad.

Hope this helps.

Punki

I just (tried to) set up the My Yahoo thing and it is certainly a good source of information. I have already set up a couple of very cheap trips that I needed to make anyway and got a $200 refund on a previously booked trip. Now I just have to upgrade the new ones.

A few questions though. Is there a limit to how many pair cities I can set up? If not, how do I get around it?

dilbert

Punki,

Only limitation is the city list itself. I think you can select all cities but your loading time may suffer.

Downsides are that it only covers major cities and the fares are not updated frequently. My guess is a few times a day. You have to select "book it" to list the lastest published fares. Lastly, you can choose only one fare; you can't not mix and match to fit your schedule. Looks like we have to wait little longer for this feature.

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Dan
"It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do, that makes life blessed." - Goethe

l etoile

Punki: The bestfares site that dilbert mentions is worth checking daily. A lot of the good deals I've found on there - $80 SFO-YVR-SFO; $25 OAK-RNO-OAK; $400 to Europe during the summer - are one-day-only sales. Also, sign up for UA-partner SAS's emails. Out of Seattle they sometimes have great deals to Scandinavia, which can work out to about 3 cents or less per mile.

JeffLewis2

A good supplement to best fares: http://www.air-fare.com/allsav.htm

Punki

On the BestFares site, how do you know what airlinen they are using?

The SAS infomation is something I hadn't thought of. Thanks!