joemango

Hi everyone, I am a programmer by trade and a computer geek by choice. I have look at various mileage calculators and find each one offers different features but none have all the features I would like. I am thinking of creating my own mileage calculator for the iPad.

It seems the base miles (acutal distance between two airports) has to be manually entered or in some cases it is calculated using a map software like google maps. I think a very effective calculator should know the base miles AA assigns to the distance between any two airports in their flights. I see these miles listed when searching for a ticket but do not see them documented somewhere else.

If anyone here knows if AA keeps a list of base miles between any two airports they service post the link, if this does not exist I think the members of this forum can make a community effort and post the actual AA miles between airports that they know of, this way I can build a calculator that is accurate to AA and does not require entering base miles to get a result.

comments ???

allset2travel

I found different mileage calculators give slightly different answers. On ita, it gives you base miles for an entire itinerary search (i.e. a multiple segment itin only gets total mileage)

amarc1701

I have found the site milecalc.com to be fairly accurate. I have used it to calculate complex itineraries and even applied special bonuses and COS bonus. Once I reconcile at the end of my trip against what AA posts it has been accurate to about 3-4 miles which is generally just attributable to a rounding error.

imagineertobe

+1

I don't think milecalc.com has been off by more than 1 mile for any given segment I've flown. It's IMHO by far the best tool out there.

barelyelite

Agreed. The only potential improvement IMO would be to separately calculate RDMs and EQMs and to be able to apply promos to specific segments, as applicable.

imagineertobe

BTW, this could easily be done as a web app that would circumvent the App Store. My contributions here have been made freely available to the community, and I would hope that other users would do the same, not intending to profit off of such niche services.

Peace.

bniu

i think one of the problems is AA still uses some old/defunct airports of some cities in calculating mileage. I notice this a lot as AUS-DFW is now 190 miles but AA still uses the 183 that was from the old AUS airport (which is now a shopping center) that was closed about 12 years ago. This is seen in almost all routes out of AUS. I guess someone could go through the entire AA booking system and actually write down how many miles each route is, though one problem is what to do about one stop same flight number flights?

joemango

After viewing MileCalc it is quite accurate, I dont think I need to reinvent the wheel and will just use that website.

rgarret1

As already discussed, milemac is the calculator of choice (at least for me). http://www.milecalc.com/

Britsinvade

AFAIK, the base miles are detailed in their timetables which can be found here:

http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInforma...p#one&anchorEv

This has proven accurate for me so far.

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk, Britsinvade. Your post took a short time to show up as it was sent to the moderation queue - early posts with URLs do so as part of FT's spam suppression programme. Sorry for the inconsistence. /Moderator

As accurate as any calculator might be, AA itself periodically makes small adjustments to the miles between cities.

OP and all, check bniu's iPhone / iPad app here.

Also, check the spreadsheets available through this thread.

nbevan

Great Circle Mapper has the advantage that you can specify the 500 miles minimum.

imagineertobe

Milecalc.com does the same.

FINASTORY

+1
It certainly is.

dimsage

milecalc.com pulls out IATA tpm and is definitely a good tool