After reading about the illustrious Baht Pass I've wondered if there was a Domestic US equivalent to it for all of us like myself that can't make it to Thailand to fly on their 737's.

I remember in the Baht Pass thread in Buzz that Tvl4Free mentioned that their was but I never saw anything else about it. Given what I have seen of domestic airfares it would probably be costly if it could be done at all.

Curious,

Gary

I think that any mileage run in North America would be successful if segments were counted rather than miles. This said, someone interested in doing this would need to find a cheap city pair and then make as many enroute transfers as possible. For Example, I recently bought a return ticket from Atlanta to Buffalo for $110. However I could have routed myself via Memphis and Detroit, thus collecting six segments. This example is not a viable one for a "segment run" because of price but the method is sound.

We need to find a $60 return ticket with 6 segments. $10 per segment.

This is an excellent idea. I hope thosewith this knowledge would share with others.

Many, MANY exist... but the seats have a tendency to disappear when announced publically... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I too would be interested in a domestic version of this mainly to save the cost of getting to BKK or whatever the jump off point is for the former run. I am out of BOS. There was some talk, a while back, on the CO board about a domestic run to Platinum. From what I remember, it involved flying for like 10 or 14 days from the west coast to Orlando and back many many times. First we should perhaps set up some limits of money and time spent that we are looking for in this UA 1K Domestic Run. I know they were talking about spending for the former run:
$800 in SG tickets;
$600 to get to the jump off point (perhaps much more);
$600 for hotel/expenses (again perhaps an underestimate)
14 days: of time approx for the run/and getting back and forth.

Given this we would be looking to spend:
14 days or so;
$2,000-$3,000: For the run and its associated expenses.

Are these figures correct for total cost of a pax in the US to do a BAHT run? Are these figures in line with what folks think would be "reasonable" to spend in such an project? Do people think miles/segments...is one better? Who are possible master minds of such things....like the person that came up with the BAHT run.....and could we perhaps get them to look at this situation?

I'm pretty good at making up mileage runs out of the east coast, with east coast airlines....but I'm not too familiar with UA's route network. One of my claims to fame on the east coast was in 1999:
CO $70 one-way BOS-EWR-DTW-CLE-ATL. You could actually book it oneway, online, thus getting two online booking bonuses for the round-trip. Fare has expired as far as I know. This involved getting up very early (6am or 7am flight), and hotelling in ATL (or getting 3-4 sgmts for the return) getting home very late at night.
Also for the BOS-Washington DC market on CO, you previously could connect in EWR/CLE/DTW.....though I think it might be just EWR now. I did some similar runs where they had double miles in BOS-Washington markets on CO. Also they had a fare of approx $70 oneway, and again you could get 3 or 4 segments each way.

you might be able to do it with miles on UA if you do stuff like BWI-DEN-HOU-DEN-BWI, routing through DEN for the extra miles in other words. There are some very cheap fares out of BWI because of competition with WN. They will normally route you through IAD or ORD but you can sometimes change it to route through DEN and get a lot of miles that way.

"Follow the low fare airlines" and route through DEN or even SFO (!) if they will allow

Great try Richard, but your segments R a little too long...remember if UR a regional flyer rather than bi-coastal...it's the segments that count.

Look for REALLY cheap special fares (and VERY short flights)...with LOTS of permissible connections - and you can be a winner - almost all the time!

Remember to also look at fares on the FAR sides of TWO hubs - creating at a minimum 3 segs in each direction:

Origin--->Hub A--->Hub B-->Dest(cheap city)
**** 1 2 3 segs

Finally, if the fare permits, add in intermediate cities (IC) between the hubs
(in general everything goes to AND from a hub):

ORIG--->HUB A--->IC--->Hub B--->Destination
**** 1 2 3 4 segs




[This message has been edited by tvl4free (edited 11-22-2000).]