For all those that were in doubt or just plain curious:

The ORD-LAS-PHL-TPA-LAS-PHL-ORD went by flawlessly, except missing the A319 flight from PHL-TPA and being put on the next which was an A321! Sounds pretty sweet to me! :D On the way back we had an 11hr stop in PHL, and our friend f/a took us on great tour of the city of PHL; ie took the SEPTA, Reading Terminal Market, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Phillycheesesteak lunch, PolishAmerican Heritage Society, Kosciuszko's House/Museum and some other area w/ the river and the huge blue bridge. It was awesome! Can someone tell me why PHL airport has no Cheesesteaks? Onto the next matter:
We have to do another trip to visit University of N. Dakota, so we're going to take US Airways to MSP and drive to Grand Forks. I am planning to route ORD-PHL-LAS-MSP and back MSP-LAS-PHL-ORD with another long stop-over to see our friend again! Wanna keep the price low, and need a suggestions as to which fare bucket would be the lowest all the way thru.(Note, a portion of the flights would be op. by HP ie LAS-MSP, MSP-LAS and possibly the red-eye LAS-PHL op. by HP431) The ORD-PHL, PHL-ORD and PHL to LAS will be US Airways op. for sure! So which bucket should I lurk for on all these flights? A W, S? Which one? I'm guessing, is it better to keep the same bucket on all flights? Any advice would be great. I hope the Aug3 rollout of www3.usairways.com(They might as well call it that :D ) will book multi-segments like the old pre-merger usairways.com did, where it mainly took in consideration just the origin of route and final destination, and not price segment by segment! We'll have to wait and see! In the meantime, please some suggestions.(And no making fun of my routings :D ! I love 'em!)

I was exhaused just reading this...must be nice to be 16 and have all of that energy and enthusiasm for air travel.

I would think that if you get the lowest fare bucket from someone, you should keep that bucket all the way through. I will keep reading to see what bucket is the lowest and whether you are able to book this on usairways.com version 3.0.

The ORD-LAS-PHL-TPA-LAS-PHL-ORD

What booking agent did you use to book this?

I know it wasn't the US website, but it would be useful to know. I'm trying to do my own bounce around for some extra miles to keep the CP status of last year...

ITA has a nice website where you can force a specific number of connections. My bet is that his routing requires multiple independent fare rules to be cobbled together. That also makes looking for one specific bucket problematic as you might see an S available on one leg as the lowest, but a W on another.

King, PHL did have a cheese-steak place in the center foodcourt, when facing the windows (so the new Chick-Fil-A is on your left) it occupied the back right position, next to the Chinese place (near the super secret men's room).

I think, however, it is history. Probably run out of town as it put real PHL cheesesteaks to shame.

By the way, you know they have mediciations to control insanity. Which, apparently, you suffer from.

King, PHL did have a cheese-steak place in the center foodcourt, when facing the windows (so the new Chick-Fil-A is on your left) it occupied the back right position, next to the Chinese place (near the super secret men's room).

I think, however, it is history. Probably run out of town as it put real PHL cheesesteaks to shame.

By the way, you know they have mediciations to control insanity. Which, apparently, you suffer from.

What kind insanity? My MileageRun-ER instanity? LOL! Hey, just like the US Airways napkins say, I guess I'm just Thirsty For More Travel! Nah I guess I'm Thirsty For More Travel Than Necessary! LOL!

Anyhow, to anwser one's question!
I looked up and put together the schedules using the usairways.com timetable and booked this through USEast(Sabre) over the phone through my GP line. It is possible to do it via usairways.com!The CP line should be able to do it even quicker than the GP line. They will however keep asking you as to why you want to do this special routing. Anywhere from telling them you know people working at those airports, or friends on the same flights coming in from cities in the area will quench the agent's curiosity thirst :D !
Also, I was using a HPJPCMP voucher were the first ticket came out 818 for ORD-LAS-PHL-TPA-PHL-LAS-ORD, but mom and dad priced at 146 pp, so average was about 375 pp for a little less than 9k eqm's!

Hey King, did you ever think of using a period to end a sentence! Then you could save the exclamation point for when you really want to emphasize a point! What do you think! Just a thought!

Hey King, did you ever think of using a period to end a sentence! Then you could save the exclamation point for when you really want to emphasize a point! What do you think! Just a thought!

Yes! You made it crystal clear to me now. Thanks for the emphasis. Maybe if there was a Kinglobjaw2 the world would be perfect. But the there is no Kinglobjaw2, so the world is not perfect. Ok... Enough ranting about nothing, let's get back to my thread, shall we?

Anybody have this ITA link people keep talking about?

http://matrix.itasoftware.com

Hey King-
Ever think of taking one of the HOURLY UA-operated codeshares that go nonstop to MSP? You can still get miles on US...Really...is that kind of routing really worth it for all the physical time spent in the air?

http://matrix.itasoftware.com

Thanks. How do I go about it trying to force things together?

Just curious, how much did you pay and how many miles did you collect for this punishment? Great circle mapper shows 9449 miles

Just curious, how much did you pay and how many miles did you collect for this punishment? Great circle mapper shows 9449 miles

I was thinking the same thing. 16 years old, still in school...Who or what is funding these jaunts? And was it all in coach or all upgraded? I like flying too, but that routing looked downright painful at best.

I was thinking the same thing. 16 years old, still in school...Who or what is funding these jaunts? And was it all in coach or all upgraded? I like flying too, but that routing looked downright painful at best.

And when I was 16 my parents barely let me drive to the mall, let alone go on a mileage run!!!!!

I see both sides.

During grad school when I had a lot of code and papers to write, I did a bunch of MRs (I wrote a piece of my masters project sitting on the now famous picnic table in ART) because they were cheap, I could upgrade, and I could use the time wisely. Plus all the miles were welcome - I was a starving student.

Now that I have a real job where I bill hours, and I travel weekly for work anyway, I'm all about the shortest distance from A to B to get to the client.

If kinglobjaw is getting these itineraries for one or non-stop fares, has the time off from school, and upgrades, I don't see any problem with it. Miles are miles - we all know that.

If he's buying vastly expensive tickets and taking time off from studying then he's nuts .... but not as nuts as the guy on the UA forum who actually REDEEMED miles to do 6 trans-pacs in 5 days.

If he's buying vastly expensive tickets and taking time off from studying then he's nuts .... but not as nuts as the guy on the UA forum who actually REDEEMED miles to do 6 trans-pacs in 5 days.


I'd say they are in the same league

People, people, people... please listen up!

This was a trip, not a MR. I was visiting 3 colleges in Sanford, Daytona Beach and Melbourne that offer Aeronautical Science program. Not to mention, at FIT in Melbourne I got to fly in the captain's seat of a warrior plane, and I got to taxi and takeoff and fly over the coast and the Atlantic Ocean. So again, this was more of a business trip, definately not at MR, though to some this may look like a MR-ER version. Like someone pointed out correctly, it was about 9500 miles, so even more than I had originally estimated. The fare per person was 818.11, which is a horrible deal. But because mom and dad were flying I use the Juniper 99 cert, which made their tickets cost 146.50. If I acted earlier, I could have gotten the 1st fare at around 700. Second, all 3 of us were flying First on ORD-LAS, LAS-PHL, PHL-TPA, TPA-PHL and LAS-ORD. The only segment we did not clear was the PHL-LAS which was a US 757 (8PM dept) I am not even considering UA. I have to stop in Philadelphia to meet with my F/A friend that lives there. Almost everytime I fly through PHL we meet with her.
Next:
Let me remind you. I am still in highschool. Highschool students still get summers off. My summer is June16-Sep7 so am I still relaxing. My flights are a productive thing- college visitations. In the eyes of many a college education is a very good thing. The fact that I am pursuing visitation during my own private time is a good thing people, not a bad thing. My parents are paying for the trips, but they are enjoying themselves as well. After we finish touring the schools we turn into tourists. We visit the cities we are in, relax at our hotel(JW Marriott Orlando sounds nice, no?), we honestly have a great time.
Finally:
I consider longer trips as I am actually touring the cities I am flying through. Every next time I am flying more people stop me in the airports and talk to me, we catch up on current events. Everytime I walk the terminals I more and more often see myself thinking: "Yup, I know this pilot! He flew US516 to PHL 2 months ago." People in the clubs know me, agents seem to recognize me more and more, and in ORD especially I know everyone from US East and they are all getting me acquainted with the HP staff there. It is a really good feeling I would not move to UA or anyone else for that matter. I dont want to sound depressing in the current benefit-cut state we Preffereds are all in, but even if the services deteriorated even more, and even F was slowly getting pulled from planes, but D.P. promised to keep all the current employees I would still stay with US Airways for that warm friendly feeling I have been receiving since April 2003.

Just because you had a reason for going does not mean it was not a MR! It was a MR, but with a purpose! :)

Just because you had a reason for going does not mean it was not a MR! It was a MR, but with a purpose! :)

Fair enough. If saying that makes you happy pal, I am happy for you as well. Though I think otherwise, I will say it. I did a MR with 2 purposes, visiting the schools in Florida, and meeting up with my FA friend in Philly.

Of course most mileage runs, people dont spend too much time in the place they go to, in most cases boarding the same plane back to back that they just arrived on to get back home the fastest and just earn the miles. In my case, if you want to call it a MR, my mileage run lasted almost 5 days, and I did leave the airport terminal.

Try 18 here...Already Got 92 segments booked left for this year...I will make CP :)

Try 18 here...Already Got 92 segments booked left for this year...I will make CP :)

You're 18 years of age? Who's paying for all that stuff. Is it still your parents?

Fair enough. If saying that makes you happy pal, I am happy for you as well. Though I think otherwise, I will say it. I did a MR with 2 purposes, visiting the schools in Florida, and meeting up with my FA friend in Philly.

Of course most mileage runs, people dont spend too much time in the place they go to, in most cases boarding the same plane back to back that they just arrived on to get back home the fastest and just earn the miles. In my case, if you want to call it a MR, my mileage run lasted almost 5 days, and I did leave the airport terminal.

And the reason you went to LAS to get to Philly and Tampa?

And the reason you went to LAS to get to Philly and Tampa?

To catch another flight that got me forward with my life.

To catch another flight that got me forward with my life.

I sure wish my parents had paid for me to fly all over on my summer vacation! :)

I know you must want to be a pilot or work in aviation to go visit Embry-Riddle as a college choice, so I understand why you want to fly so much. I was just having fun! :)

To catch another flight that got me forward with my life.

Ok that's not the full truth

So do your parents ever harass you about this when they are halfway through a 12 hour journey to a city 500 miles away?

And the reason you went to LAS to get to Philly and Tampa?
And the reason your parents agreed to shuttle all over North America? Instead of point A to point B.........Point A to point B to point W back to Point C then of course you can't forget point N just to get to point D. Whew....my a$$ hurts thinking of sitting that long.

Yankees, of course I know you are just teasing me, but in a friendly and polite way.

Oh yes, my poor parents. I admit I am being cruel, but they do like the F class upgrades, they do like meeting our FA friend in PHL, and dont mind the extra miles. But in reality, my Mom has told me on numerous occasions that I made her hate flying. My Dad just whines in every airport that he is staying here and not continuing on. I on the other hand love it, and when I get back from the trip I get a huge case of nostalgia. I love it. And the actual flying in a cockpit is a zillion times cooler than driving a car. Anyhow, do I deserve the title of the ultimate MR, in my way of calling it, I think I am an MR-ER(get it, -ER, like from a 767-200ER?) What I am doing, is it called torture? Still... my parents are not afraid of flying, not one bit. Otherwise, if flying was a serious thing they hate I would not pull these stunts. It's only to the point where I can convince them :D

Mods: This thread has gone way off topic. Please DO NOT close it! Its taken a neat twist, and I like this thread's hospitality and warmth. I have come to like flyertalk again.

You're 18 years of age? Who's paying for all that stuff. Is it still your parents?

KING...all on my damn $ unlike you ;) :mad:

KING...all on my damn $ unlike you ;) :mad:

Well, there's only one response you deserve and thats :p

No, don't worry I was just kidding. Believe it or not, I am actually more surprised by you, then you are by me. You're 18, and almost CP? 92 segments booked? Did you rob a bank or something? :D That must be some good job you have that makes you travel so much. Eh... it's none of my concern. I'm happy for ya pal, still fighting for the us younger folks for the right to be elites. Keep at it, just please dont fly on the flights I am on or you make my Gold serve no purpose! :D Thing is, I will get to fly as a pilot in the future, but it won't be earning me any DM's :( and my name will not take the place on any upgrade wait-list :( except the list where they look at everyone's performance and radomly look at folks to fire in order to save some $ and cut costs :( . So, in the end you will be the one feeling good. :(

Well, I salute you, but too many T/A flights in coach with an uncomfortable seat has left me sort of jaded, I guess. Most of the excitement of flight is in my opinion the first and last half hour. I used to feel the way you do, now I just want to get from point A to point B. I'll opt for an extra segment occasionaly, but not if it takes me in the opposite direction.

Well, there's only one response you deserve and thats :p

No, don't worry I was just kidding. Believe it or not, I am actually more surprised by you, then you are by me. You're 18, and almost CP? 92 segments booked? Did you rob a bank or something? :D That must be some good job you have that makes you travel so much. Eh... it's none of my concern. I'm happy for ya pal, still fighting for the us younger folks for the right to be elites. Keep at it, just please dont fly on the flights I am on or you make my Gold serve no purpose! :D Thing is, I will get to fly as a pilot in the future, but it won't be earning me any DM's :( and my name will not take the place on any upgrade wait-list :( except the list where they look at everyone's performance and radomly look at folks to fire in order to save some $ and cut costs :( . So, in the end you will be the one feeling good. :(

King, not at my airline...where you will be treated well :)...of course with a payrate something better than Mesa ;) btw I interned for JetBlue this summer at $17 a hour...thats where the $ is from

Let's try to keep this thread on topic please. Thank you.

King, not at my airline...where you will be treated well :)...of course with a payrate something better than Mesa ;) btw I interned for JetBlue this summer at $17 a hour...thats where the $ is from

The internship, was it part of your college program? What kind of internship was it? I know the schools like FIT, Riddle all have options where you can go on an internship with the airlines and assist in daily operations and that kind of stuff. I am not sure what that exactly means, but it sounds enticing and something I would definately consider during my college education.

MODS: We're having a great conversation here, and in some cases the people are helping me out in some stuff I'm just plain curious about. As the starter of the thread, can I at least ask you to not close the thread? Let's just say that even though we slightly derailed the discussion of buckets on the ORD-PHL-LAS-MSP trip, I feel that this chat we're having is still very on topic. Thanks. :cool:

What kind of parents would allow a child to ferry them all over the country at their expense? Just curious, this is so illogical.

What kind of parents would allow a child to ferry them all over the country at their expense? Just curious, this is so illogical.

Just remember, different strokes for different folks. Back in the day, when I was about his age, this would've been real fun IMO. However, that was the day when reasonable food was served on most every flight and service made things infinitely more comfortable. If you got stuck at a connecting airport for any reason, the airline simply put you up at the nearest Sheraton or
Marriott without blinking and comped you $30 for dinner in the dining room, to boot.

Back then, most kids would've loved to have such a romp....and, if the parents had enough time to spare, many would also have enjoyed the experience -- particularly if it brought their child so much pleasure.

All that said, I can't even imagine pulling one of those stunts these days where the customer is enemy #1 and nothing seems to ever go as planned. I've been stuck too many times in LGA/DCA/PHL after waiting 5 hours for my 7:20pm flight to depart the gate only to finally cancel (of course) at midnight.
No way in heck would I agree to such a circuitous routing these days ... just opening up pandora's box for misconnects, etc.

Lastly, best of luck to KingLJ himself that he and his actually make all these flights without wasting half their midlives in terminals.

Just remember, different strokes for different folks. Back in the day, when I was about his age, this would've been real fun IMO. However, that was the day when reasonable food was served on most every flight and service made things infinitely more comfortable. If you got stuck at a connecting airport for any reason, the airline simply put you up at the nearest Sheraton or
Marriott without blinking and comped you $30 for dinner in the dining room, to boot.

Back then, most kids would've loved to have such a romp....and, if the parents had enough time to spare, many would also have enjoyed the experience -- particularly if it brought their child so much pleasure.

All that said, I can't even imagine pulling one of those stunts these days where the customer is enemy #1 and nothing seems to ever go as planned. I've been stuck too many times in LGA/DCA/PHL after waiting 5 hours for my 7:20pm flight to depart the gate only to finally cancel (of course) at midnight.
No way in heck would I agree to such a circuitous routing these days ... just opening up pandora's box for misconnects, etc.

Lastly, best of luck to KingLJ himself that he and his actually make all these flights without wasting half their midlives in terminals.

I did a few MRs when I was a student - the great part of it was that it didn't really matter if I misconnected. No meetings to attend, no agenda. Extra night in PHL? That's what Priceline is for :D

I will edit out my post but please tell me where to understand this book?

Just remember, different strokes for different folks. Back in the day, when I was about his age, this would've been real fun IMO. However, that was the day when reasonable food was served on most every flight and service made things infinitely more comfortable. If you got stuck at a connecting airport for any reason, the airline simply put you up at the nearest Sheraton or
Marriott without blinking and comped you $30 for dinner in the dining room, to boot.

Back then, most kids would've loved to have such a romp....and, if the parents had enough time to spare, many would also have enjoyed the experience -- particularly if it brought their child so much pleasure.

All that said, I can't even imagine pulling one of those stunts these days where the customer is enemy #1 and nothing seems to ever go as planned. I've been stuck too many times in LGA/DCA/PHL after waiting 5 hours for my 7:20pm flight to depart the gate only to finally cancel (of course) at midnight.
No way in heck would I agree to such a circuitous routing these days ... just opening up pandora's box for misconnects, etc.

Lastly, best of luck to KingLJ himself that he and his actually make all these flights without wasting half their midlives in terminals.

Thanks for the friendly post. I do feel the customer is the #1 enemy possibly in the eye's of some of sandcastle's best(read worst for best :D ), but in the eyes of everyday FA's, agents's pilot's and other staff customer IS NOT the #1 enemy, and is not an enemy at all. Luckily all of our trips have gone well except for 1, and that matter was resolved. PHL is the best place for our connection(now we don't think of it as a connecting city, but as the most pleasant part of the travelling to destination- portion of the trip) because we have a really close friend there who almost always meets with us. We email almost every week and it is great. I cant wait till she comes to visit us in Chicago.

For those who are going to the point thinking were are some billionaries anwser me why I dont book F on a luxury airline. I wont say we are poor, but are not celebrities either. We do crazy routing for the status, and we use vouchers sometimes, or sometimes we just get the best possible fare by booking ahead.

One thing about me is. Kinglobjaw = Advance Purchase Low Economy Fares
Kinglobjaw never = walk up fares, 7 day fares or even 14 day advanced a fares. The closest to dept we have ever bought for traditional, non-emergency travel was 15 days prior to. The Jamaica trip was booked about 110 days prior to flight using $ not miles. Thats how we tried to save on that flight.

This thread is no longer serving a purpose related to US and the DM program. Let's all move on to other issues, please.

AZ Travels the World
US Moderator