Alright, I've read through a lot of the threads on how to go on a MR and what they are exactly.

I was wondering however if someone could walk through one with me?

Let's say I want to do a CO run to get 10,000 miles (just to make it simple). Where do I start? Do I go to the CO website and start hunting? Or do I go to the ITA page and start from there?

Just a basic walk through would be great! :D

No problem :)

Here's what I do:

1. Watch the MR forum closely for the latest deals. For example it looks like there are some good fares on the MCO-SAN sector.

2. As I am also based in Houston I have accepted the fact I'll almost have to position myself to get in on the best fares. In the MCO-SAN example this would simply mean I'll have to also find a good fare from IAH/AUS/SAT to MCO or SAN to start the run.

3. Once I find the dates which have the fare available I then look up the routing rules. Expedia use to have it for free but they have since then changed the site so it no longer displays them. However ExpertFlyer (www.expertflyer.com), a pay subscription site, does list the routing rules as does this one (www.expedia.ca).

4. Study the routing rules and determine which route will yield the most miles. Once you have done that you can then use ITA to search for fare availability along your specific routing. In the MCO-SAN example let's say the rules allowed you to connect through EWR and IAH on your way to and from SAN. You'd go to ITA and type this in the from box: MCO::CO EWR CO IAH CO+ and this in the to box: SAN::CO IAH CO EWR CO+

5. Once I've decided on trying to get in on a fare I have to make sure there's availability. For my purposes ITA and FareCompare both work well for this. For specific routings I normally use ITA as you can specify the exact route (see #4).

6. Once you've found the date with availability on the routing you want you then go to the web to book the fare. In CO's case you'd go to www.continental.com, click on the multi-search tab and enter the routing manually. For example typing in: MCO-EWR (for flight 1) EWR-IAH (for flight 2) IAH-SAN (flight 3)...and so on.

7. Book the fare and then you're ready to go

Alright, I've read through a lot of the threads on how to go on a MR and what they are exactly.

I was wondering however if someone could walk through one with me?

Let's say I want to do a CO run to get 10,000 miles (just to make it simple). Where do I start? Do I go to the CO website and start hunting? Or do I go to the ITA page and start from there?

Just a basic walk through would be great! :D

If you want the quickest way to see all of the fares from a particular airport on a particular airline then: Farecompare is the easiest by far to use. (http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html?departure=IAH&fares=Domestic&carrierFilter=CheapestFarePerMarket&filter=ALL&ppm=9999&savings=99999&distance=0&sortby=Destination)

This will allow for your feet to get wet rather easily for a newbie MR!

Since you wanted CO, the link above will show fares for IAH.

Now that you have a starting point for fares, you can then choose to show which airlines you want to use, and how to organize the listings. I always choose PPM (Price Per Mile). Which is the most important thing to me.

Now once you choose a destination, you can have fare compare see if the days are there for which you want to go. My suggestion is that once you pick a day look to the upper right hand corner of the screen you will see the fare code/basis and any restrictions with that fare.

Here is where FareCompare might let's you down sometimes: It isn't very good with multiple segments, nor does it always show the correct fare. Sometimes I see a killer fare stated for UA, but when I click I see it is for NW. But other than that it is a newbie MR's bible.

Now if you need more information on what routings you can use for the MR, etc... ITA is excellent!

So here are some tips to having a successful MR:

1. If asking for help make sure you have an idea on how much money you are looking to spend, what restrictions you might have, i.e. time. Also, have an idea where you want to go. I see people get snippy when the OP asks for help but doesn't have any information or are vauge with what they need help with.

2. Look at farecompare to start, check the CO website because you can sometimes find good deals.

3. Subscribe to the thread! You would be better off to do that, you don't know how many times I kicked myself because I signed on two days after a killer deal on UA, only to find out that the fare is gone.

So good luck and happy MRing!:D

Or you can just do things the easy way - get on a plane and fly!

While I read the MR Forum regularly I seldom find anything I can use on it (except the cheap flights to FRA thaqat were posted here in January, I bought 3!).

Everything depends on your particulars, where you live, what airline you fly, and what I think is mostly underlooked, how much your time is worth?

For example, we often see multi-day, double digit number of segment runs that start and end somewhere obscure. For me those are not practical. On the other hand, given where I live and how much time I can devote to my hobby, I do mostly single day runs either to Florida or California.

After a couple of years of this I know what itins are likely to pop up on UA's website so I mostly just monitor it.

I also don't pay that much attention to cpm, given my particulars I consider 4.5 cpm acceptable (as long as I get a good seat and don't have to fly a redeye).

Great information! I am going to try and find some good stuff out to PDX or SEA, or maybe a LGW trip with a quick turnaround.

These were just the kind of posts I was looking for! Thanks a lot! ^

[You know you are too much on flyertalk when you start having knowledge about airlines outside of your alliance ;)]

Note that my comments probably get booed down for not being true MR style, but as a women i like to put in a bit more common sense and look at the return value. ;) ;) ;) (Or you could say I am just too chicken for all this flying in here *g*)

Ask the right question aka give as much information as you can
You should notice that you did get information on how to gain miles by flying. As you did not specify if or if not you need qualifying miles, everybody assumes you do. It is possible that you meant miles for another purpose - in which the answer might be quite simple.

Know what you need

Try to learn the basics of your ffp because sometimes you do not look for different choices. Also as I said, decide if you need EQM or not - some bonus offers are for RDM only, but such a bonus offer makes a pure MR nicer.

Also plan ahead of time so you do not need to run in the end against time.

Do decide on how much money and time you are willing to spend for what exactly. Being too much around these people here can make you an addict for stuff you do not really need.

I really really really need to get of the idea out of my head of making BA Gold because it will only have limited value. It is much cheaper for that added value to get myself an AMex Platinum.

I am heading for Platinum on AA later this year. Getting to top tier of AA (fly 100K miles) will have a very tangible benefit: 8 system wide upgrades- this makes 50K more miles interesting and valuable with the flights.

Consider alternatives
You may be into wicked MR runs with dozens of cities in one day - I myself am more afraid of missing connections and do get sick on planes so I am more into "where do I have to go anyhow and what can I attach to it".

In case of my current main program BA that means going from Europe to west coast, there is a run through MCO-MIA-Lax-SFO with a Kup fare which yields a lot of score on the tier points for BA.

I know this because I paid attention to the AA board although most of that is useless to me at the moment. It helps me though to build up knowledge about where there are often problems and where there are possible routings and clever connections.

Know thy alliances
Routings on different airlines will not help you much. It will help you a lot if you know which airlines are 'good' for you.

My example BA: I react on everything where it says Y/Kup and America, because that is good. I do not react on Economy on other oneworld airlines as they do nothing for my tier points.

As I am switching over to AA I checked what airlines do earn miles with them and how much to get a feeling for if or if not I can use them.

By reading the alliance group I get information about upcoming airlines as well and was able to check benefitiary elements in there. With new joining airlines there is the hope for special offerings - informed I know what I can take advantage off.

Know about the releasedates of sales and fares
Airlines release fares in specific intervals and do have sales. Get a feeling for when they will be available.


Book by telephone
I know a lot of people despise this as it costs money, but I spend most of my bigger flights being booked on the phone. As said before, I prefer things I need anyhow and very long flights.

In case of my first plat challenge on AA I know I will need a specific fare class, I know which town I want to go through due to the plane I want - which means I will be able to tinker around the website all day long, or just let the phone agent do the work.

Summary
All of this are not "how to find the fares" but is more about getting aquainted with flyertalk and your programm which in the long run will help you get the information you need to run with that.

If you find something reading FT, put it away in a kind of MR folder. Make a plan of where you would like to go an see some places -they might be more fun than just mileage runs. ;)

Book by telephone
I know a lot of people despise this as it costs money, but I spend most of my bigger flights being booked on the phone. As said before, I prefer things I need anyhow and very long flights.

In case of my first plat challenge on AA I know I will need a specific fare class, I know which town I want to go through due to the plane I want - which means I will be able to tinker around the website all day long, or just let the phone agent do the work.



This is probably the BIGGEST no-no on mistake fares however, just an FYI to the OP.

New to MR'ing too...and was wondering if $.038/mile eqm was worth it? Found a PHL-MSP-LAX-MSP-PHL same day for around $180all in.

I did it...and found out that MR'ing wasnt really for me! We had a mechanical on MSP-LAX, putting us behind an hour or so. I worried the WHOLE way there that I would miss the LAX-MSP, BUT...as it turned out, the plane was turning around and that was my plane!

Not bad...4 legs in F...5000+EQM's, 12500+RDM's for a day and $180!

that's a pretty big "except"!!!
While I read the MR Forum regularly I seldom find anything I can use on it (except the cheap flights to FRA thaqat were posted here in January, I bought 3!)

was wondering if $.038/mile eqm was worth it?

If you think it was worth it, then it was. I know we're considered heretics, but to us, cost per mile really isn't important - we won't pick an "expensive" trip, but we rarely go bottom-of-the-barrel either. If we need the EQM, we'll take whatever flight(s) will give them to us in comfort (no red-eyes or intercontinental Coach). That's also why we don't do complex itineraries - two simple trips is far better than one complicated one in our book.

One of the basic things that I learned when trying to construct mileage runs was learning about fare construction rules first. I still haven't seen a good description of this on this site and finally got it when I went to a Mileage Running Seminar graciously offered by Viajero Joven of Flyertalk. For example, I knew what an open jaw was but didn't know that an open jaw ticket is an average of the price of a round trip ticket between the two cities. If you haven't already, maybe finding a fare construction primer would be a good start.

Phachak

Never forget to allow enough time for connections, or a MX/WX delay - if doing positioning for a MR.

I do the occassional (not truly MR routing ) at 4.5-5 c per mile to get from A to B...for example from IAH I can (on NW) route IAH-DTW-MCO and get about 4000 eqm's vs 1400 direct (and all for under 200 $ return)

In case of my first plat challenge on AA I know I will need a specific fare class, I know which town I want to go through due to the plane I want - which means I will be able to tinker around the website all day long, or just let the phone agent do the work.

Hoping you are aware of the change in AA's challenge rules starting this year, where challenge EQPs need to be accumulated on AA metal.


Good point about knowing what you are chasing after.

People chasing Elite Qualifying Miles to re-qual for Executive Platinum (the top tier) may be willing to pay quite a bit more total cost to get enough of those Elite Qualifying Point/Miles/Segments, often going more than 4 or 5cents/EQP or EQM

Those who are cheaper may work a little harder to maximize the total Redeemable Miles from their flights, seeking less than 2 cents/mile.

I eked out an excellent $0.0099934/mile last year, "barely" (<56k) requalifying for Plat for the first time (gained by elusive double-challenge), but racking up nearly a quarter million miles total from those flights.

Hi, i got a newbie question as well.
I see lots of ppl mentioning the word "redeye". What does this exactly mean? I did a search of course but found no definition on that.

As well, when ppl mention a route ex-CMB, for exmaple, does that mean that the route departs form CMB, or the route excludes CMB?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Red Eye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_flight
A red-eye flight is a flight operated by an airline late at night or very early in the morning, during the period from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time. The term "red-eye" derives from the fatigue symptom of having red eyes.

... when ppl mention a route ex-CMB, for exmaple, does that mean that the route departs form CMB...
You got it first time. This is correct.