What are the typical routings to maximize miles between the two cities on UA.

Thanks for your help.

Most people elect to fly non-stop as it is united's ps premium service on this flight. If I had to quickly guess a good mileage run with a legal routing, I would look for SFO-FLL-NYC, but you probably will be on US instead of UA.

It will only pick up an addl 1000 miles but you can do SFO-DEN-MSY-IAD-JFK and back.

My vote goes to bouncing around on the west coast a bit. I don't know legal routings, but something that involves SFO, LAX, ONT, SBA, SAN, SJC, or OAK might give you the opportunity to rack up a few extra miles. One option is to start in SJC or OAK, go south, then back to SFO and you can still take ps service across the country (if you can upgrade the SFO-JFK flight).

I tend to avoid the regional hops and stick to mainline flights with much connection time when trying to "maximize" miles whenever possible. When ATC kicks in, the short legs are often held much longer than long haul aircraft that are already flying vs a 30 min flight that is still sitting at it's origin airport.

Also as to the PS comment. Aye, there are some flights that it isn't worth the stress of the extra connection. Single transcon flights to me provide the extra personal time for me at home and the stability of no mis-connected segments that I look for. When I have to make a connection, that's when I look at padding the routing a bit, especially when the connection times are "sweet" (for me that is 45-60 min on a domestic leg.)

Also as to the PS comment. Aye, there are some flights that it isn't worth the stress of the extra connection. Single transcon flights to me provide the extra personal time for me at home and the stability of no mis-connected segments that I look for. When I have to make a connection, that's when I look at padding the routing a bit, especially when the connection times are "sweet" (for me that is 45-60 min on a domestic leg.)

Not to mention how awful PS coach is compared to the E+ on the 320 or standard 757 to EWR. I avoid PS unless I know I can get upgraded.

I will frequently do something like JFK-LAX-SFO. Simple, but adds a little relatively painlessly.

Something like: SFO -PDX -SEA-IAD-JFK is probably valid, painful, but full of additional miles.