Mileage Run Discussion - New to MRs. How do you find and purchase them?

Please excuse the noob question. If there's a FAQ on this I missed it.

I've not done a mileage run before. I fly out of ATL and always on DL. How do you go about tracking down these insane multi-airport uber-cheap fares and how do you purchase them? Do you buy lots of one-way segments, a round trip, use DL's site or a travel site? I see some fantastic runs listed for really good prices and would like to give it a shot but don't know how to really begin.

Thank you!

Did you look at the DL website?

Please excuse the noob question. If there's a FAQ on this I missed it.

I've not done a mileage run before. I fly out of ATL and always on DL. How do you go about tracking down these insane multi-airport uber-cheap fares and how do you purchase them? Do you buy lots of one-way segments, a round trip, use DL's site or a travel site? I see some fantastic runs listed for really good prices and would like to give it a shot but don't know how to really begin.

Thank you!

Typically, one finds a cheap fare, determines the routing rules, and then proceeds to look for dates where those routing rules can be maximized.

Piecing together lots of one way segments will almost certainly be more expensive than using a single fare rule for roundtrip travel (with the exception of various open jaw mistake fares that have popped up).

Please excuse the noob question. If there's a FAQ on this I missed it.

I've not done a mileage run before. I fly out of ATL and always on DL

Well, there are two stickies at the top of this forum, and that would be a good place to start @:-)

Of course you are a "hub captive," so it's going to be a lot more difficult for you. I know, I used to a CO hub captive at IAH. Now that I'm stuck in Dallas I get exposed to a lot more opportunities :D

Of course you can always do a positioning flight like I did last year to SEA to take advantage of $405 all in (posted in Mileage Run Deals forum) SEA-PEK :) But positioning flights can be expensive, and in my case there was a cost of a hotel to consider as well (IIRC I Pricelined something).

EmailKid

You don't spend a lot of time tracking down insane fares. You sign up for some "alert" services and let them email you fares and you can quickly scan the headlines from time to time to see if there is any worthwhile fare. Delta itself will send you fare sales, as will KLM. You should get the RSS feed for your Google Reader or whatever of the Mileage run deals page. Not this discussion page, the one where the deals are posted. Then you can see all the headlines in a moment, and see if Delta has anything going. Finally, you can go to Kayak Explore, put in your home airport and have them look for deals.

The rest of the how to is probably explained in the stickies, although I always hesitate to recommend stickies I haven't read recently, because of the high number of dead links and dead deals I've encountered over the years. But this ain't rocket science. Find the deal you want to work on, and then follow the stickies. Any questions arise, write up your work so far, and tell us where you got stuck, maybe we can help.

Good Luck.





Please excuse the noob question. If there's a FAQ on this I missed it.

I've not done a mileage run before. I fly out of ATL and always on DL. How do you go about tracking down these insane multi-airport uber-cheap fares and how do you purchase them? Do you buy lots of one-way segments, a round trip, use DL's site or a travel site? I see some fantastic runs listed for really good prices and would like to give it a shot but don't know how to really begin.

Thank you!

Read this forum every day until you figure it out. No, really. Have new threads pushed to you via RSS. Mostly it's being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes they'll be spoon fed to you, but since there's no (worthwhile) instruction book, usually not.

You hope and pray that someone posts a good deal in the mileage run forum:p Go to airfare watchdog and sign up for the newsletter of flights by price from your city. Id say watch for sales on southwest out of ATL and hope DL responds with a fare war.

What is it you're looking to get out of MR-ing? How much time and $$ are ou willing to spend on MRs?

Are you starting from scratch or do you already have some status with an airline? Are you trying to hit a certain status level or just trying to maximize your travel dollars?

Knowing your goals and your budget will help you determine the best plan of attack for choosing MRs.

Flying DL on ATL (I do this) you'll have to position to another city...

Flying DL on ATL (I do this) you'll have to position to another city...

Me, too, and it sucks. Sometimes I drive to BHM, but I took advantage of a TPA/SJU MR with a cheap positioning fare.

I'm a newbie here and got a couple of good pointers. Thanks for the OP for taking the arrows that pioneers usually get. hehehe