Mileage Run Discussion - MR for UA flights by Dec 31

Didnt plan well this year, but I'm determined to maintain 1K this year. Need a MR for 23K miles :(. I can travel from Dec 15-22 and 26-30. Looking to complete in shortest time for reasonable $$$. I'm horrible at trying to find routes. Can anyone help? :confused:

Ideally, I'd like to start from BWI, DCA, or IAD

I am also pretty horrible at finding routes... when I don't know where you live. ;)

Didnt plan well this year, but I'm determined to maintain 1K this year. Need a MR for 23K miles :(. I can travel from Dec 15-22 and 26-30. Looking to complete in shortest time for reasonable $$$. I'm horrible at trying to find routes. Can anyone help? :confused:I would also like some info on this, similar dates, but can start ex-FRA, BOM (or any Indian city), BKK, CGK, SIN, KUL, YYZ, EWR...

I have one SIN-USA all on UA scheduled for end-Dec07 (you guys should consider one, if possible), which serves my commuting purpose, but not all upgrades have cleared.

I have a bunch of LH SWU's (01/08) to use, so prefer LH routes - too bad LH routes are being limited by them, and are showing Y at over $3-4k r/t from India!

Any ideas appreciated!

Btw, you guys should try the LAX-HKG run, which gets you promo miles....too late for the Biz fare (21 day advance purchase?), I think...

Didnt plan well this year, but I'm determined to maintain 1K this year. Need a MR for 23K miles :(. I can travel from Dec 15-22 and 26-30. Looking to complete in shortest time for reasonable $$$. I'm horrible at trying to find routes. Can anyone help? :confused:

Need to know where you're starting from, or able to start from.

Need to know where you're starting from, or able to start from.

I feel so silly for leaving such an important fact out of my listing. I'm starting from BWI, IAD, or DCA. Looking for miracles.

How many segments? 23K miles is a lot. A lot. Segments may be a better option.

How many segments? 23K miles is a lot. A lot. Segments may be a better option.

Have only 60 segments. I may decide to do just two separate international flights or an ingenious MR. Any thoughts?:confused:

Have only 60 segments. I may decide to do just two separate international flights or an ingenious MR. Any thoughts?:confused:


I think you're best bet would be a run to SIN (or anywhere in Asia) and back and then add on a domestic run. Farecompare has some cheap flights to SIN listed, but when I tried to actually book them, they were a lot. So checkout post #85 in this thread on consolidators:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113379&highlight=consolidators&page=6

This will get you roughly 20k EQMs. Then you'd have to find something domestically for the other 3k. This shouldn't be a problem, I believe there are many such runs posted recently.

I need 12k miles out of JFK/LGA on UA...would prefer to stay domestic...anything good out there?

For you the easiest MRs would start with you doing a 1 way fare to the West coast.

Keep in mind one rule about international fares and that is that you are allowed UP TO BUT NOT INCLUDING 24 hours for a stopover.

Using this, you could take a fare to LHR from the west coast, OVERNIGHTING AT HOME and thus minimizing your jet lag. AFAIK, the only daytime flight to London goes from IAD. You will need a Saturday night there.

If you really wanted to cheap out, you could fly over a Saturday night, arriving LHR on Sunday morning, then fly back when you want.

And don't forget that you could also intertwine a run on another *A carrier like Air Canada. Your biggest problem is that you have left this so late that you may have trouble getting W class on UA or L/A class on AC.

joelfreak, why not look at fares to SEA/PDX via DFW and DEN? On UA, you are allowed 4 transfers for each direction; you will probably need the help of a good TA. You could also then do a round-trip out of SEA for example, to FLL/MIA/MCO, via DFW and maybe IAD. Then you could go home from the west coast.

I was playing around with nyc-sna on efares this weekend, with some odd routings I have it doing 10 segs and about 8-10k miles...but thats still not enough...but it was one hell of a routing! :-P

Have a look at the one below labelled:

7-segment UA -- perfect run!

It's not bad, and you should be able to find something similar.

As far as United, IAD is a better city to work from because [I did this last year from Vancouver] you can get to the west coast and be back home in your bed that same night, saving hotel costs, and earning about 5000 miles in 1 day, which is not bad overall.

I found some extremely cheap MRs 2 weeks ago between Portland ME (PWM) and SEA or Manchester NH and SEA which came to about $225, no minimum stay, and allowed routings like PWM-IAD-DFW-DEN-SEA, but I haven't checked lately.

UA still has cheap fares to Manchester. I'm doing a MR there tomorrow.
$210 or $214 from LAX, available December (and January).

UA still has cheap fares to Manchester. I'm doing a MR there tomorrow.
$210 or $214 from LAX, available December (and January).

Good one, Bonnie. You'd better take your woolies. Are you going by a southern city like DFW? I tried pricing them in Apollo and it works.

Sample booking:
1 UA1155L 15DEC SEASFO SS1 600A 810A * SA
2 UA 478L 15DEC SFODFW SS1 1040A 404P * SA
3 UA7550L 15DEC DFWIAD SS1 450P 847P * SA
OPERATED BY UNITED EXPRESS/SHUTTLE AMERICA
4 UA7915L 15DEC IADMHT SS1 950P 1121P * SA
OPERATED BY UNITED EXPRESS/TRANS STATES
5 UA7431L 16DEC MHTORD SS1 653A 830A * SU
OPERATED BY UNITED EXPRESS/MESA AIRLINES
6 UA 341L 16DEC ORDDFW SS1 945A 1219P * SU
7 UA 511L 16DEC DFWSEA SS1 401P 758P * SU
PLANE CHANGE DFW-DEN 752
DEN-SEA 735

SEA UA X/SFO UA X/DFW UA X/WAS UA MHT 78.14LRA3NR3 UA X/CHI UA
X/DFW UA SEA 78.14LRA3NR3 USD156.28END ZP
SEASFODFWIADMHTORDDFWDEN
FARE USD 156.28 TAX 10.00AY TAX 11.72US TAX 18.00XF TAX 27.20ZP
TOT USD 223.20

SEA SFO 678
SFO DFW 1464
DFW IAD 1172
IAD MHT 418
MHT ORD 843
ORD DFW 802
DFW DEN 641
DEN SEA 1024
--------
TOTAL AIR MILES: 7042




joelfreak, SNA is a very good choice, but that 3-day advance fare expires soon; the last day of travel is 15DEC.

$DLGASNA+UA
UA NYC-SNA DEPART 10DEC
PUBLIC FARES
TAXES/FEES NOT INCLUDED
USD FARE MIN/ XL TVL DATES
CX FARE BASIS AP MAX FE FIRST/LAST
1 UA 221.40R LR14NX 14+ --/-- ++ -/-
2 UA 221.40R LRA3N10 03+ --/30 ++ 28NOV/15DECC
3 UA 240.00R TR7NX 07+ --/-- ++ -/-
4 UA 306.98R SRA14N10 14+ --/-- ++ -/15MARC
5 UA 359.07R WRA7N10 07+ --/-- ++ -/15MARC

LRA3N10 110.70 221.40 R UA ROUTE:0035
VALID SINGLE CONNECT CITIES FROM: NYC TO SNA
ABE ALB ATL AUS BDL BIL BOI BOS BUF BUR CAK CHI
CID CLE CLT CMH COS CRW DAY DEN DFW DSM DTT EWR
FAT GEG GSO HAR HFD HOU ICT IND LAS LAX LNK MIA
MKC MKE MLI MSN MSP MSY OAK OKC OMA ONT ORF ORL
PHF PHL PHX PIT RDU RIC RNO ROA ROC SAN SAT SBA
SFO SJC SLC SMF STL SYR TPA TUL TUS WAS

Any idea what the best routing is on this? Any way I can force 12k out of it? Or anything else domestic (other than HNL)

joelfreak, SNA is a very good choice, but that 3-day advance fare expires soon; the last day of travel is 15DEC.

$DLGASNA+UA
UA NYC-SNA DEPART 10DEC
PUBLIC FARES
TAXES/FEES NOT INCLUDED
USD FARE MIN/ XL TVL DATES
CX FARE BASIS AP MAX FE FIRST/LAST
1 UA 221.40R LR14NX 14+ --/-- ++ -/-
2 UA 221.40R LRA3N10 03+ --/30 ++ 28NOV/15DECC
3 UA 240.00R TR7NX 07+ --/-- ++ -/-
4 UA 306.98R SRA14N10 14+ --/-- ++ -/15MARC
5 UA 359.07R WRA7N10 07+ --/-- ++ -/15MARC

LRA3N10 110.70 221.40 R UA ROUTE:0035
VALID SINGLE CONNECT CITIES FROM: NYC TO SNA
ABE ALB ATL AUS BDL BIL BOI BOS BUF BUR CAK CHI
CID CLE CLT CMH COS CRW DAY DEN DFW DSM DTT EWR
FAT GEG GSO HAR HFD HOU ICT IND LAS LAX LNK MIA
MKC MKE MLI MSN MSP MSY OAK OKC OMA ONT ORF ORL
PHF PHL PHX PIT RDU RIC RNO ROA ROC SAN SAT SBA
SFO SJC SLC SMF STL SYR TPA TUL TUS WAS [/QUOTE]

Didnt plan well this year, but I'm determined to maintain 1K this year. Need a MR for 23K miles :(. I can travel from Dec 15-22 and 26-30. Looking to complete in shortest time for reasonable $$$. I'm horrible at trying to find routes. Can anyone help? :confused:

Ideally, I'd like to start from BWI, DCA, or IAD

phoking, your best bet is to break it up into 2-3 runs.

See this recent run from BWI: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=766095

It may be too late to take advantage of pricing for this weekend but you should give it a try and try to see by the end of the year if you could squeeze 2-3 of these in.

Otherwise, the choices (international) become really expensive.

1. JFK>FRA>SIN>FRA>JFK on SQ, DEC 26 - DEC 30, $1,619.30, miles=20,476. May be more than you want to pay but it gets it down to 2,524 miles needed. Problem is getting to NYC cheaply from DC on those dates. Based on a quick search, I come up with:

2. IAD>JFK>IAD on UA, DEC 26 - DEC 30, $267, miles=1,000. Leaves you in need of 1,524 miles, which you could do cheaply with:

3. BWI>CLT>TPA>PHL>BWI ON US, DEC 16 - DEC 16, $193, miles = 2,439.

Total miles = 23,915; cost = $2,079.

1. JFK>FRA>SIN>FRA>JFK on SQ, DEC 26 - DEC 30, $1,619.30, miles=20,476. May be more than you want to pay but it gets it down to 2,524 miles needed. Problem is getting to NYC cheaply from DC on those dates. Based on a quick search, I come up with:

2. IAD>JFK>IAD on UA, DEC 26 - DEC 30, $267, miles=1,000. Leaves you in need of 1,524 miles, which you could do cheaply with:

3. BWI>CLT>TPA>PHL>BWI ON US, DEC 16 - DEC 16, $193, miles = 2,439.

Total miles = 23,915; cost = $2,079.


Mathew_DC, thanks alot for the tip! I will look into it.

1. JFK>FRA>SIN>FRA>JFK on SQ, DEC 26 - DEC 30, $1,619.30, miles=20,476. May be more than you want to pay but it gets it down to 2,524 miles needed. Is this really a mileage-earning fare??

Fantastic, if so.