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LM F and J routes (and the occasional trick-it) Rebooted v2.0

Old May 26, 2014, 8:47 am
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Last edit by: SingaporeDon
Originally Posted by Moderator2
Every forum on Flyertalk has a personality. A forum gains a personality through user input over time, and Lifemiles is a very definitive example of how users have developed a unique community.

While Flyertalk boards actively encourage sharing of info, the Lifemiles community has developed and thrived via obscuring of certain data elements. It may not be easy for new participants to break through the codes and gain knowledge of the program's quirks, but the overall board community has adopted this unique approach. And frankly, that is not going to change overnight.

If a FT member wants to participate on this board, then they will need to respect other users. Hence, posts that run counter to this community's standards, will be removed.
Region definitions
C1 North America
C1.5 Caribbean, Bermuda
C2 Europe
C2.5 Middle East
C3 Asia
C4 South America
C5 Africa
C6 Oceania

2X, 3X: in the context of this LifeMiles thread, 2X and 3X refer to any 2nd and 3rd legs of a one-way award ticket.

LifeMiles' Star Alliance Award Chart

LifeMiles' old Star Alliance Award Chart (before Oct 15 2014) // Table of changes

Cash & Miles redemptions: the price per mile purchased during award booking varies significantly depending on how many miles are purchased. The "sweet spots" are between 38% and 58% of the total mileage required, where miles are purchased for 1.5 cents. See here for some examples.

Beware of Cabotage: LifeMiles has been known to issue tickets that constitute Cabotage, and at least one instance of denied boarding has been reported, stranding the passenger. An easily-seen example is travel on Copa from LAX to SJU (via PTY).

Understand Cabotage: Departing country 1, transiting country 2, returning to country 1 (no stopping) *is* cabotage (example: depart JFK, connect in YYZ to return to ORD, or depart Miami, connect in Bogota, return to San Francisco). On the other hand, departing country 1, going to completely unrelated country 2, and ending up in country 3, is not cabotage. So if you fly JFK-JNB-ZRH, for instance, this is completely not cabotage.

Availability: Seeing availability for *A award seats elsewhere is no guarantee they are accessible on Lifemiles. For instance award space shown on ANA often is not accessible on Lifemiles. Similarly, finding award space on single legs doesn't mean you'll get award space on the combined itinerary. And no, there is no way to overcome that.

Screenshot Method
Send email to [email protected] with attached screenshots on Lifemiles website of each individual leg showing availability. Also, screenshot showing no availability as one booking. Include passenger names, gender and DOB and copy of passenger passport. They will either call you for payment or email the itinerary and give you 3 days to call up and make payment by CC.

NOTE: This previous thread has been closed; it can be read here LM F and J routes (and the occasional trick-it)
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LM F and J routes (and the occasional trick-it) Rebooted v2.0

Old May 27, 2014, 12:56 am
  #31  
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Originally Posted by JessicaTam
I am slowly getting the hang of the coding. Is there a primer somewhere?
The coding won't do you a lot of good anymore... Lots of stuff got fixed thanks to... well... read the other thread
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Old May 27, 2014, 1:02 am
  #32  
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Originally Posted by Maayan
"footrest" gives out a very focused location. That's "further the coding"? Pseudo Nim's term is cleverly looking us in the eye without being apparent, and WWE's term is a fantastic progression from that.

"ursa" translates directly into a current term that's used here extensively, so does not make better coding either.

Sorry... thumbs down to both...
The key word is "attempt". Remember, you actually know both so they seem easy to you. The coding doesn't matter for people who know. I'm attempting to move a step away from what is used. It doesn't affect now, it hopefully affects pages from now. But really, I could call them "the birds" and "the bees" and as long as I told enough people that was the new code, then we could use that.

I shall simply go with plan B, which is an unsubscribe, stop posting, go to my private forum, and continue the FT brain drain. Especially considering we have someone who has turned himself into a troll here, the discussion will be too easily derailed until people stop responding to him. Good luck y'all, I got a lot of Krug and caviar to go drink and eat .

JessicaTam, give me some time to get home and get unjetlagged . Surprised the other discussion isn't better though? I haven't checked in in a while unfortunately.
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Old May 27, 2014, 1:42 am
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by zagy
The coding won't do you a lot of good anymore... Lots of stuff got fixed thanks to... well... read the other thread
The last few pages of the other thread was very depressing, but I won't revisit that.

There are still some LM tricks/miscoded cities still around that need to be protected.
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Old May 27, 2014, 3:54 am
  #34  
 
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I don't know really... After all the hiding, secrets, PMs about revealing too much, even blog posts, it was ultimately a DOT complaint that killed it, so ...
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Old May 27, 2014, 3:58 am
  #35  
 
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For anyone seeking non tricked J availability on SQ, I've noticed that many seats are opened less than 7 days before departure.
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Old May 27, 2014, 4:18 am
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by Wilko Pali Sedef
For anyone seeking non tricked J availability on SQ, I've noticed that many seats are opened less than 7 days before departure.
Is that intra-Asia only or long-haul as well?
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Old May 27, 2014, 4:30 am
  #37  
 
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Originally Posted by FrugalLuxury
Is that intra-Asia only or long-haul as well?
I've seen both, routes I looked at, SIN-TYO, SIN-ICN, CDG-SIN
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Old May 27, 2014, 4:38 am
  #38  
 
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I've seen both, routes I looked at, SIN-TYO, SIN-ICN, CDG-SIN
Good to know! Thanks
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Old May 27, 2014, 6:36 am
  #39  
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Originally Posted by Simon1
my question was the last in the old thread so I will repeat:

I would like to be advised if in the current situation with LM is a good idea to buy miles + bonuses, it's another 6 days to go.
I wish we could teach them a lesson, crashing their revenue budget by abstaining from buying. Unfortunately it will not unfix the fixing.

I am not buying anything in this promotion.

Last edited by WingedWorldExplorer; May 27, 2014 at 6:46 am
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Old May 27, 2014, 7:19 am
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by WingedWorldExplorer
I wish we could teach them a lesson, crashing their revenue budget by abstaining from buying. Unfortunately it will not unfix the fixing.

I am not buying anything in this promotion.
I agree... Without the tricks, LM is actually a very crappy FFP and wouldn't buy the miles there.
E.g. "no mixed cabin bookings" is now quite a pain for me. Trying to redeem 2 F tickets for FRA-JFK/YYZ/IAD. Because of this, I would have to buy a separate one way ticket to FRA with the cost of about 150/200.
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Old May 27, 2014, 7:29 am
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by TheBOSman
The key word is "attempt". Remember, you actually know both so they seem easy to you. The coding doesn't matter for people who know. I'm attempting to move a step away from what is used. It doesn't affect now, it hopefully affects pages from now. But really, I could call them "the birds" and "the bees" and as long as I told enough people that was the new code, then we could use that.

I shall simply go with plan B, which is an unsubscribe, stop posting, go to my private forum, and continue the FT brain drain. Especially considering we have someone who has turned himself into a troll here, the discussion will be too easily derailed until people stop responding to him. Good luck y'all, I got a lot of Krug and caviar to go drink and eat .

JessicaTam, give me some time to get home and get unjetlagged . Surprised the other discussion isn't better though? I haven't checked in in a while unfortunately.
Some people are just not appreciative or critical of others, but I appreciate what you are postings!
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Old May 27, 2014, 7:29 am
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by zagy
I agree... Without the tricks, LM is actually a very crappy FFP and wouldn't buy the miles there.
E.g. "no mixed cabin bookings" is now quite a pain for me. Trying to redeem 2 F tickets for FRA-JFK/YYZ/IAD. Because of this, I would have to buy a separate one way ticket to FRA with the cost of about 150/200.
I think that's alittle drastic. I think LM can still be very interesting as long as the 2 for 1 promotion keeps going.
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Old May 27, 2014, 7:41 am
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by mlqsko
It was the <insert your own word here> who filed the compliant that killed it.

I can't believe LM fixed so many tricks in span of a week. Literally a full list of possibilities going places. Tons of different airlines, departure/arrival points from anywhere to everywhere. They were like Swiss cheese. Simply amazing and so sad.

Jeff, I hope your mom is proud of you and I hope I never get to meet you.
I'm not really surprised by the number of fixes. Programming and architecture of big IT systems is what I do and the level of quality really is laughable at AV. Guessing by some of our corporate clients (even a couple of airlines), they probably have a small IT department, with 2-3 developers who don't have a lot of experience. Some of the stuff there (like trusting user input) is really the work of someone who doesn't have a clue.

Here's what I think happened:
- DOT contacted AV, who is now forced to respond
- the response to DOT can't really be handled by one of their clueless support agents but from someone who actually knows a thing or two
- the smart(er) person looks at the ticket and sends an angry email to the Head of the IT department (with the High Priority icon as well ) and copying one of the VPs
- the Head of the IT department gathers his two or three minions and says "come on guys... fix this... this is making us look stupid"
- so the devs take the route and check the bookings of this guy and take a look at what he did to get this dangerous route
- they also study what the hell "cabotage" is
- after a few hours, the lead developer maps out an "architecture" on how to prevent these types of bookings

My best guess is that they just inserted a couple of IF statements, which prevented some combinations, especially when selecting a carrier.

I wouldn't be surprised if this quick hack also disabled a couple of perfectly valid (non-tricked) routes.


Someone mentioned "costs of fixing it" in the old thread. The costs to fix their entire system really was minimal. And I'm talking about hours here, not days, weeks or months - even for someone who's clearly an amateur programmer.
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Old May 27, 2014, 12:10 pm
  #44  
 
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What happened? Away from my computer for a few days and tons of boomerangs are gone...
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Old May 27, 2014, 12:14 pm
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by katomoto
What happened? Away from my computer for a few days and tons of boomerangs are gone...
Not tons, but all of them.
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