I am working on a software suite centered around earning status miles. I intend to work on it through the early months of 2011 so that when the second half of the year rolls around and people start doing serious mileage runs, I have a powerful and competitive tool to offer them
ALL THAT being said, I have just launched the very earliest most prototype demo hacked-together piece of code to start getting some feedback on it. All it does is help you find low-cpm itineraries on your favorite airline starting from your favorite airport.
Obviously many more features and a much nicer design to come, but for now I'd appreciate it if you would try it out and give your feedback. It's at...
Great idea. Testing it now. It appeared stuck on the page "Learning about your airport... This can take several minutes". At the bottom of the screen it showed the page loading as "done". Perhaps some spinning wheel or other indicator that the search is happening would be a good thing for this page. One function that you may want to add as well is including minimum miles/segment for elites.
On the result page, it would be good to have the total fare listed as well as the number of EQMs. Adding flight times would make it even more useful.
Programs: United Mileage Plus, VX Elevate, Starwood
Posts: 123
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seeksreal
Great idea. Testing it now. It appeared stuck on the page "Learning about your airport... This can take several minutes". At the bottom of the screen it showed the page loading as "done". Perhaps some spinning wheel or other indicator that the search is happening would be a good thing for this page. One function that you may want to add as well is including minimum miles/segment for elites.
On the result page, it would be good to have the total fare listed as well as the number of EQMs. Adding flight times would make it even more useful.
Thanks for checking it out! Those are all great ideas. Appreciate the feedback.
Programs: UA 1K; CO PLAT; AA GLD; WN; HH Gold; Mariott Silver; SPG Gold; Hyatt Gold
Posts: 143
I'm glad to hear that something is in work! I tested it a little bit already. Some feedback:
1) The first test, it was stuck on "Learning About Your Airport" (STL was the selection). After roughly 8 minutes, I refreshed the page and reinitiated the search -- the options came up in less than 5 seconds.
2) After selecting the airline (UA), it hung up again. I refreshed after 3 minutes and then got results.
3) I tried selecting a different airline (AA). It appeared to hang again. Only waited 1 minute this time, refreshed (reselected airport), then tried to select a third airline (CO). Results appeared in less than 5 seconds, but were for AA.
4) Tried re-selecting CO on my next attempt and it worked great (results in ~10 seconds).
5) Some feedback on some results:
a) A couple of my searches returned some results at > 120 cpm. I am pretty sure they did not fit in the top 20 MR opportunities.
b) A couple of results returned MR "lengths" of > 28 days.
I agree with previous posters suggestions for future development. A few others:
1) It would be helpful to add search conditions for MR date range, length (in nights), min/max EQM distance, and max cpm (would probably help search speed as well).
2) Truncate the cpm result to the hundredths of cents.
3) Perhaps add airline alliance selections to the airline list as well.
Nice start, though. I am excited to see how this develops. Please let us know if there is any specific testing or feedback you'd like from us going forward!
Very nice concept! Many similar comments as above - pages need to be refreshed to load, etc.
While things such as layout are easy enough to clean up, the main problem seems to be the fare-finding engine. The best result I got on UA out of BOS was 7.4 CPM to NAP, and the list finished off with a 3816 CPM run to PVD.
Programs: United Mileage Plus, VX Elevate, Starwood
Posts: 123
Quote:
Originally Posted by darrenhe
While things such as layout are easy enough to clean up, the main problem seems to be the fare-finding engine. The best result I got on UA out of BOS was 7.4 CPM to NAP, and the list finished off with a 3816 CPM run to PVD.
Yeah... the CPM numbers right now tend to be a bit higher than reality because I am using the great circle distance (i.e. physical distance between start and end airports) to calculate it. I am using very basic fare information at the moment so it is not possible to know connecting airports, however as soon as I move to a more advanced source of fare data I can calculate the real CPM which, except in the case of non-stop flights, will tend to be lower.
TalkBoard Member / Moderator: Alaska Mileage Plan; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: MDT / Amtrak: MJY
Programs: AS MVPG (founding but former 75K), UA PG/UC, AA, AGR, Nat'l Exec, Costco Exec, NPS Passport
Posts: 12,219
Quite interested to play around with this. I've been wondering how hard it would be to build something like this!
Here's a sample of the first four results I got for AS out of ANC:
Quote:
Mileage runs:
9.599156118143458 cents per mile on Alaska Airlines from ANC to SNA
leaving 06/17/11 and returning 06/28/11
9.74820143884892 cents per mile on Alaska Airlines from ANC to HNL
leaving 03/21/11 and returning 03/28/11
9.74820143884892 cents per mile on Alaska Airlines from ANC to HNL
leaving 04/14/11 and returning 04/17/11
9.74820143884892 cents per mile on Alaska Airlines from ANC to HNL
leaving 01/30/11 and returning 02/8/11
However, the best MR I've found out of ANC over the next two months is ANC-MCO. It's available for several dates (sample: 2/1-2/3) for $597.51. Using the GC nonstop mileage ANC-MCO-ANC, that works out to 7.8cpm, lower than anything found by the tool.
ANC-MIA-ANC is available at a slightly higher CPM, but outside of that, you're right in the ballpark with other city pairs. Some results are still missing (ANC-EWR, usually a decent deal, would be [on a nonstop] 10.1cpm through February and so should be listed in at least spot #5 in the tool's output, but nothing comes back for EWR at all), but doing a more apples-to-apples comparison (i.e. taking ANC-SNA, the first result in your list), I can't find any better fares for that city pair anywhere else, so it looks like you've found them.
So it looks like the tool is missing some city-pair data, but when it finds a city pair, it does a good job of finding the lowest fare (though it only shows a single date pair available at that fare, whereas the Low Fare Calendar on alaskaair.com shows plenty of availability from 5/23 all the way through end-of-sale (next November).
This tool has the potential to become HUGE here, though, with some refinement.
Yes, living in Alaska sometimes sucks. Alaska has us over a barrel, and they know it. Fortunately, I had an expiring 50% off discount voucher that is allowing me to visit MCO and earn 16,000 EQM in the process for just a little more than the regular ANC-MCO round-trip airfare is...
Programs: A flying Kettle for 2012! Priority Club Gold, National EC Exec, Amtrak
Posts: 1,447
I used MSP and Alaska. The search missed MSP-SEA which can regularly come in about 7cpm, the best result was LIH at 9.7cpm. Searching AA out of MSP stalled on me repeatedly. I also think some rounding of CPM would clean up the results, I doubt anyone needs to go beyond thousanths of a cent.
__________________
Oh no, ancient Atlanta was more than just a Delta hub.
Top results:
7.45xxxx to SIN, dates 1/26 - 2/15
7.51xxxx to CPT
8.52xxxx to MEL
9.50xxxx to PSP
10.30xxx to RDD
A cursory search on Kayak, using the dates provided by FareCruncher (for the SIN listed above), yielded the following for my first 4 searches:
6.07 to BKK*
6.67 to SIN
7.28 to SAN* [typically the cheapest domestic listed on FareCompare]
7.81 to MUC*
* BKK, SAN, MUC were not listed amongst the results for my search.
Suggestions:
1. Add a check-box for "Elite Status" on an airline which may then yield a 500-mile minimum for short-hops. I know this drastically affects the CPM when I visit family in NC.
2. Ability to search by Alliance.
3. Round CPM.
4. Search for "Domestic" or "International" or even by Continent.
5. Search by date/month/length-of-stay, etc.
Hope this helps. Let us know if/when you tinker with the program.
Location: BOS and SAN...at least until the end of March
Programs: AA EXP,VS Silver,SPG gold, Hilton, AMEX Plat, BA nothing.
Posts: 3,277
I tried finding fares form BOS first on AA then on DL kept getting "Getting mileage runs on American Airlines from mia. This should only take a few seconds." message. I then tried the same form MIA witht he same results. I did try refreshing as Beer Me did but still didn't get any results.
I'll keep trying and post results. Please continue working on this and be sure to bump this thread with updates and refinements so we can continue to help with the evaluation. Thanks for taking this on!
Programs: UA Premier 1K, DL Platinum Medallion, AF Platinum, Hertz 5*
Posts: 536
I got it to find me Delta MRs from NCE, but so far, after some waiting and refreshing, I couldn't get anything from Delta from BOS or Air France from NCE. Too big?
