ssconfiguration

I'm planning my first ever mileage run. But as a complete newbie, I have a very basic question:

It seems like the entire practice of the MR is very inefficient. Obviously, airlines are happy to take the flyer's money, and the flyer is happy to take the RDMs and EQMs. But why make the flyer take the actual flight? If I find a great fare for BOS-ORD-SFO-DEN-IAH-BOS, and I buy the ticket, wouldn't it be in the airline's interest at that point to take my cash, credit my account for the miles, but not actually make me fly? In this way, I don't need my butt in the seat and they save on:
1. Ticketing
2. The free can of soda on each segment.
3. Time I take to check-in/board, disembark, scan my BPs
4. Possibility of compensating me for any delays.
5. Best of all, the ability to sell my seat to another passenger.

So why do MRs exist in the way they do?

Someone must have asked this before, but I couldn't find a thread.

nzpilot

Welcome to the MR world, ssconfiguration.
The quest for some of your info ALWAYS begins by reading the sticky at the top of the new forum you are entering. In doing so, you would discover your query belongs not here in MR Deals, but in the MR Discussions, where I am certain the mod will move it shortly.

FF programs are just that FFlyer, not FBuyer programs. Part of the mystique of the elite factor is that usually you have to actually FLY the ticket. Lots of exceptions, including the granting of elite status to people who "buy into" a program by putting $ on deposit.

In this day of non-refundable ticks, the airline is not too willing to grant you the miles just because you paid for the tick and decided not to fly. They are much more oriented to taking your $, saying so sorry you did not come, but no miles. Fact is that virtually all airlines overbook their flts to some extent, so your "no show" costs them nothing anyway. They aren't about to give you the miles when they don't have to.

MRs exist in recognition of the above & the various individual motivations to acquire miles. Some actually used to like flying, but that experience is getting harder to find. Just my thoughts....

BryanIAH

Airlines sell award miles for 2-3 cents each, sometimes a little lower during promos. Mileage runs can give award miles for amounts below the airlines' sale price, so they'd lose money if they let you keep the miles without flying.

ssconfiguration

Thanks nzpilot,

Some thoughts on what you wrote:

1. Airlines must surely be aware that some people do MRs. If it is a large enough phenomenon then at some point wouldn't it be in the airline's interest to set up a way to identify these flyers, take their cash and give them the miles? And this does not conflict with the existing practice of making flyers fly all segments (hidden city issues). That practice is perfectly sensible from the airline's point of view. But the MR practice works differently.

2. About the overbooking- you're right that the airline doesn't really care if I don't show up for my flight and will happily take my money anyway. But wouldn't it be in the airline's interest to know for sure that I won't be flying, and take my cash anyway? Let's say that a 100 seat plane is on average overbooked by 10% i.e. 110 tickets are sold, one of which is mine. If the airline and I can come to an understanding that I am not going to fly, but will still be credited the miles, they can then sell a 111th ticket, and pocket the cash.

It still doesn't make sense to me. I guess one possible explanation is that MRs are such a vanishingly small percentage of tickets that airlines can't be bothered setting up a formal way to eliminate them and make everyone better off.

ssconfiguration

Ah, that is interesting. So it seems like you implying that the airlines accept the MR practice as a way to weed out people who are willing to sit for hours on planes (and who presumably are not willing to pay as much cpm for miles) from those who can't be bothered sitting on planes and just want to buy the miles outright (who presumably have a higher willingness to pay for these miles).

Is that right? But in my experience airlines usually only let you buy RDMs, rarely (never?) EQMs. If so, the only way to acquire cheap EQMs is to do an MR, which brings me back to the issue of why you actually have to undergo the physical MR.

ORD-DCA Flyer

If no BIS were required, we all would have booked 60 ORD-SFO-ORD runs during January, and ended up with 664,920 RDMs and EQMs for $9180, or 1.3cpm. We all then would have used these for Oneworld awards, at a "value" of perhaps $100k. Before AA converted the MM program to BIS only, $27k would have bought you LT Plat and enough miles to fly around the world one hundred times.

That's how you send an airline to bankruptcy.

Forcing you to actually fly means that you can't just book every MR deal and exploit it. Frequent flyer program includes the word flyer for a reason.

TheBOSman

I would have crushed the $145 AA BOS-SFO mistake fare last month if no BIS was required. If you qualfiied for DEQ11, and got the 100% RDM bonus I had, you'd be buying miles for just under 1 cpm, and I can redeem for 2 cpm with my eyes closed, and normally much higher. 5 of those gets you QF A380 F one way from the US to Australia, which costs a whole lot more than $725. As it was, I only booked 3 . Outwardly, yes it doesn't seem to make sense; on one of those $145 flights they offered two people $300 vouchers (the first of 4 of them in fact, so I hadn't even left BOS yet). Theoretically, they could have given me my miles and $145 and told me to go home and I honestly would have taken them up on it, and it technically would have been $155 cheaper (since I got the miles whether I stayed on the flight or not). Of course, I had to spend 36 hours on a plane, and several more in an airport, to get around 45,000 miles in addition to my ~$430 cost. They know there is an opportunity cost of having to spend time away on a plane, and that prevents more people from MRing. For me, my time is relatively worthless, I'm pretty productive on planes, I can go to the AC between flights, and now as EXP I very often sit in F, so a reasonably low priced MR is a very good deal for me.

ssconfiguration

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to know. Cheers!

nzpilot

FT'rs notwithstanding, true MR flyers are responsible for a micro amount of seat miles. I doubt that airlines are going to "identify (MR) flyers." Not sure how they would anyway. If the airline IT sys permitted discretionary awarding of miles for flts not flown, then whenever anyone was forced to cx a flt, they would look for the miles.

For the economics of earning status addressed in other posts, the airlines are more pleased to take a "chg fee" and rebook you for even more $ and still not give you the EQM/RDM until you fly them. They are already banking on the no-show factor, so your notifying them in advance is not as helpful as it would seem.

2 bad assumptions.
#1 That the airline would even want to eliminate MRs. It is revenue after all. They are not particular about your reasons for flying. FF programs are all about encouraging it.
#2 "Everyone would be better off?" Interesting thought. I've only done a few, but sometimes I agree I would be better off without them....

siricepick

Hey all,

I've noticed a considerable difference in how New FTers are treated, and I commend your willingness to help him and not crucify him for posting in the wrong forum.

Have a great weekend all!

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

Yup. That's exactly it. Most people who can afford to pay for the MR can't afford to put in the time and effort to do it. No pain no gain.

Now that you know the secret, fly some MRs.

TheBOSman

Yes, we are going soft (just kidding) normally very nice people. This is really a great community overall truth be told.

Also, to be honest, the search function isn't very good. I've been trying to search for a particular question in another forum for a while, and I still haven't found it, so I will likely have to post it outright. I understand why some people would post, the search function is really frustrating and you really need to know how to use it to really get what you want.

Yes. It's good if you know you can redeem for high value and the opportunity cost means nothing. I was happy to have my complimentary non-alcoholic beverage when I was MRing in Y, now that I mostly MR in F, I can add the value of a (albeit not incredibly good airline food, but definitely eatable) meal and an alcoholic beverage or two for each flight value. Beats doing nothing on the weekends certainly!

BryanIAH

UA sells EQMs.

TheBOSman

I think DL and US sell EQMs too. AA is the only one where non-flying EQMs are hard to come by (you have to spend a lot of money on the $450 annual fee card to get any EQMs).

Good post here about it: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...ithout-flying/

rbphilip

Indeed. Gold status will cost you about $5000 (on United) if you just buy the EQMs. About twice what an intense bout of MRs will cost you (if you can get $0.05/EQM out of your MR). On the other hand, if you combine MRs with weekends exploring new places and visiting friends then the MR has more "value" than just the miles.

The ability to buy EQMs at $0.10/EQM is a nice compromise, I think - expensive enough that most people won't just buy status (and gold isn't *much* status any more anyway) but inexpensive enough that people will "top up" their EQM accounts at the end of the year to get the next level of status for the following year.