vjetti

Hello,

I would like to try my first mileage run, but have no clue where to begin. Here is some info/questions I have. Any help would be awesome! Thanks in advance.

1. Home Airport DCA (so BWI and IAD also doable)
2. Would like to try for a weekend, but occaisonal Fridays are good too. Do I have to be able to travel on a weekday to do a MR?
3. How do I choose an airline to do it on? We don't have status on any airline yet. We do have tons of miles from cc's on United and Delta... and I have very few MQM's on Delta as well.
4. It would be two of us travelling.


Any thoughts/suggestions would be helpful!

jdtravel

I use IAD so UA which has a large hub here gives lots of options.

clacko

why?

except in very rare cases, mr's are for gaining status in a ff program because you will fly a lot on it...

so, post what q mi you have this year, what trips you plan to fly thru dec & during 2013....

edit to add.....if y'all are thinking that a mr is a cheap fare for a weekend getaway, that is fine....

braffy

1. There are pros and cons to being in a hub city. In my experience it is difficult to find good value MR's from an airline's hub airport. So in your case it will probably be challenging to find MR's on UA from IAD. That being said, there will often be lowball fares filed by other airlines to 'attack' other airlines' hubs. So for example Delta might file a cheap fare from PHL to PHX or from ORD to DFW. Since IAD is a UA hub and BWI is a WN hub, you should be able to find MR-worthy fares from those airports.

2. MR's are generally easiest to find mid-week, but Saturdays are often available as well. Most difficult days are Fridays and Mondays (and holiday
times of course).

3. Help us help you... Can you elaborate on your situation i.e. what is your main purpose for considering a MR at this time? Are you trying to gain status for 2013? Or is it for some other reason? Your answer to this will help us recommend which airline to focus on.

4. MR's are more fun when you have someone along for the ride (assuming you enjoy each other's company)... makes it seem a little less antisocial. I'd say it makes very little difference for finding the cheap fares to look for 2 tickets than 1.

PV_Premier

how many pqm does each passenger currently have on each airline for calendar year 2012?

united is not worth mileage running for less than gold status (50k pqms/year) and even that is very debatable. i am not MR'ing this year, i just added in an extra "visit family" trip to get me back to gold. the only benefits that remain are YUPs, free checked bags (plural) and E+ at booking.

i don't know about delta

the reason i ask about your current pqm balance is that 1) it informs how much you have traveled ytd, and 2) it informs how much you will need to invest $$$ wise to get to a reasonable status. you can think about it this way. your MR cost will probably average 3.7-4.0cpm. if both of you need 25k to get to gold, that's 50k total miles @ 4cpm it will cost you about $2000 to get there, plus all your time of flying around and money for parking/metro/overpriced bottled water/etc. with an average of 25k miles traveled, if you don't MR, can you get the same benefits by simply applying that $2000 to next year's travel for E+ seating, bags, etc?

vjetti

It's amazing how much everyone knows about this on here! Thanks for the suggestions. Some answers to questions:

- We have about 100k FF on UA, but all from CC so no q miles
- We have 80k or so on Delta and I have 4 q segments

The reason I'm looking to get status on United is because we are flying to DCA-MIA-AUA-MIA-EYW-MIA-DCA in October for our wedding/honeymoon on United. We are also flying DCA-MUC-MAA-DEL-MUC-DCA in December on UA with Lufthansa as the Europe-Asia legs. I would like to get upgraded on those flights if possible. Does it make more sense to just purchase the miles for an upgrade then?

braffy

To be frank, in your circumstances (i.e. starting from zero PQMs) it's definitely not worth your while to spend the time and money to MR for status prior to your upcoming flights. If it's really important for you to travel in the front of the plane, you'd be better off looking into using miles and/or cash to upgrade some of those segments.

Even if you would spend the time and money and get 2P or 1P status in the next couple of months, chances are slim that you would get upgrades for too many of your October flights. And you almost surely wouldn't score any upgrades on the international flights in December.

However, assuming that your trips in October and December are all paid flights in 100% mileage earning fare classes, it sounds like you'll have flown upwards of 22K miles in 2012. Although 2P bennies are limited, it might be worth it to do a small MR to get 2P status for next year (assuming that you have more *A travel planned for 2013).

oldsmoboi

to piggyback on the OP's question, What is considered a "good" earning of miles per dollar in a mileage run? I mean, cheaper is always better, but what is the "line" that makes it not worth while?

clacko

you set your own line.....

its cents/mile rather than $ that is quoted....

some think that 4-5 cpm is decent now.....

look in the mr deals forum to see what people are posting....

braffy

Every person will have a different answer. Generally speaking >5cpm is not considered mileage-run-worthy and <3cpm is considered a really good deal.

For a recent discussion on this very topic see the following thread: your-mr-cpm-bite-range