MR Tool

Old Mar 18, 2004, 11:24 am
  #1  
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MR Tool

I know that many people here like the ITA software web site for doing travel searches (beta.itasoftware.com).

But I haven't seen anyone mention the advanced search features that make the site really useful for finding MR itineraries. These are documented under "help" -> "extra for experts".

For example, you can type in "ABE::US US US US" in the "from" box and "LON::US US US US" in the "to" box. This will try to find the cheapest itinerary with four USAir flights in each direction [for the default dates in April right now, the best solution is $489].

This removes a lot of pain in finding interesting MRs.

Edited to note that the search is for USAir flights

[This message has been edited by USCheapskate (edited Mar 18, 2004).]
USCheapskate is offline  
Old Mar 18, 2004, 8:51 pm
  #2  
 
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Thanks so much for this...it's already saved me heaps of time! (-:
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 7:12 am
  #3  
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Thanks much, this one of the most useful tips ( for me anyway) on these boards in while.
mike
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 8:59 am
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I concur. Quite spiff-tacular. Route, route, route!
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 9:18 am
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trs cool
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 11:48 am
  #6  
 
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Good Post ....
Is there is anyway that i can specify the number of stopover irrespective of airlines ?

thanks
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 12:26 pm
  #7  
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Yes, just put in "X X X X" if you want 4 connections (stopovers are a different thing from connections).

Unfortunately, when you use "X" to mean any city the search engine often times out. I think the number of possibilities grows to quickly when you can connect anywhere at all on any airline.

Anything more than about 2 Xs per direction seems to fail, but you can specify particular airports as much as you want, e.g.:

From: NYC:: X HNL X
To: NRT

This means exactly one connection on the way to HNL and one more on the way to NRT on the outbound.

You can get arbitrarily complex:

From: NYC: L ATL DL+ CHI UA,AA DFW N
To: LAX

would mean:
- one DL flight NYC-ATL (nonstop)
- one or more DL flights ATL-CHI
- one UA or AA flight CHI-DFW (nonstop)
- one nonstop on any carrier DFW-LAX

It's extremely powerful.

(this particular search finds a $398 solution on DL and AA, going LGA-ATL-MDW-DFW-LAX on the outbound, and a nonstop LAX-JFK on the return)

[edited to keep : from being a smily]

[This message has been edited by USCheapskate (edited Mar 19, 2004).]
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Old Mar 19, 2004, 12:36 pm
  #8  
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Thanks for this description - I added a link to this post & added it to the MR Tools Thread.
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Old Mar 22, 2004, 5:31 pm
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THIS IS THE BEST!!! THANKS!
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Old Mar 22, 2004, 7:07 pm
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Cool post, better name!
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Old Mar 23, 2004, 12:21 am
  #11  
 
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Excellent tips, thanks!!!
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Old Mar 23, 2004, 5:55 am
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Old Mar 23, 2004, 6:02 am
  #13  
 
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Of course if you e-mail yourself a reminder about this thread, it looks like another piece of "spam" in the subject field.
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Old Mar 25, 2004, 3:40 pm
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AMAZING! This is so much fun! Perfect!
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Old Mar 25, 2004, 4:55 pm
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Great tool! I haven't used this site before and it works like a charm. I could have added an additional 2000 miles to my upcoming run to London for the same price!
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