Originally Posted by
miffSC
Thank you msp2msy for a very clear post and explanation - I really enoyed reading through this thread the first time - and look forward to poring over it some more.
Glad it was helpful.
Originally Posted by
msp2msy
The question I suppose then is whether I could get 25,000 miles for $600. That's not impossible but not easy either (if it is, please shoot me some hints!). But it looks easier than all these extra segments, both finding them and flying them. I suppose that's why you don't see many people looking at maximizing segments. At the margin though, say if you were at 24 of 30 segments, and just wanted to get there, finding a 3-segment each-way trip could well be worth it.
Well, I've done another segment run of sorts, this time leveraging a work trip and some Amex MR points. I'm kind of proud of this though the MR points were probably worth more than I'm fairly valuing them at.
I pretty much followed the approach I described here. Here's what I came up with:
One-way positioning flight paid for with Amex MR:
MSY-ATL-PIT
$116 cash price
Only nets 1026 MQM.
Round Trip:
PIT-ATL-LAS(stop)-LAX-IND-CVG-PIT
$397.70
Nets 11174 MQM due to double miles promo and 15587 due to bonus miles.
One-way flight paid for with Amex MR:
PIT-DTW-MKE-MSP
$152.10
1500 MQM/RDM.
Total cost $662.20 for 13,700 MQM. $.048/MQM. Not great.
But if I'd just gone with the easy routing, I'd have earned spent nearly the same $318.60 and only earned 3634 MQM.
So, by leveraging that investment I added 10066 MQM at a cost of $347.60 to me (and some time) at a more respectable $.034/MQM.
The RDM bonus from PIT on Delta also netted out to another 4433 RDM which is worth something.
Anyway, I'd say that the process took about 3 hours of playing with scheduling via multiple different promo cities. So it works but it is definitely time consuming. The biggest issue for me was that the return from Las Vegas after the show had to be a late afternoon flight which meant I got into BNA/PIT/RDU/STL so late that I couldn't get another flight that evening. I didn't want to get a hotel so I sent myself further west to LAX and turned it into an overnight flight back to PIT. A bit extra money.
I'm pretty excited. Between this and the Singapore trip, I'll be solidly into gold status.