cruser1
I just wanted to offer a shout out to you for all these itineraries you have been posting.
While I would never book these Basic Economy tickets for myself, they are an excellent jumping off point to see what else might work for me.
My approach is to start with your findings, look for other similarly priced destinations in the same region and then expand out from there. Then I look at PE fares, which often are a minimal upfare. Then I check all the major gateways from coast to coast.
When I find something interesting, I will look at what dates I can apply that to. As I usually retain my MVPG100K by mid year, I am looking for returns that straddle the status earning year.
Once I have that, I will look at open jaws and then double open jaws, first to the country of origin and then other countries in the region starting with the primary cities and then secondary cities. This is all pretty quick with google flights and multi-city once you have your dates.
Within 10 minutes of looking at your itinerary in the quote above, I found a very good PE fare, IST-LHR-SFO outbound in June returning SFO-JFK(A321T)-BCN just before the 2024 Easter weekend for $961.
IST-SFO // SFO-BCN $961 PE AA/BA
Great for those who may be able to use AA upgrade instruments. If we look futher, the fare also works to secondary markets in Spain; BIO, AGP, VLC, SQV & even IBZ. A double open jaw, returning from PHX only adds about $75.
Some of your findings can be tailored quite nicely so thank you for posting them.
Oh, and one other thing! The buy up from Economy to Premium Economy on that exact itinerary is $111.
James
Last edited by Flying for Fun; May 9, 2023 at 2:03 pm