Originally Posted by jerry crump
I guess I was thinking that more distant but cheap destinations also offer more routing options. Correct me if I am wrong but to use all of an airlines hubs as routing points I assume it is helpful to have a coast to coast destination. Note I said Helpful not necessary.
Not really. You can often do the same or better with cities that are more inland, where you can hit a coastal hub and then backtrack inland. Some airlines are better for this than others, but that concept is quite useful for mileage accrual, and goes against the calculations used for this tool.
For example, if there's a $200 WAS-DEN and WAS-SEA fare, it will rank WAS-SEA ahead of WAS-DEN because it's nearly 1,000 miles longer on the map. However, WAS-SEA may only allow connections in ORD or STL, netting about 2,300 miles each way, while WAS-DEN may allow a connection in NYC and SEA, netting nearly 4,000 miles one way.
In this example, WAS-DEN would by far be the better run, but the tool won't tell you that. In fact, WAS-DEN could be 50% more expensive than WAS-SEA, and still be the better run if optimized.
That's why I think this tool, while sometimes useful, can be a bit misleading. It's not impossible to extract over 4,500 miles each way out of cities that are less than 1,500 miles apart. With a margin of variance over 300%, this tool really has limited use.