flyertalker00156

Is there a thread which properly ecplsins the mmp with exsmples I seem to fail on this every time....

hearna

MPM is what is defined as the maximum permitted mileage on an itinerary between 2 cities; This stops people from routing through a bunch of cities and zig zaging all over the place.

Depending on origin and destination; there may be 2 mpm's; TATL and TPAC.

SKYEG

I called them in advance even though the flight is in May as its almost impossible to find 4 reward tix together... Basically the agent gave me a tracking number and forwarded a schedule change request to ticketing. She said she has no idea when they would call.

I'm hoping it's sooner than later, as I found a flight to IST with 4 availability... She mentioned something like "if the flight reward was on UA and UA caused the misconnect, you may be able to get onto a revenue UA flight".

Itd be nice to change YEG-DEN-IAD-BRU-FCO to YEG-YYZ-FCO on AC but I'd still change to YEG-ORD-FRA-FCO on UA if possible, or even easier YEG-DEN-IAD-FCO .

Will report back here if they ever call...

krayZpaving

The seats will not NECESSARILY go back into award inventory. They may, but you're taking a huge risk. And given the cost is higher, it's not really worth your while.

Just today, I "changed" a trip in a way that involved every single segment changing (though the destination remained the same).

krayZpaving

TATL = over the Atlantic
TPAC = over the Pacific

Pseudo Nim

Does anyone think the following would be valid, before I even bother? I feel like I'm breaking MPM, segments and various other rules ... but still.

YUL-EWR-ZRH-DEL, stop, DEL-SIN-HKG-TPE-OKJ, destination, OKJ-TPE-SIN-IST-MAD, stop, MAD-BRU-IAD-YUL?

lowside67

What is Maximum Permitted Mileage (MPM)?

There is a Maximum Permitted Mileage or MPM value for virtually every pair of cities that you can fly between, directly or indirectly. This number is not publicly available for free but can be obtained by many paid services such as ExpertFlyer. This number is not the direct mileage between these two cities, but rather a value that is determined to be a reasonable estimate of the maximum distance that it should logically take to travel between those cities. There are values such as MPM5, MPM10, MPM15 which are literally just this MPM value with 5, 10, or 15% added to it to give a larger number to allow for more leeway on how to get there.

Air Canada/Aeroplan uses MPM5 values, or the MPM value plus a 5% "allowance", to determine the maximum distance that a reward ticket can use to get between these two cities.

As an example, when you query ExpertFlyer for the MPM value for YVR-BKK (Vancouver to Bangkok) you receive the following information:
MPM-AT (Atlantic): 13,318mi
MPM5-AT: 13,983mi
MPM-PA (Pacific): 8,802mi
MPM5-PA: 9,242mi

What this means is that the maximum journey you can create for a reward ticket that starts in Vancouver and ends in Bangkok is 13,983 miles if your route crosses the Atlantic Ocean or 9,242 miles if it crosses the Pacific Ocean.

These are two possible routes that one could take:



YVR-LHR-BKK is 10,681 miles and has only one stop along the way.
YVR-IAH-IST-DXB-BKK is 13,279 miles and has three stops along the way.

However, both these routes are legal and fall within requirements since they are both under the mileage requirement, cross the correct ocean, do not visit the same city twice, and are serviced by Staralliance carriers.

A few other details...

1) Many tickets are round-trip... if this is the case, your "point of turnaround" (and therefore the destination city for MPM purposes) is any city in the furthest zone from the origin. However, it's important to note that each "side" of the journey to and from the turnaround must be within MPM5 requirements on its own - you cannot simply multiply the MPM5 value by 2 and then add up the two legs.

2) There are exemptions to the MPM requirements for a reward ticket... ANY published routing (i.e. if you type in origin YVR and destination BKK on any Air Canada, United, etc. search engine, anything that comes up as an option without doing a multi-city) is valid, even if it's over mileage.

3) Not every city pair has MPM values for both the Pacific and Atlantic - if it has only one, then you MUST fly over that ocean unless there is a published routing that takes it over the other, in which case it qualifies under note 2 directly above this one.

Hope this helps,
Mark

Pseudo Nim

^ well written.

My only issue is with #3: I think there's a third option (ie besides MPM and published routing): black magic. For instance, someone just posted YYC-CPT over the Atlantic, and CPT-JNB-PEK-NRT-YYC. I refuse to believe there's a published routing, so wth?

crimsona

Why not? According to EF, the routing above is well under mpm5 (14k vs 17.5k):

CPTYYC-AC 27NOV13 TICKETED POINT SURCHARGES APPLY.
GI M 5M
MPM PA 16680 17514

Going over the Atlantic:

CPTYYC-AC 27NOV13 TICKETED POINT SURCHARGES APPLY.
GI M 5M
MPM AT 12258 12870

Pseudo Nim

oooh.

i didn't check CPT-YYC. I only checked YYC-CPT. Interesting....... you're right. My bad!

crimsona

The inverse works too - just to need to force the Global Indicator from 'Default' to PA

YYCCPT-AC 27NOV13 TICKETED POINT SURCHARGES APPLY.
GI M 5M 10M 15M 20M 25M
MPM PA 16680 17514 18348 19182 20016 20850

Pseudo Nim

Interesting. Forcing causes some really strange things. For example, MPM5 for YUL-MRU AT is 11,712 vs YUL-JNB 10,388, but Pacific? 15,292 PA for JNB vs 13,910 for PA. I don't think you can even GET to MRU in 13,910 miles over the Pacific, considering you MUST return to JNB, since no *A carrier flies directly to MRU!

flyertalker00156

Thanks that really helps

sp4294

Some problems I see:
You are flying through DEL on the way to S. Asia 2 and N. Asia.
Your destination would likely be considered as SIN as it is furthest away, no?
If so, your other stops don't work.
You are doubling back through SIN and then going via Europe, instead of heading back to YUL from SIN.

canadiancow

Not a mini RTW, but I don't see any other threads to discuss these kinds of questions.

I'm finally booking a trip with my Aeroplan miles, and I'd like some advice.

I'm in SFO. The current plan is to do Dublin, Italy (several cities), Zurich, Germany (several cities), and finish in Amsterdam.

There will be some ground transit between areas, so I won't be flying the whole way. SFO-DUB, DUB-FCO, and AMS-SFO will definitely be flying, but I'm not sure if it would be feasible to add anything else to the ticket.

I think I'd like to try F, as I've never done it, unless there's a clear reason I should do J.

Does the order make sense? I've taken a brief look at ITA, and I see some SFO-ZRH-DUB routings on LX that might work better than SFO-east coast-DUB.

As for the flights, any recommendations for good J/F? Obviously I'd like to avoid AC, LH, and other scamcharge airlines.