ALW

Or more accurately, questions on two MRs.

A friend is looking for a MR of about 10K to get Elite. I don't have specific dates yet, but I thought of two possibilities.

One is NYC-LHR on AC, I remember they were practically giving those away. Are there still cheap fares available or was it just a pre-Easter off-off-peak thing? And if it's still a possibility, did the cnx have to be YYZ or was YUL okay? Minimum stay? Full miles?

The other is the current super-cheap option on UA to HNL. Again probably NYC-HNL although on the MR forum they're talking all sorts of originating airports. Would this earn full points if posted to AP? Does anyone here know how widely available these are?

And of course any other MRs that can be done in a weekend, including starting from YYZ or YUL that will net about 10K when posted to AP.

Thanks!
andrew

DesertCanuck

Hi Andrew. You may be a little too late in both of these ballgames.

AC pulled the amazing $190.00 RT NYC-LON-NYC fares very quickly. Probably just a tactic to get some fast $$$ and top up loads on their heavy LHR and LGA/EWR capacity in a US-LON market they generally can't touch anyways. Only required a Saturday night stay and the routing did let you connect in YYZ/YOW/YUL and I believe even YYT but it would be hard to manipulate 10,000 miles in there, given the 250 EQM for inter-Canada flights.

Those incredible US-HNL/OGG fares are also a thing of the past, another flash-in-the-pan experience you had to be quick to take advantage of. You can probably still get NYC-HNL someplace in the $600.00 USD range, and can certainly work the UA routing to get 10,000 miles in total, but those $300.00 RT deals are gone.

I am assuming your friend is in NYC, and your best option may just be to do two quick turns on UA to the west coast, you can get those for $198.00 RT each (here again, USD) all the time.

Good luck and keep us posted on what you/they decide to do. Obtaining Elite/Star Gold is definitely worth it.

ALW

Thanks for the tips. Guess I'll have to keep monitoring. My friend is going to be in NA on business in NYC which will put him at about 25K after the forthcoming trip. So it would have to be a quick weekend turn to get the 10K (although flying to LHR and back the same day would have been ironic under the circumstances!).

A cheap trip NYC-west coast US would be good. Don't know if he could manage two in one visit which would leave him short for his next international trip, but it may still be worth it.

Thanks again for the advice!

andrew

DesertCanuck

He could easily do the two west coast trips from NYC in a weekend, I've heard of people doing two in one day, but it would involve red-eye flights and lots of other nasty things that can be unpleasant unless he enjoys sitting on airplanes getting econo-seat ... for long durations.

Lots of time before the end of year, so as long as he is not crawling into a cave with Osama, he can probably top-up any needed miles at a later time too. Again, good luck.

ALW

Does Prestige (Star Silver) give access to E+?

You're right there's a long time until end of the year, but ...

Does AC give early status this year? IOW, Prestige who flies 35K by end of April, does he get Elite now? (I'm asking if anyone has experienced it _this year_ since so many things we take for granted seem to disappear).

Thanks again!

andrew

airbus320

Star Silver does indeed give access to E+ seats on UA.

taupo

Yes, he will get instant Elite recognition. This will be posted on the Prestige portal of the AP website. Simalarly, Elites will get instant SE recognition.

ALW

Thanks again for this and all the other suggestions.

My friend wants to give the above suggestion a shot. He can't find anything at $198.00 although there are weekend specials at about $225.00. My guess is that to do two quick turns in one weekend as described above, would be using nested tickets?

Here's what my friend said:

Thanks!
andrew

ALW

Forgot to say, if there's some other MR that would be as good or better, he'd be interested in that too.

andrew

NewToCanada

I think there are fewer restrictions on flights to SNA; maybe can be done in same day for the cheapest price. The folks on the Mileage Run list are the experts at this stuff.

If it were me I'd go to SFO and spend a night there, however. Maybe he can catch a Barry Bonds home run while he's out there. Worth more than *G in my view!

ALW

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll get him to look at SNA. As for spending a night, he needs to get the 10K in this one weekend so one R/T isn't going to do it (unless he does JFK-LAX-HNL).

I posted on the MR forum too, but does anyone have a way to get the 10K in one weekend without leaving the US?

Thanks!
andrew

martyYYZ

Is he looking for $198+tax or $198 in total? There are several fares to US cities (SAN, OAK, SJC, SEA) for $198 + tax (about $228 in total) but they require a Saturday stay so you'd have to go with the nested ticket option.
martyYYZ

ALW

Thanks Marty, I think he was finding $225 fares but couldn't get two in. Must be that Saturday stay.

I'm guessing HNL isn't worth it, I just did a quick look on ual.com and it's about $1300 R/T (same-weekend return). Must need more than a Saturday night stay for cheapest fares, or else it's just a more popular destination (of course it's more popular but it's a lot more expensive).

andrew

martyYYZ

Well, here's a nested option if he's willing to fly out of EWR - even some nonstop redeyes in here:

Ticket 1
EWR-SFO May 23 #647 / 863 via ORD 3pm-8:35PM
SFO-EWR May 24 #78 nonstop 10:18pm - 6:40am
or #152 / 664 via ord 1:50PM - 11:58PM


Ticket #2
SFO-EWR May 23 #78 nonstop 10:18pm - 6:40am
EWR-SFO May 24 #893 nonstop 7:05am-10:15am
or #639 / 857 via ORD 7:45am - 12:18pm

Total cost about $450 ($225 each ticket) all in

about 2572 miles each way * 4 = 10,288 miles

airbus320

Is the nested option described in the above post acceptable to the airline?

I can never figure the legality of the nested and the back to back tickets!