I will be flying from SAN to ORD in December. Since I have the same flight number all the way, even with a connection in Houston, how do I determine how many OP miles I will earn?

Thanks.

You get the mileage based on distance from origin to destination, not the total of the segments, i.e. in your case you get the direct SAN-ORD mileage, not SAN-IAH + IAH-ORD. Sorry.

couldn't you simply purchase separate tickets for each segment? This way, you would receive the miles for each segment. Or is this too costly?

SAN-ORD is 1,723 miles. SAN-IAH-ORD is 2,228 miles. Most times one can earn more miles by making cxns.

From SAN some really great fares pop up from time to time. Hope you got one; have a good trip!

And, remember to stay on top of the fares in this market before you leave. Should it go down, you'll want to request a travel voucher for the difference.

In this case, there would be no need to purchase separate tkts because IAH is on the routing anyway. To 'mini- maximize' miles, just book the trip as four segments (2 outbound/2return).

To truly maximize the miles would require even more cxns - and a little bit more creativity.






[This message has been edited by tvl4free (edited 10-18-2001).]

How easy is it to book a multi-segment flight with a single flight number as mutiple segments? Does the answer depend on the type of ticket (paper or electronic) and how it gets booked (CO web site, CO res agent, or travel agent)?

I can think of a reason you could give for wanting to ticket this way, if someone thought you were doing it solely for the miles: If you fly a multi-segment flight with a single flight number, then you can upgrade only if an upgrade is available on all segments, but if you book them separately, then you'd be able to get an upgrade on one segment even if none are available on the other.

Steve M, for a round trip, normally all you have to do is choose a IAH connection rather than the "direct" flight (via IAH) among the choices presented.

If the website (COOL, Expedia, whatever), doesn't give you the connection option, then switch to multi-city search, and enter the following flights:

SAN to IAH
IAH to ORD
ORD to IAH
IAH to SAN

Keep the layover times in IAH over the legal minimum connection time to retain your Rule 240 rights, and keep the layover times less than four hours to get the through fare.

You also lose a segment with a direct flight.

The only downside is paying the IAH PFC, which is not levied if you take a direct flight. The $3.00 or so PFC is well worth the extra miles, unless the connection point is close to the Great Circle route, which it isn't for SAN-ORD.

ITYT's got a great mileage calculator for US airports that can handle up to two connections and allows you to specify the minimum number of miles that any segment will receive.

For example, with Continental's Onepass program, set it to 500 miles and you won't have to manually add in those miles. However, other airlines have varying levels of minimum mileage awarded, so you can change it accordingly.

Much quicker than the Onepass site and supports airports that Continental doesn't fly to, in the off chance that you have to fly non-CO.

http://www.ityt.com/mileagecalculator/

Well, I guess I will try standing by for an earlier or later flight so that I get two separate flight numbers to maximize my miles.
Wish I had known that earlier! Oh well, you live, you learn!
Thanks for the input, everyone.

[This message has been edited by Infinity (edited 10-18-2001).]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you ask to get separate boarding passes for the two segments and reboard when they reboard the flight? And if you do, don't you get credit for two segments and all of the associated miles?

In my experience, no you can't. If they call it a "direct" flight with a stop when ticketing, they only give you the direct mileage. Seperate boarding passes do not do the trick - only a change in the PNR to new flights will do it.

I recently flew LAX-IAH-BWI all on the same flight number, but I got upgraded on one segement. In the end, I got mileage for each segment rather than the LAX-BWI mileage.

Did they make a mistake?

Probably, but it's not a big deal.

Lucky you, srodr!

If you bring up your itinerary on Continental's web site, it tells you the number of miles for each flight segment you have booked. Then, simply do the math.