New to the program
 

Hi all,

I'm new to the site and have enjoyed reading the posts. Currently i have been flying back and forth from ORD to SNA or LAX but I starting to see that flying nonstop may not be the best way to go if I'm trying to earn miles.

By the end of Feb i will have 25,000 PQM on United and earn my 1st ever airline status!! :) My company also purchased me a Club membership for the year as well so i enjoyed this on Friday at LAX for the 1st time. It was enjoyable.

Im open to any suggestions or tips seeing that I'm such a newbie.


Im going to try and do my first milage run at some point this year. Hopefully out of LAX or SNA.

Thanks the great website and i look forward to learning more...

tr71123

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Welcome and congrats ^ SAN has seen some good fares too recently so keep an eye out on the East Coast. Wish I'd have someone buy me a lounge membership. ;)

Thanks and will do.

On United, you can go to ORD via IAH or SFO, often for just a few more dollars.

If you have status and therefore earn a minimum (usu 500 miles) no matter how short the leg actually is, that can be a way to earn without flying that much more. So for example, PHL-BOS is 280 miles: my BF earned 560 miles on that trip (miles flown), but I earned 1000 (500 mile minimum). This is not counting the status bonus that you would earn on top of that.

You can use GCMap and ITA Matrix to search for distances and fares. And scan the mileage run thread here on FT.

Depending on how often you travel, substituting connecting flights for nonstops that don't add a lot of miles will not be good for either your physical or your mental health. Especially this time of the year and where you connect. Make sure the extra miles are worth the time and the hassle.

Thanks all

Tons of info in the United forum here on FT: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...leageplus-681/

Much of it isn't really geared towards newbies, but read through some of the sticky threads (or threads linked in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ster-wiki.html) and you might get a feel for how to maximize your experience with United. United's version of a "flame-free newbie thread" is this: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...14-thread.html, so they may be able to help you with any simple questions there.