acquiescefc

Hi and thanks.

Well i wasnt sure that it was specific to ARN, i couldnt see that from the basis. I admit i did try to add a Dub to ARN but your response covers my results.

Essentially then i was trying to start from DUB and go via LON to SFO but that also didnt work, i guess if its a special fare from ARN then thats the answer.

Boogie711

This argument is such a red herring. First off, ANY flight that's inexpensive is going to "only be worth xxx depending on status."

Second, the whole revenue argument itself is a non-starter for mileage runs. This is a MILE-age run, not a revenue run. That's the whole point.

Third, revenue only counts for RDM earnings, not EQM. No one should be doing a mileage run to accumulate RDM's when you can earn 50k of the things just for signing up for a credit card.

And fourth, many flyers, myself included, are just fine on revenue thanks to work travel, but find themselves 10-20k short on status miles by December.

Long-live-the-mileage-run! (LLTMR, for short.)

cvision

Go and read some more and try out some more major airports in each and every region . You will quickly learn what AA and BA do with their fares. There are always clusters. The Scandinavia (i.e. Norway, Denmark and Sweden) one I stated and BENELUX (i.e. AMS,BRU,LUX) are the most prominent ones I think. They produce cheap fares from the EU to the US, especially East and West coast. Dublin I think is most famous for its cheap business class deals that are even cheaper than the ex-OSL ones making them famous for all those UK-based runners.

See above.

SpammersAreScum

You are correct that, once AA goes revenue-based for RDM, doing MRs for RDM no longer makes sense. Which appears to be Mrp Alert's point! How is it a red herring?

No. You get a 50k bonus by signing up and spending $3k in 3 months, with the associated costs of doing that. And, barring loopholes, you can only do that once every 2 years or slightly less. If you're trying to say that people planning an MR shouldn't care about the fact the RDMs will be lower after the switch, just because of card bonuses, I disagree. More RDMs is still better for a lot of people.

"many fliers", not "all", probably not even "most".

acquiescefc

ill be honest i dont understand the combinations or where to start. I either get too much or too little results. and when it errors i dont understand why or what is wrong. What i think is right doesnt work.

Im sure theres a way but trying to decipher 3000 pages in the trick it thread gives me a defeatist attitude.

cvision

You do not need to read the whole rules. Just start with the important stuff, which is applicable dates, sales restrictions, advanced ticketing restrictions, transfers, stopovers and end-on-end and play around.
Also, bear in mind that hubs are easy-to-transfer-cities as there are many flights in and out of those. In case of OW carriers that'd be e.g. JFK,LGA,DCA,ORD,CLT,PHL,MIA,DFW,LAX.

Another hint. To exclude some search results you can use switches. Search for the ITA thread here on FT. E.g. "-overnight" (without " ") excludes any flights that would incur in an overnight layover.

zoombee

Do you really think nobody currently does mileage runs for the RDMs or that they are such people but they are foolish?

IMHO there are clearly many people who justifiably value the RDMs enough and that mileage runs become a marginal or even pointless activity once RDMs become revenue based.

Boogie711

Yes. Let me say this bluntly but respectfully - I would suggest that if you are doing mileage runs for the RDM's, you have a very... 'unique' set of priorities.

Agree, disagree, I'm a big boy. But - here are some inconvenient facts: You can buy plain RDM's from the website for approx 2c each.

Therefore, when someone comes on here and says "Oh, this won't be worth as much when AA goes revenue based" that's a pointless argument - because EVERY inexpensive fare will be worth less RDM's when AA goes revenue based.

Doing a mileage run for the sake of collecting RDM's is like climbing Everest for the sake of gathering snowflakes. The snow is going to be there whether you go to Nepal or North Dakota. If you get the opportunity to climb Everest, you're not going to say "no" because "there isn't enough snow there anymore."

Is it nicer when there's more snow? Sure. I get it. You like snow. But choosing whether or not to make a climb decision based on snow totals is laughable... or at the very least, like I say, an indicator of a questionable decision making process.

So is doing or not doing a mileage run based solely on whether or not you will accumulate x number of RDM's. We do mileage runs to move up in status - from Plat to ExPlat, etc.

If the only reason you're doing a mileage run is to collect RDMs, enjoy yourself... but I can buy twice as many RDM's as you just earned, for less money, in 1/100th of the time.

But hey - go nuts.

Boogie711

Heck - let me expand on that even more.

In my opinion, the only worthwhile reason to do a mileage run is for the status bump. Period.

If you're a Gold member, and you do a mileage run, and finish the year as a Gold member, you've wasted your time and money on that mileage run.

You can't say "Well, I got to enjoy a nice 8 hours in Indonesia." That's great. It's a mini-vacation, not a mileage run. You just spent 40 hours in a plane to accumulate miles that I could have bought in less than 3 minutes online, for half-as-much money.

You can stick them all together, sure - you get a status bump, AND a fun weekend AND 40,000 RDM's.... but ONLY if it comes with the status bump. The status bump is the bottom line, and without the status bump, you're just being foolhardy.

So to claim the death of mileage runs due to revenue spend requirements is, respectfully... ludicrous, because revenue spend requirements ONLY affect RDM earnings.

FlyerJT

Personally, I'm not running when I can buy miles for less money online. I'm only going to run when:
(1) The RDMs are more valuable than the fare
(2) The EQMs are going to elevate my status
(3) The destination interests me enough to spend a day or two there
(4) When I'm looking forward to the on-board experience