Kmxu

I will have six more such two-day trips (~12,000 BIS miles each). I had three US-PEK-Canada and Canada-PEK-US trips booked but cancelled due to COVID to get to 3M.

Tblack15

Side question, people are still MRing? But only for lifetime BIS miles? The discussion about CPM is confusing considering it's points per dollar or whatever now...

SPN Lifer

Yes, for lifetime status.

Archon1995

A few of us are MRing for status. I'm very close to *G in a Europe-based program with a deadline near the end of the year, and can't get over there as I normally would. I would hope things would be better before this time next year.

I considered this one, but the positioning flights weren't attractive to me. Others will of course have opinions on whether MRing for *any* reason is justified at this time...

TerryK

I am impressed. LAX-MCO is 2,218 BIS. How did you get 12,000 BIS?

jjmoore

At 1.6cpm for the direct flights, and 1.0cpm for the EWR connection, I would run that, and I did book one of these since I have a few items of unfinished business in Orlando. At these low cpm rates, I would run miles with the sole purpose of padding my lifetime BIS. My mantra is to not fly just to fly, so I will be looking for weekend getaways that I can combine MR's with.

DELee

I asked that same question in another thread. In this thread, here's SPN Lifer 's answer:

David

edit: here's Kmxu 's path(s) from the other thread:

Mrp Alert

With the liberal sdc being offered now, odds are good of a ewr reroute being a permitted routing. I’m on LAS-LAX-MCO for $73 next month and curious to see what pops out for SDC.

jjmoore

with the disappearance of many direct LAX-MCO-LAX flights, reroutes are easy. My direct flights were taken out of the schedule and I am now routing EWR both ways. My $62 r.t. ticket is now netting me just shy of 6600 bis miles.

Kmxu

The day of week for travel matters. For my trips over weekends, SDC options were nonexistent for two reasons: 1) most flights were very full and 2) UA did not open up low-fare class buckets (K and G). If you travel on weekdays, the situations may be different. For example, EWR-IAD-ORF were not available for last leg of my trips. For beginning of my trip, ORF-EWR-LAX, other earlier options never became available (Friday). So, without more details on your trip, I cannot give you my best guesses.

Also, if you want to make stops along the way and have a lot of time to kill, the liberal SDC policy will give you a lot of options.

The OP will travel next month, which means that he/she cannot take advantage of schedule change. Your advice is probably not what he/she was looking for: in particular, regarding the same day change options.

jjmoore

Oops... I just realized this - was probably tired when I posed. I'm actually pretty interested mysefl to see what the SDC options are when I check in for the return.. am thinking to overnight with some friends and go back the following morning on a Chicago ORD routing. I wonder if the schedule changes and the ugly reroutings would impact the original rules of the ticket and open things up.

Kmxu

Your guess is probably as good as mine. The schedule change will likely mess up the computer. If your schedule is flexible, there are more SDC options. After you fly MCO-ORD (actually, Immediately after you scan the boarding pass), ORD-LAX options may become available (if low fare buckets are nonzero). Change your date when you search flights. Good luck.

Edit: This edit is unrelated to the SDC question. The fare rule for immediate turn seems to be changed; there is a four hours minimum stay requirement for the lowest fare; otherwise, the fare jumps by $40-60. In other words, United may try to help me avoid tight turns with the fare rule change. A week ago, my IAD-LAX was delayed by almost two hours; I was the first person leaving the plane and went straight to LAX-EWR flight. I looked at my watch and it was at exactly T-15 min. United did send me a message asking to take it easy and holding the plane for me. Cheers!
Edit #2: At the end of my trip on Nov. 1, I was more adventurous than earlier runs; I changed EWR-ORF to EWR-IAD-CHO (Charlottesville), which was the only option with IAD connection and gave me extra 500 BIS. Once I boarded EWR-IAD flight, I was not allowed on App/web to make changes to IAD-nearby cities. So, I had to ask a customer service agent to change From IAD-CHO to IAD-RIC. My EWR-ORF was in PZ class; the SDC went to PZ class for EWR-IAD but Y class for IAD-CHO (single cabin aircraft).

jjmoore

My LAX-MCO election day mileage run starts tonight. Schedule changes resulted in my routing turning into LAX-EWR-MCO outbound, and MCO-IAH-LAX return. 20 PPs resulted in upgrades on LAX-EWR, EWR-MCO, and MCO-IAH, and I was CPUed on IAH-LAX at the 96 hour mark. $62 a.i. + 20PPs got me around 5,600 BIS miles in J.

My run starts on the 11:05pm LAX-EWR... the rest is pretty self-explanatory. I will luckily have a 6 hour window in MCO to finish up a few loose ends from my move several months ago. Jackpot!!

Hopefully some others were able to capitalize on this fare for some really cheap miles towards those MM milestones!! Safe and happy travels everyone!!

Kmxu

I spent seven weekends for the ORF-LAX-MCO-LAX-ORF runs with stops at IAD or EWR. The total combined BIS is about 87K (or 2.4 cpm). This leaves me about 4000 BIS short of 3 Million miles milestone. I got an early congratulation from an FA on board EWR-IAD today. Unfortunately, UA won't credit me 5000 BIS miles for the 500 BIS mile flight. Otherwise, her congratulation would be very timely.

I used Plus Points for upgrades for all my flights. There were a total of 28 long segments (IAD-LAX, EWR-LAX and LAX-EWR; all flat beds). Only four of them failed the upgrades; that is, 86% success rates. I made a big mistake when I applied for PlusPoint upgrade. If I did not apply for short segments (ORF-EWR and EWR-MCO), I would be able to withdraw the request and re-apply it when I saw PZ spaces. When a short segment was cleared (I.e., PlusPoints was used), I could not remove the request at the day of travel when PZ space was open, which I guess that this happens at 2-3 am Chicago time. Nevertheless, I got very good values out of my Pluspoints, in particular, United only charged 20 points for MCO-IAD-LAX-EWR (40 points for EWR-LAX-EWR due to return at LAX to EWR, but 20 points for IAD-LAX-EWR due to a circular route). For the last two runs, I was able to change from MCO-IAD-LAX to MCO-EWR-LAX due to schedule change (specifically, aircraft type change from B787 to B737) without incurring additional Pluspoints.

The same-day change was not used often, for example, from ORF-EWR-LAX to ORF-IAD-LAX when EWR-LAX upgrade would fail. In this case, I got the Plus points back for cleared ORF-EWR segment. I changed EWR-MCO to EWR-IAD-MCO once and from EWR-ORF to EWR-IAD-ORF twice.

Delays occurred twice; that is, a two-hour delay of IAD-LAX for cargo door problem (switched from B788 to B789 Polaris), which still let me connect for LAX-EWR with a few seconds to spare, and one-hour delay of EWR-LAX for coffee maker water line leakage on B787-10. I had plenty of time to make the connection to LAX-EWR. There was no other delay that I could remember.

The best part of these runs was the access of United Clubs at LAX and EWR although the foods offer at clubs was limited. The standard lounge charge fees would easily exceed my ticket price (plus a few stops at LH and Turkish lounge at IAD).

Happy and safe travels.

thejaredhuang

It's back in Feb, 1 stop itineraries are $50 more expensive than last time though (148 vs 95). Probably baked in the no change fee to the base charge.