For UA, you can go through the booking process and not complete it, and it'll show you how many miles each segment is. Not sure about other airlines.

Alternatively, milecalc.com and gcmap.com are good tools, though sometimes off by a mile or two from the airlines.

Under 5 CPM I'll consider - ex-ANC its a bit spendy. Sometimes its higher or lower - like to spend some time at the destination- if DCA is under $400 on AS... I'll probably fly it. Adding the companion cert can help- especially for peak travel.

3 CPM is threshold for EQM partner carriers - AA & DL specifically - and if I can get a codeshare operated by AS...better ;)

Under 2 CPM and I ponder adding something besides AS+partners but haven't bit yet :p

The airlines will tell you the normal miles flown. Elites usually get a minimum of 500 miles, and there are other factors (certain fares on partner airlines earn less, business fares earn more).

I suppose it makes me out to be the amateur that I am, but I am not concerned with cents per mile. I am only concerned that the run be a place where a single female can travel alone, without hassle, and most places that get the nod get it because I find out that there is easy walking/hiking/public transport and no need for a visa (or very easy to get a visa). I consider it a run if it is not a "pure" birding trip, just as others might consider it a run if it is not a "pure" business trip. CPM is not the issue, good fares to safe places without ridiculous visa requirements or unsafe to travel alone/have to rent car is what eliminates a great many destinations for me. There are countries that want tourism, and there are countries (and I freely admit the USA is one) that do not welcome tourists and would prefer they go someplace else and they price their visas to give idiots the hint to go elsewhere...For such countries it is irrelevant to me if the airline offers a great fare if the country itself wants me to pay off a third party visa hustler and put money in somebody's pocket who is not helping the environment of that country. I prefer to go where I am wanted and where my money might help a real person, not just a big airline or a crooked third party visa company that pays bribes or whatever they do to get you a visa. This actually saves a lot of time, as I am never tempted to spend much time investigating runs to Russia, mainland China, etc.

Not interested in runs where you just turn around at the airport. To me that's just sad. It has its place but it does not interest ME...So I'm sorry and I hope it doesn't get me struck from flyertalk but I am not here to get the bottom dollar price. I am here to get a GOOD price for desirable and fun places. The cheaper the better but a cheap ticket is not the whole story.

In other words, many issues stop me from buying a ticket. Price is only one thing that stops me from buying. There are lots of cheap tickets I am happy to let slide by because life is too short for "hassle." Only on flyertalk would people be jumping through hoops to go to Burma for absolutely no reason other than a cheap ticket...!

It all depends on the destination. If its purely a MR<3cpm seems best. But often its a great deal to somewhere new and interesting, in that case I'm less sensitive to pure cpm.

I have never spent more than $.05 per EQM on a mileage run. This year with some dollar cost averaging I spent $.0328 per EQM on mileage runs. I could have done it cheaper if I wanted to compromise on my basic criteria for this hobby:

1) Same day turns preferred (to minimize overnight expenses)
2) Only weekend/holiday itineraries (no time off from work)
3) Limited red eye flights (just don’t like em’)
4) At least 6,000 miles per itinerary (to reduce the total number of runs required)

I also try to stay ahead of the curve with my MR planning. I have UA1K booked for 2012, and ~60,000 eqm's already booked for 2013. Yes; this takes a flexible schedule, cash flow, and faith you will be able to make these flights.

Yup - I bought a bunch of these also. ^ One of the best pieces of MR advice I was ever given was when you see a good fare BOOK AS MANY AS YOU CAN AS FAST AS YOU CAN. You have 24 hours to sort it out, and cancel those tickets you choose not to keep.


SunLover

Man you guys are lucky. I would kill for anything under 5CPM. I'm New Zealand based and the cheapest I ever see is 7CPM longhaul. Otherwise domestic runs around 15CPM

Ouch!

This thread got me to thinking so I went back and looked at my average CPM for my 2012 MRs. By the end of this year, my average cost per mile for just over 41,000 PQM of pure mileage runs on UA will be 3.98 CPM. Two of them had a higher CPM because of positioning flights, which I was happy to do because each meant 10,000 PQM in one weekend.

My 2013 is starting to average out to 3.4 CPM. I'll need about half as many PQM so let's hope I can hold that average or better...

WOW. I think it's ludicrous to fly 60K miles each year as MR's just to maintain status. I don't know UA tier's at all but for DL, 60K is half of Diamond which is highest elite level. So it is definitely not an efficient way to spend time or $$ if you must MR 50% of the miles needed to achieve your status. Just seems crazy to me. But that's just me. :p

This year, I will fly the most MR's ever (23K miles) to hit DL Platinum. And even that (only 3 trips required) felt like overkill to me, but I really wanted to hit platinum this year to see if the benefits outweight the expenses.

1 cpm or less for RDMs, 2 cpm or less for EQMs. That has been my range for the past 8-10 years, and though prices are higher right now, I see no reason to change it.

So are most/all your revenue miles MRs?

I never want to fly 6k+ a day; I'd rather limit it to 3k, and I try to get my trips to places I'd actually like to spend a part of a day (or even a whole night).

True, I did fly SFO-PDX-EWR-LIR the other day (including red eye), but that's not my preference.

I have 27k booked for next year; I'll be around 53k end of this year (but 1K wasn't my goal this year for various reasons).

My MRs comprise 25% of my revenue travel this year on UA; they were 3.5 CPM. My father unfortunately lives on an expensive short-haul route (51.3 CPM for the trips we made, but lower published fares are available for the upcoming season, though no flights are on the schedule), so my overall CPMs for 54k will run 10.2 CPM.