jpaulbrowning

Hello,

I have been reading about mileage runs, and decided to give it a whirl. However, I'm captive here at IAH. I'm looking to get to Star Alliance Gold; I need eight segments.

I've put together this mileage run: IAH-PHL-DCA-CLT-SJU-CLT-IAD-IAH, which nets me 6963 EQM and seven segments for $382 on US/UA (.043 per mile). I would like to add one more segment, but it seems to shoot the cost up. Could someone educate me on how to best research for additional segments? I'm using Matrix and using ua,us in the routing codes field, but I'm curious if anyone has other suggestions.

I appreciate any insight.

Thanks!

TheBOSman

I will check later, but I think that fare is restricted to two connections. Most UA fares are. Adding another connection will invalidate using that fare, requiring two fares. So, unfortunately, you are likely out of luck with this fare. Is one of those flights a through flight?

EmailKid

I'm a little confused

You state you are looking for Segments, yet post your cost in c/m. $54.57 to be exact Though these days, and especially out of a hub that's a darn good price ^

Now I appreciate how hard it is at IAH (flew from there for 15 years), but I will repeat advice others posted earlier: look closer to home.

IAH-AUS is $103 for many dates for same day turn. So unless you want to see SJU (I'm flying there for first time for a few days next month) and suffer on US (I hated flying US east coast routes, some of the surliest FAs ever), I'd do 4 r/t and not waste time on long segments. But that's just me (since you're shooting for Gold I assume you're silver already and assume your bennies haven't been watered down to reduce the 500 mile minimums).

Tue., Aug. 28, 2012 is the first date I see, and there are quite a few dates on Saturdays as well. I used CO's My Dates Are Flexible - dammit, need to remember it's United.com now

EmailKid

jpaulbrowning

Hi TheBOSman,

It looks like you are right. I found this through ITA. The fare codes at the end state:

Make sure to provide the exact booking and fare codes shown.
Fare 1: Carrier US EXA7SA6Y HOU to WAS (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code E
Covers IAH-PHL (Economy), PHL-DCA (Economy)
$101.40

Fare 2: Carrier US EBWA1SXX WAS to SJU (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code E
Covers DCA-CLT (Economy), CLT-SJU (Economy)
$84.00

Fare 3: Carrier US KBWA1SXX SJU to HOU (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code K
Covers SJU-CLT (Economy), CLT-IAD (Economy), IAD-IAH (Economy)
$138.00

I didn't realize I was just wrapping fares. In your experience, are US rules any more liberal than UA?

Thanks!



EmailKid,

$54.57 sounds more like IAH than the $0.05, doesn't it? Thanks for the IAH-AUS suggestion. It looks like IAH-SAT pops up quite a bit as a cheap solution as well. I hadn't considered the quick TX jaunts, but that does seem like the easiest solution.

I will qualify more quickly with segments (only needing 8) than with miles (most of my flights have been short non-stops to ORD or CMH for business; I'm late to the mileage game), but I'd also like to collect some miles when possible, hence the potential SJU run. I think I may use some HHonors points to make a short vacation in early September - that's a great idea.

Thanks!

TheBOSman

Maybe do one quick intra-Texas run and cut the segments on the SJU run to three each way to give yourself more time to spend in SJU? I'd probably go that way, pure segment running isn't fun (I've taken 55 flights this year, I give huge props to those who qualify on segments because I can only take so many flights!). The fare IAH-SJU on US does limit to two connections, so any extra connections would need two fares. Good luck!