Segment Run - How much per segment is consider good?
 

I am still debating whether I should do some MR this year or not, but if I do go ahead and MR, it will be for segment run.

Last year I did 2 runs and they are about $40-$50 per segment. My question to all the expert here is whether $40-$50 consider a good price or not?

Can you actually get any lower than that? I always want to try to do a crazy segment run where it include a lot of segment on a single ticket, but it seems the most I can find will be 6 segments only, i.e. 2 connections on the outbound and 2 connections on the inbound.

Thanks in advance for your comment.

I'd say $40-$45 a segment is really good. Top tier status on AA is achieved with 100 segments, so $4000-$4500. That's a fairly good price, equivalent to 4-4.5cpm on MRs for 100k miles (though you get a lot more miles will MRs vs SRs).

A critical point, one not to be overlooked. At 25K miles, you start getting a 25% bonus, and at 50K that bonus goes to 100%. Generally, it's much better to achieve status on miles.

but the bonuses typically dont count toward status though..but it is nice having those bonus redeemable miles..

I know what you mean and when I calculate cpm, I do put in the bonus miles that I get into it (plus many stuff too). But my issue is that my travel had been way down this year and with a lot of short flights as well. I am currently only have 20K status miles while I do have 30 segments. I do have a few short flights coming up, but that will only get me to 25K / 34 segments.

By using a 4 cents per status miles or $50 per segements for calculation, I am talking about $3K+ if I really want to MR to get to the highest status with Air Canada. I was hoping someone can tell me a trick to get some crazy 10+ (or even 20+) segments run that can go down to say $20 per segements. :D I knew I was dreaming, but thought if I do not ask my question here I will never know.

Now I know that it will be $3K+, I think my question to myself is whether I want to MR to get to at least *G or not, which means I will need another 25K or 16 segments... which means i.e. $800-$1000... and I am not sure if it really worth it, especially if my next year travel pattern is unknown at the moment.

Remember that there is a minimum earn on very short segments, either 500 or 1,000 depending on your elite status. If managed properly, this can be very lucrative.

Numbers are better for MR. Assuming you start w/ no miles and log 100K miles for EXP, you should get 200K miles plus all of the benefits you get from being EXP. The 200K miles will get you 4 RT in first in the US and 2 RT bus international. If the MR costs $5K, it's a great deal

Is that calculation correct? If you start with no miles and MR to 100k, will you end up with 200k? I'm not an AA guy yet, but my understanding is you'd get the bonus of the tier you're on during the flight - meaning those first 25k miles will only net a 25% bonus. So if you MR 0-100k, you end up with 181250?

I still agree with the premise, though.

I was on vacation for the past week and I didn't have a chance to say thanks for all the respond here and PM that I got on my question. Much appreciated.

6 was the most i've been able to string together in one itinerary that was cost effective. I've done 8 but that was going down to Rio on AA on the deal from MCO. I was coming from BOS so added 2 segments each way.

I would agree that $40/segment was the best I've done in the last year.