On Thursday I issued one of these tickets for my husband.
He goes on SQ within asia to NRT.Than Across the water in C. Goes to PHX. Stops for few days. aheads to via DEN YYZ. Month later via ORD he goes to Winnipeg to visit his daughter comes back to YYZ. In October goes to EWR via IAD,comes to Canada back to YUL. Goes from YUL via ORD to the west coast to HKG and contiuous on TG & NH F within Asia in Nov.
All in C & F.
He will have to buy YUL-YYZ-YUL ticket.
The beauty, he can change dates & length of stays. Only downside cannot change the routing once ticketed.
Two of these tickets gets him 80K EQM on his way to 1K.
The ticket was issued for a a business trip with added personal trips to PHX & Winnipeg an added bonus.^
To get 1K using the 8 segment run one would have to do a dozen of these.
Which means 24 trips to YYZ Airport. 12 Parking costs. Few additional hotel nights.

Exactly!

Clarifying the above definition:
- For the miles includes EQM, RDM, segments, tier points, sectors, or qualification for a specific miles promo, depending on an individuals motivation.
- It you are already taking the trip for other reasons, it is not being flown for the miles. Logic. If primary reason is B, primary reason is not A.

Can the motivation be both: Yes, but if reason B is sufficient motivation for the trip by itself, the way you think about, plan, and justify the trip has little in common with a pure MR.

Do others really see tweeking a routing as the same thing as taking a trip for the purpose of miles?

If it is not the same thing, shouldn't we assign different terminology to communication more effectively?

In part I am responding to certain category of "MRer." The one who wants to know how to get the cheapest MR to From XXX on Dec 22 to YYY, returning on Jan 3. This person wants to call their trip a MR, ostensibly to get help from this forum in finding a cheaper fare. But when an experienced MRer takes time to figure out how to make such a trip a MR's cousin, (ie tweeking: flying twice the distance on required trip), the effort is wasted as the individual is not interested in anything but a bargain fare.

I for one, would be willing to help people find better fares from time to time. But this is a different art from planning a MR (mile motivated) and thus IMO it would nice to have a different FT sub-forum for such.

I agree with everthing in clacko's excellent post #5.

Doesn't everyone on this board earn miles on every single trip they fly?

Let's follow this logic.

Each person should define things as we want them. So lets say for me, a MR (mileage run) is any trip for a good price. I think I have gotten a good price on all my trips this year, so they are all MRs.

Anyone can call any trip a MR if they want to.

Problem: Interpersonal communication requires that we use the similar definitions or true communication cannot occur. If the word MR means something different to each person, we cannot meaningfully discuss it.

I really don't understand if you are serious or trying to muddy the waters. The same trip flown for the miles may be enjoyed by one and not the other, with the true motivation behind each being for the miles.

I am currious: I enjoyed my 100K MR in Jan making EXP; in your book this is not a MR because I enjoyed myself (and was upgraded into a nice business class style cabin most of the time)?

How would my 100K 19 day EXP run not be old school?

Perfect example.

This trip was not born out of a miles motivation. If a MR is a trip for the miles, this trip doesn't qualify.

It is the MR's cousin and has something very much in common with the MR: Flying a longer routing for the miles.

The trip is not for the miles but the routing is for the miles.

Why are you going?

A) To enjoy an acceptable destination with SmilingGirl.

B) To get most miles/€ by flying.

Your trip will look very different depening on your answer. Your motivation, planning, destination and CPM will all be vastly different.

How are these the same thing?

Tweeking the routing only (not affecting the trip in any other way) might be compatible with A. Choice of destination and time of year travelled are incompatible with B. B will yield one thing; A another.

I did not suggest we start calling something MR when others use the term differently.

I said that earning miles is what matters, not whether anybody calls your trip an MR.

Hmm - I guess my defintiion of a MR is very different. It is for me about maximising routings within an existing fare.

I have (another) DONE4 this September. My flight is HKG-LAX - now bizarrely I have 4 days to do that trip (given it can be done it a few hours (given time zone changes) I have some up my sleeve to play with.

I am thinking smething like hkg-sin-bkk-hkg-nrt-jfk-lax-dfw-anc-dfw-ljfk

I am doing this purely for the miles - I plan to sleep on overnight flights as much as I can and not buy any food on the journey. To me (and this is a personal view) this is a MR within a trip - one defintiion of an MR to me is if your friends and family think what you are doing is insane and think you have lost the plot - then its probably a MR.

This trip is likely to put me over 200K qpoints on AA for the year ;)

I'd have to say a mileage run is trip you plan just for the miles. If you decide to stay a few days, big deal, the reason you booked it to begin with was for the miles. Also, if you are planning a normal trip and book extra segments outside the routing, that's a mileage run (ex: I can fly DEN-IAH-ORD, but I've flown DEN-IAH-EWR-FLL-EWR-ORD before for $100 extra... I considered that a MR) my friends call it insanity :eek:

You contradict yourself.

Newbie question - I go on MR's (Ex: $500 all-in SAN-LAX-SFO-ORD-FRA-ORD-SFO-LAX-SAN same day turn, no purpose except EQM's) and am curious how you determine the above mentioned info. I haphazardly plug different cities into FC and ITA, check yahoo best fares, keep a watch on certain routes, set alerts, calculate out cpm's...but is there a better way? I want to know how other FTer's go about it because I know everyone has their own system and some must be more efficient than others...particularly mine since I'm a newbie.

If the side trip is just for the miles there is no contradiction.

You might find this thread helpful.

I forgot to repond to your post earlier, sorry.

My take is the fare could be used for a good MR. However I am guessing most bookers of the fare won't be MRing.

A fare does not make a MR. What makes you get on that plane does. What causes you to take that trip? Miles?

I consider this to be a good premium MR run fare for those who want to pay extra to get their miles in comfort.

Does the mileage run always have to be the lowest cost option?

For example. Last year I had several NYC-PHX round trips at about 8300 eqm for about 145 all in each. I also had some nyc-pdx via mia and lax in both directions for 10 or 15 more each. About 8600 eqm.

Would you all say I would have to take the phx one every time to be a MR? I picked these strictly because I wanted to fly somewhere(anywhere) and they offered same day turns.

I flew more of the slightly more expensive one because I could get 6-10 hours in pdx before heading home and then usually 6 hours in MIA on the return and still be home sunday from a saturday departure.

I still consider these MRs because I went to these places because of the fare and routing for earning the mileage. I just paid a slight bit more to get some honest enjoyment out of it.