Okay, so I'm massively kicking myself. Yesterday evening, I found two dream MR itins: a $436 a/i SFO-FRA on UA/LH, and SFO-FRA-DCA-ORD-SFO for $593 (!) on UA. I went out to a show with a friend, came back at 10pm ("It's not midnight yet, I'm sure the fares are still there"), and... well, you know the story, the fares had increased by 50-100%. :-(

Now I'm back trying to do a MR for 10K miles on Star Alliance AND trying to fit two separate trips to visit friends in D.C. and Chicago. Here's my problem, though: I'm using ITA and I can't figure out how to construct the ideal itin whereby I fly far enough east to get 5K miles RT each time, yet stop over in Chicago or D.C.

I tried doing a multi-segment: SFO;SJC - phl;pit;mco;fll;tpa;pbi;nyc;bos - CHI - SFO;SJC, but it kept routing me into, say, PHL and out (an hour later) of PIT. That's no good!

Any strategy ideas here? I'm free to travel pretty much anytime on these two flights between now and Dec 20. Thanks! :-)

I may be misuderstanding your question, but I think you can uncheck the "allow airport changes" radio button which might help.

Cheers,

So simple, and so brilliant! Embarrassing that I, as a computer geek, didn't figure that out .

Only (minor) bummer is that it precludes convenient and often-cost-saving routing that starts me at, say, SFO and drops me back at the end at SJC. But it provides an outstanding starting point for iterations.

Thanks much! :-)

I finally got a pretty cool itin:

SFO-DUB-DCA then IAD-ORD-SFO (with requested overnights to visit friends in D.C. and Chicago) for $605 on US Airways. Okay, so it's hardly my airline of choice and it involves many plane changes, but still... pretty good price for Dec at last minute!

Here's how I did it.

1) First, identified which European airport would be cheapest to dash to and from. Given my flexibility in dates and lack-of-caring of which European city I went to (since it's just a turnaround), I used ITA's month-long tool as follows:

FROM: SFO;SJC;OAK
TO [in sets of three, so as not to overload]: cdg;ams;mad
fco;zrh;bru
mxp;bcn;man
arn;cph;dus
ist;osl;vie
svo;txl;dub

2) Dublin came out as the cheapest by far, along with specific days highlighted (Dec 8 and 13).

So, keeping direction in mind, I then tested out SFO-DUB-IAD-CHI-SFO itineraries for both Dec 8 and 13 (again on ITA) and got a fare of $600 after hand-picking the segments.

3) Booking time! Tried Kayak, but 'twas no go; priced way over $600. Then tried US Airways site (man, you think .bomb is bad? gah!) Again, with my desired flight times as selected via ITA, it was way over $600.

So then I decided to be crazy. I called up a US Airways agent and had her price it... and it came out just $5 more then ITAs stated $600 fare (+ $10 for the phone agent fee, for a total of $615).

Pity I couldn't book this online, 'cause then I could have taken advantage of US Airway's current European promotion: 10% off + 10K frequent flyer miles with European round trips flown before Dec 17. Oh well.

Anyway, for about $600 and the inconvenience of an overseas dash, I'm getting:
...to visit two friends I haven't seen in ages, albeit briefly
...over 20K frequent flyer miles on United (double miles due to 1P status)
...1K status on United

(I would stay in Dublin for a bit to explore, but my company's European headquarters are there, and I'll have the pleasure of a Dublin visit in February again anyway).

* * *

Whew! Hope my discoveries / musings here are helpful to someone :-)

* * *

P.S. -- I have put a hold on this 'til Tue at midnight, so if by wild chance you know of a much better option, let me know before I ticket this. And yeah, I'm guessing I could have gotten a better miles-bang for the buck by doing a couple of domestic itins, but this is more efficient time-wise I think.

I went on usair.com and used the Multi City feature to create the following:

SFO-DUB 12/13
DUB-PHL-IAD 12/14 (immediate turn-around from the previous red-eye flight)
IAD-LAS-SFO 12/15

For $646 all in.

I actually like the US website and how it distinguishes each segment by a $ amount so I can pick the cheapest ones. This was especially true for the IAD-SFO segment, there were many choices that were over $1000, but then 2 for only $114.

I don't know if those are the dates you were going for, but for the bonus you're talking about, you might want to try again.

If you find something please let me know. I need 10K as well to finish the year.

Just got back from my MR and figured I'd share a few thoughts.

First, it clearly pays to be friendly with the gate agents. A very kindly one, upon seeing my MR itinerary, upgraded me for free to Envoy (business) class on my PHL-DUB leg -- really helped me get some much needed rest!

And US Airways -- despite my previous less-than-stellar experiences and the vocal critics on FT -- really wasn't that bad overall. All my US flights departed relatively on-time, service onboard was good, and the coach seats weren't any worse than the UA coach seats.

The only major bummers of flying US instead of my usual UA:
- No ability to use e-upgrades, even when flying UA metal.
- No credits towards e-upgrades.
- Preferential *G boarding only on only one or two of the legs.

On a different note... I was rather annoyed that I was denied entrance to a UA Red Carpet lounge on one of the stops. The sign on top of the check-in table said "Star Alliance Gold" but -- despite me having that status -- I was denied entrance because my international leg wasn't immediately following.

Oh wait, I see this is standard policy

What surprises me is that this holds true even for 1K folks. That seems really miserly to me, especially given that the Red Carpet lounges are, frankly, pretty big in size and rather unexciting.

Lastly, on one more positive note, on every leg of my flight except the last one and the Envoy class one, I was booked with a free seat next to me. So very much appreciated! I wonder if I just got lucky, or if that's truly standard practice for *G folks.

EDITED TO ADD:
Oh wait, I forgot one of the coolest parts! Here (approximately) was my conversation with the border / passport agent in Dublin:
Agent: How long are you planning on staying in Dublin?
Me: Um, less than a day.
Agent: Hmm. Did you book your flight on the Web?
Me: [rather puzzled] Um, yes... yes I did.
Agent: Are you familiar with a site called FlyerTalk?
Me: Oh... yep! I used that to do this mileage run... um, just doing this for the miles.
Agent: [big smile on his face] Hey, I'm on that site, too! What's your username?

The friendly fellow (whom I'm not naming in order to respect his privacy) ended up finding me waiting at my gate later and we had a fun chat about FT and mileage runs and so on. Definitely a pleasant surprise, especially given that I was rather worried about the whole security issue associated with a two hour stopover in Ireland

Wow, glad you had such a good experience on US. Just have a few notes about your experiences....

* The MCEUROPE discount/bonus miles only work on round-trip journeys that can be booked online. It won't work with multiple destinations. I was able to use it to save 10% off my trips, and should get the 10k bonus miles for each.

* You should have been allowed in a *Gold lounge same day as your trip. I recently did PHX-MUC MR's and used the US lounge in PHX, as well as PHL. The US Envoy lounge in PHL is actually pretty nice. Then I used the LH lounge in MUC after arriving, was nice to shower and feel better after such a long trip. The lounge agents will ask to see your status card and boarding pass.

* US does not block seats next to preferred members, or if they do they don't last long. I had PAX assigned next to me for 3 of 4 international legs. I wish they did block seats, or had an E+ section like UA. So it was just chance on that.

* Glad you got upgraded to Envoy and enjoyed it. I also got upgraded on a MUC-PHL leg, and it was very nice. US upgrades preferreds domestically (not Hawaii) based on status and availability of seats.

Thanks for posting!