Self Perpetuating Mileage Run
 

Is this realistic - buy a cheap(~210) flight from the west coast to florida with lots of stop overs. Things invariably go wrong with flights/delays etc. If you have status, with 8 segments you shoudl be able to come up with a few things to complain about.. you can then use these ~200 in vouchers to buy a new flight, starting the whole cycle over again...

Surely someone out there has already thought of this!

The 0 fly alot

First, most airlines tend to give out miles and only vouchers on major screw ups. Second, after the first or second compliant letter/email someone in customer relations is going to look at your flight profile, realize that you are doing MRs and attempting to obtain vouchers/additional miles for everyday problems that occur in air travel. Which in turn will probably mean a polite letter/email back apologizing but explaining that no compensation in any form will now be provided.

For self-sustaining MRs, better to count on VDBs than compensation for irregular ops. Oversold flights can be easier to predict than maintenance problems, and airlines happily give out vouchers for VDBs but will grumble about giving them out for maintenance issues and will likely not give them out at all for weather issues.

Erm ... the whole point of an MR is that you don't have any stop overs (or maybe one, for example, if you need a Saturday night). You go ... and connect ... and go ... and connect ... and go ... and, with a really good one, you're home in your own bed that same night (or the next), with 6K or 8K (or 10K or more) of new EQM in your account.

cheers,

Henry

I'm sure he meant connections.

JP

For the person who PMed me, you make a good point. Its fun to discuss the nuances of MRing to a degress, but if you take it to the professional level its in bad form to post too much information. Just like we don't make an announcement to the general population on the airplane after a 3 hour mechanical delay that "the Galley is giving out free alcohol!" Its maybe bad form here to discuss how we can travel for essentially free.

Though I have to say PMer, the fact that you've spent so little in the last 4 years is amazing. I wonder if you were ever the guy sitting next to me in biz, basically flying for zilch while I was all proud of my $200 transcon.
Its interesting, you almost have to go all out and only travel biz/irst since ir ops in F are far preferable to ir ops in a lower class.

yea. I meant connections.

make "money" flying
 

I regularly do "self sustaining flying" around holiday times-- For example, around Thanksgiving, I will book a flight (way in advance) for the wednesday before returning the sunday after, but I will pick a starting flight that will have alternate routings available later in the day-- and just sit by the gate waiting for them to ask for volunteers-- worst case, I make it on my first flight-- usual case, I get bumped at least once. Two years ago on UA I got three RT flight vouchers out of $200 trip from LAX to ABQ. Last year, 2x $300 vouchers for a trip from LAX to JAN on CO.

It doesn't take too much thought to know that the key is to pick busy travel days-- holidays, monday mornings, friday afternoons... (although you have to plan far ahead if you want this to be affordable...) and be flexible as far as when you get places. For me the hassle of sitting at the airport for the day, or having to come back the next day, is worth a free trip/ticket-- but i'm a starving grad student.

Yea, I say unto you. Oh. Well, in that case, maybe you should have written connections -- instead of something completely different. :confused: FT is a welcoming and understanding community, but if you say 'up' when you mean 'down' or 'stop' when you mean 'go', you make it difficult for us to reply to your queries.

cheers,

Henry

Sorry Henry, your right i could have been more precise in my wording. But the stopover versus connection is irrelivant to the point. can a mileage run or travel in general be self funding? whether its a stop over or a connection doesn't change the number of segments, the chances of VDB, etc :) So hopefully that wasn't the cause of any difficulties in replying on your end. If it helps, i can type s.. l..o..w..e..r. :)

No worries, mate; I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't realise that English isn't your native language. Some of the travel terminology can be a bit tricky and sometimes leads to confusion.

Good luck.

cheers,

Henry

You have no family to visit for Thanksgiving or work to be on Monday?
Sorry but the best I can come up with is homeless orphan, which I doubt you are.

The life of the grad student, my time, is worthless. FWIW I meet my parents some new place each year for Thanksgiving-- and they understand if I show up 8 hours, or the next day, later...

So want to PM me the process of doing that? I read about it before, but still don't get it :D

Oh so YOU'RE the dude who's making it hard for ME to book travel on holidays? :D:D:D

Well, something tells me I should NOT try this with my 5 month old and 2 year old in tow

(although they'd possibly have sympathy for the waiting family with the tired kids and even get some cute flight attendant types stopping by to ask how old the kids are, etc) :D Heck, we'd ALL get vouchers--AND lollies

:)MM

In keeping with the orginal post, I did once receive so many vouchers for a series of UA screw ups on an award trip that I basically flew free for a year--with me wife. Of course, this was NOT part of our orginal plan, but it ended up paying off in the end.