Building a segment MR
 

I have searched the forum for anything about build a segment MR and could not find one. Am I missing it? If not could somebody start one or PM me about what I need to do to make one?
Thanks,
RT

There are lots of people here more expert than me, but I think I'll start and then others will probably jump in and better my feeble efforts.

It is good that you tried to search first, as the requests where people didn't do that often get no answers. Did you read the stickies at the top of this and other related areas?

I saw another poster point out this segment http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=566245 Worth a read.

I think I'd first figure out which program to emphasize. Any regular travel for business or pleasure that is more likely to happen, and seems more served on one airline or another. That will give you a head start on the situation. You mention NW membership so so maybe you have already made that decision.

An easy way to get more segments is to just take a trip you already have to make, and seek out the ugly routings. Lots of ways to do this, but one is just to get on the airline site itself and use the specific date option and scroll down past the direct flights.

Then get familiar with the "partners" so you know which other airlines will also credit you with segments to your chosen program. With the Delta/NW merger upon us, there likely will be changes so it will be good to check up periodically. From the school of hard knocks I learned that while Continental is a partner, when you fly on them you can only get 50% miles credited to NW. It is indeed in the fine print, but I hadn't read that far. The segment situation also has some similar kinks.

There are some rules of thumb on what constitutes a good segment price, but it really is pretty location dependent. You will figure out a good price for your area after a little experience.

Then get familiar with http://www.farecompare.com/search/fl...by=Destination

Plug in your origin, and click on the "Total" to find out some of the cheaper runs. You can also filter for just Sky Team (left hand side). This will give you something to work with.

Then your new best friend will be matrix.itasoftware.com

This one has a steep learning curve, but it is incredible. There are instructions under the help button. The big idea though is to take a relatively inexpensive run and see if you can find options in which it has more segments, by coding in multiple airlines.

XXX(origin airport) :: NW+
YYY(destination airport) :: NW+

is a starter.

Enough for now. Try the above and get started.

Romelle

Thanks for your help. Yes I am looking at NW. I have done some research on ITA and tried to find something. I can get about 5 segs for $369. I am flying TYS to MCO on 11/29 and returning 12/3. I was trying to build some end-on-ends using multi city but I'm not sure how to decide what cities to use. Any advice?

What was your logic in going for segments as opposed to miles?

And are you trying to get to an elite level this year and, if so, how many segments/miles do you still need?

Romelle

I need 15 segments or 20K miles to reach silver. I want to try and bring that number down on my MCO trip and many do another cheap one before the year is over. Thanks for your help.

Were you unhappy with the answer I gave you in the other thread where you asked this question?

A segment run on NW is going to require hitting two or three of the domestic hubs and that still only gets you three or four segments each direction. So you're looking at 2-3 trips at a minimum to get that many segments.

Your chances of doing it in between TYS and MCO are very, very, very slim. You might be able to work something out of MCO while you are down there, but you're still limited by the NW route structure. They are much less conducive to segment runs than CO (Texas), AA (Texas) or UA (West Coast). DL flights won't get you segment credit and CO flights that are cheap won't either.

I also see that you're just trying to get to Silver. Based on that I'd also consider waiting until January if it really is important to you. A qualification in January will get you status through 2010 instead of just through 2009.

I appreciate your help. I have become addict to this MR stuff. I realize now I am not going to make it this year. I guess my goal is to get as many miles possible this trip. I have found some flights for $395 that would get me 5000 miles. Do you think I could do better? There is a flight to HNL for $440 but I couldn't find a way to get to MCO with that.
Thank you for your help.

With as many miles or segments as you need, I agree with sbm12 that you should wait until January before really pushing. That way all your money and effort will get you two years and change versus one year and change.

Romelle

For the route you are looking at your options are very, very limited. There is no magic feature that allows for any city pair to be routed though some other city to get tons of miles; the airlines aren't that incompetent (though some are close). There are two basic ways to build MRs.

The first is to add extra segments between the cities you're traveling between anyways. In your case this would mean making two stops each way between TYS and MCO instead of just one. Some carriers have looser routing rules on occasion so something like PHL-LAS can be routed PHL-IAD-JFK-SFO-LAS, but those are less common.

The other approach is to find a cheap fare from wherever you happen to be and go on the trip for the sake of the miles. That's more like what you'd be doing if you went on the $440 HNL run.

And if you haven't started buying and flying them then you aren't really addicted. Or at least you're still more easily cured. :p

That doesn't make sense. If you have 15 segments to go, that means you have 15 segmetns in the bag. And if you have 15 segments in the bag, you *MUST* have at *LEAST* 7500 miles in the bag, and only need at most 17,500 miles, and probably less since I doubt you've flown ONLY sub-500 mile flights.

It's fairly easy to get 6 segments in a direction by adding XXX-YYY-XXX to your itin where XXX is MSP/DTW/MEM and YYY is CHI/GRR/IND/MKE/MSN/CLE. I'm racking up 13 segments on a trip to San Diego in two weeks.

I think NW ripped me off. I flew TYS to SGF with a connection in MEM. The flight # from TYS to MEM was the same as the one from MEM to SGF. It was the same thing returning. I submitted a missing miles request. I got 532 miles each way and 1 seg. I set up my trip to MCO. TYS-DTW-CVG-DTW-MCO-MEM-TYS. I found on ITA I could add MEM between TYS-DTW for $5. How do you create a 13 seg MR?

NW didn't rip you off. Its maybe a gotcha, but known, if the flight number is the same, you normally only get credit for 1 flight.

6 one way and 7 the other.

Like Raehl mentioned, try and add other hubs and cities in the midwest to your routing. There are a number of cities serviced by multiple nwa hubs that make this easier. To his YYY list, I'd also add BNA and CMH.

Also confused about your 15 seg / 20k miles post. You do know that it's 30 segments or 25k miles to silver, right?

Ha, wish there was a way from a hub to get 13 segs from MSP or nearby. What are you getting for a price/seg? Just got done with my first offical SR this weekend. Sitting at 85 with 8 more booked. Should hit Plat this year...