Longtime listener, first-time caller....


So I don't know if this counts for "Mileage Run" or not, and I'm not sophisticated in the A-Fare, F-bucket lingo... I just use usair.com or American Express' website to book tickets.

Here's my deal.

I HAD been flying weekly for last couple of years, based out of PHL. I bounce between Gold and Platinum with USAir, but also maintain status on Northwest (usually about 35-40K miles).

Anyway, with business being what it is, I will be hard-pressed to make Gold on USAir and Silver on NWA.

Since most of my outbounds are Sunday nights, I really don't care how much damn time I spend on a plane. Miles are more important than my ground time. So I'd just as soon maximize the miles that I'm flying.

Is there a simple way to force travel websites to do that?

For instance, I have to fly to Omaha in a few weeks. On USAir, I can push it through Denver on the outbound (but not the return), or on NWA I can push it through Atlanta. (Both on codeshares, natch.)

But, is there a simple way to force a route through Phoenix (USAir) or SLC (NWA/Delta), without it being a true multi-route flight?

Is it possible to consolidate your travels to either US or DL? Doing so will help you maintain or even reach a higher status with one airline that would be your main choice.

I have not mess with US website for a while but DL website has multi-city option. You would have to figure out the routing that maximize eqm with acceptable price first on ITA (look at stickies), then plug those intermediate cities (SLC, DTW, etc) as separate legs on your itinerary.

good luck,
drew

Yes and no. I purposely keep status on two "families" (Star Alliance and Sky Team) for a variety of reasons. So I try to pile on USAir, as long as I keep a certain amount on NWA (which will be DL soon enough).

That said, when I select "multi-city", it treats it as totally individual flights, and prices accordingly.

That is, instead of saying, "Oh, you want to fly to OMA through PHX", it thinks I want to buy a ticket to PHX, spend some time there (even if it's just 45 minutes), then buy ANOTHER ticket to OMA. The site doesn't distinguish (at least the way I'm doing it!), itinerary-wise and price-wise, the difference between a layover and actually booking separate flights. (I hope I made sense in explaining that).


And, pardon being dumm, what's "ITA"?

this is a good thing to use Search for (expected here at FT)

ITA is an air travel search engine that doesn't have any airline allegiance, you have to book elsewhere. by utilizing their syntax you can select certain routings and airlines (way cool for MR's)

the good news is ITA is free (no cost).

HTH,
benzguy80

PS: kudos to the people at ITA Software for this service!

i use the "multi-city" function on the airline site as a start....perhaps you have a decent feel for the ones you fly & could force some connections on sun to tweak the mi's.....good luck...

There are a variety of reasons for the fare to go up when you price using multi city option. I still think that the best way is to utilize ITAsoftware. Spend some time reading the MR tool stickies at the top of this forum.

If you want to try your luck, ITA webpage is itasoftware.com. You can login as guest. This page explains the route language on ITA. It includes how to specify connecting cities.

good luck,
drew

Greetings,

First post here and wanting to help.

It might be easier to fax a letter to USAirways Frequent Flyer desk stating that business is down and they would consider letting you keep your status for another year as you will continue to support their airline.

Almost in all cases, they happily extend your status for another year. They would rather keep you as customer then to lose you.

Hope this helps. Take care.

When doing a MR a couple of months ago I had good luck using Kayak.com.

I wanted to take advantage of the BOS-LAX bonus miles and needed a positioning flight from FRA to do so. I felt pretty good about my results from Kayak which got me from FRA-BOS via DFW-LAS-LAX with 40 minutes to spare before the first of three BOS-LAX RTs. For my homeward journey I was able to fly BOS-LAX-ORD-FRA.

Each airline fare comes with "routing rules" that indicate what routes are legal to be used for connecting cities. For example, if I want to fly United from Philadelphia to Europe, it would let me connect through Washington or Chicago, since those are the "logical" connecting cities. I haven't tried it, but I would expect that it would not allow me to connect through San Francisco, since this is kind of an illogical connecting city. If I tried to buy a ticket from PHL to SFO to Europe, it would probably price it out as a one-way to San Francisco and a one-way to Europe. I expect this is what you are finding with your multi-city search.

(Routing rules used to be pretty easy to find, but they are not so easy to find any more - they are available through some subscription services. One of the "holy grails" of the mileage runner is to find some routing rules that allow for some strange connections... there was one a few months ago that allowed travel from San Francisco to Australia by way of Honolulu then LA to Sydney. These may or may not be mistakes, but they provide a nice way of accomplishing your goal in your original post.)

If routing rules are not easy to find directly, the ITA software can be helpful in identifying some connecting cities. You can use the ITA tool and specify that you want to travel between two cities and use (for example) four connecting flights. Just be cautious about connections that add no value... adding a connection in STL on a flight from PHL to LAX may not add enough miles to make the stop worthwhile... adding PHL as a connecting point between STL and LAX is better from a mileage running perspective.

Welcome to FT!