:D

dont know why but after reading that post I felt like I am at amateur night at the local improv theater...

Re: OP. Well, my all-time fave was SDF-ATL-OMA on a $58 RT WN-match fare that was morphed into an ATL-OMA RT by getting boarding passes in advance and just walking on the plane on both sides of it. Sometimes you could get the last segment credited by giving your boarding pass to the gate agent if he'd take the coupon and stamp the boarding pass.

Then again, that was long ago and there's no way you could do it now. People tend to forget that security got tighter gradually BEFORE 9/11 with new computers and ID-checking mandates, among other things.

Also notable that back then in the wake of the Eastern demise ATL was being treated like a fortress hub, with high fares to many places that haven't been topped in the years since. The competition situation is much better now and there isn't the need to play the tricks.

for me its a really simple way of looking at it

Airlines maketh the rules
I maketh the rules work for me

no dilemma

I think that ethics of mileage running have more to do with the egological impact than cheating something out of airlines.

Growing air traffic is contributing to global warming, pollution etc. So my (mainly theoretical) hesitations about mileage running have more to do with that than whether I am stealing something from the airlines.

There was a thread on this several months ago that someone can probably find with a search. The consensus as best I recall it (which disagreed with the premise of the OP in that thread and of the post quoted here) was:

1. Since the cheap seats mileage runners buy would otherwise be empty, MRs do not contribute to increased flights.

2. The environmental (not ecological - look it up) impact of having one more passenger on a plane that is going to fly anyhow is negligible.

3. The mileage runner would not be in stasis during the time of the MR. He/she would be doing something else. Whatever that might be, it would have its own environmental impact. There is no a priori reason to believe that this would be less than the environmental impact of getting on an airplane.

Expedia & Travelocity, etc. find such routes mainly on 1-ways. While FAY--clt--ABE thru fare was probably automatic Y or almost so, US had reasonable 1-ways FAY--DAY + DAY--ABE.
BTW, your routing was 4 segs, not 5 ;).
I want to fly most nearly directly to each of my destinations. I am willing to pay $70 more to fly Traverse City, MI--atl--wILMington taking 4.5 hours than a double connect xATLxCVG taking 7.5 hours. I don't fly enough to earn status anywhere anyway.

But the FT question - perhaps not the rational question in our few lucid intervals, but the FT question - is this: if you did these things, could you?

No, efrem, because most of my long-haul flying is on award tix earned by credit cards, car rentals, Lending Tree once, etc...

True, the MR may not be in stasis, but perhaps the person could be doing something envi-positive (e.g., the person could be planting trees or doing something along those lines). Would that matter?

We could all spend more time building housing for the poor, recording books for the blind, and generally trying to do our poor imitations of Mother Theresa. We could all also give more to charity, purchase smaller vehicles and drive them more slowly, heat our houses less when it's cold and/or cool them less when it's hot, abandon environmentally extravagant hobbies such as motor boating, darn our socks instead of replacing them, come up with reasons why we don't need to take a business trip instead of reasons why we must ... If we did, the world might be a better place, but is this thread about idealism or reality?

Careful with that "reality" stuff. I think if I paid it too much attention, then I could not rationalize the time and effort spent doing MRs. Accordingly, I try to put "reality" out of my head, so I can indulge myself in this silliness without considering "better" and more fruitful uses of my time.

I agree with you Zeikka and I'm surprised it took 3 pages before someone mentioned the environmental impact. That is the real ethical question for me.

As Efrem said the marginal environmental impact from 1 passenger doing a MR is very low, possibly negligible, the same is true of all human activity, e.g. driving your car down the street. If everyone did it then the results would be disastrous.

I rest easy though in the thought that there's not that many of us out there who'd be willing to do a MR just for kicks or miles so our collective impact on the planet is not that great simply because our collective population is minute.

So my answer to the OP's question: No ethical issues here :D

I, for one, am rooting for "idealism"

And "reality" should welcome it.

How much worse can one do (as she did) to crusade against the use of birth control amongst the poverty striken? :confused:

My thots/question exactly ...

Nice quasi-pun. I think it (mileage run to get elite status) is indeed mainly about ego, and of course the ego-boo privileges (upgrades, etc.,) attendant thereto.