This has probably already been covered, but I just don't know what to search for and couldn't find anything. Yesterday, I had a flight JFK-LAX on Delta. The flight distance is 2470 miles. However, during our flight, due to bad weather in JFK, the plane had to go into holding patterns twice totalling about an hour and probably increasing the miles flown by around 500 miles. So my question is, do NW partner miles get credited based on the distance between the two points or the actual miles flown?

I'm only at 11,000 EQM for NW (based on 2470 miles credit) and plan to go to Alaska this summer and somewhere else in the winter so the 500 miles could make the difference in whether I make silver elite for the first time. Thanks in advance.

You're kidding, right?

Do you expect extra miles for landing on the far runway as well?

Actually at AMS and DTW that might be fair...

What I find interesting is how the WP credited miles often vary by a few from the timetable distance. Wonder why they don't use the same data.

I too have wondered why credited miles differ slightly from the city pair mileage published in the timetable.

The only place I've found that accurately predicts how many miles will be credited for each segment is Northwest's WorldPerks Mileage Calculator located at http://www.nwa.com/freqfly/track/calc.html

It seems logical to credit miles based on what one flies. Otherwise, what is the point of giving miles for each segment on a connecting flight. A flight with a connection doesn't cost any more than a direct flight (sometimes even less) and it seems the logic here is to credit miles based on the route taken and not the initial and final points of destination. For example, if one takes a flight and the plane has to make an emergency out of the way landing to refuel, then that is pretty much the same as having a connection as far as time is concerned and so miles should be credited as such.

I suppose the reason for giving more miles in a connecting flight is to kind of say, "Sorry the fastest flight wasn't available or too expensive, but we'll give you miles for spending the extra time on longer flights" because not taking into account miles, doesn't everyone want to get to their destination as quickly as possible?

It would be kind of silly of me to expect extra miles for the holding patterns, but as far as airline policy goes, I certainly would institute such a policy. It diffuses the customer feeling, "Ugh... I had to spend so much extra time in the air because of their scheduling issues... what an annoying flight" to "Oh, look, I got extra miles for my troubles." 500 miles seems like a small price to pay to make the customer happier about the situation. I'll post the result when the miles get credited to my account.

You weren't kidding?

And how would you calculate the miles flown? Install GPS locators connected to transponder on each plane, and new computer system to figure "drift" due to airstream" into equation? And you would expect who to pay for the cost of all that hardware and software? Not me, I like my miles ust as they are now... much cheaper.

I better stop now before Radiocycle deletes message for foul or abusive language, or impolite characterizations....

No need to become so aggressive. I didn't realise they didn't have tracking devices for how many miles an airplane flew. I thought they had all this information - kind of like your car has a trip odometer - and knew how many miles each flight flew. Obviously, I don't expect them to install a bunch of software to track this just to credit miles properly.

What I meant was that if they had this information, they may as well credit the miles according to how many were flown. However, since you say they don't have it, I suppose that answers my question about how many miles I'll get. Thank you very much for the response.

In theory your question makes perfect sense. NW as well as the rest fall into the KISS model(keep it simple stupid) it would create a nightmare to keep track of the scenario you put out.
Some times it�s hard to get credit for just the regular flights. Good luck on the mileage quest.
On your next flight try booking it into 3 segments instead of 2??? I just did this recently on a flight to MSY.
I could have gone straight IND to MSY for about 710 miles.
But buy going IND to DTW to MEM to MSY I get 1620 actual air miles(for the same cost too).
A total of 3242 v 1621.
Now I know there will be some who would never go to this musch trouble. But I have found that by doing this a few times a year I actually get an extra ticket and guarantee my Elite status for next year.