Hitting the 4 UA Metal Segment Requirement - how to find cheapest option?
 

I'm currently one segment short of hitting the 4 UA metal requirement to be Premier Gold, and live in NYC (aka, EWR is easy access for me).

Is there a search engine that allows me to find a cheap flight to hit the UA four-segment requirement? I've tried Google Flights and United's website, but both require a location (e.g. I can take a day off work and go anywhere, just need to optimize for price).

Thanks!

Simply enter EWR as the origin, enter your date of travel, limit the airlines to UA and then click on the map - it will show everywhere you can go on UA from EWR on that date. If you have other origins as an option, then repeat with those.

Also put in United States as the location in case the above does not work. You can then sort and filter price.

​​Normally DC, Charlotte, Chicago, Boston or Orlando run in the $120 range RT. A random date of May 23 shows $137 for BOS.

Hartford is another quick jump from EWR.

I've never seen sub $200 for that flight, let alone close to the other options I presented.

June 1 or June 2 EWR-FLL turn should be ~$155 return. Make sure you skip the BE fare at $125.

Or $126 to BOS those same days from EWR.

Searched on matrix using ua /f bc=k|bc=G|bc=l|bc=s|bc=t to exclude BE fares and cycled through a collection of airports known to be historically cheap thanks to LCC competition (BUF, SYR, ROC, MCO, FLL, BOS, etc.).

You also got AVP, ITH, SYR, ROC, BUF, ERI are all small hops

Did a google flights map search EWR-ROC on 5/23$191 rt, same day LGA-ORD 137 RT
EWR-IND $157 EWR-PWM $174

I didn't see the OP put a price threshold on his query.

be aware they run that lovely Dash Q-300 on this route and tends to cancel if the sun is shining too hard :p

Oh yeah, which is why I would rather fly to BOS and drive down.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Much appreciated. And good point here - ideally sub $200 or even sub $150. :)

You can also /f !bc=n :)

Google Flights with EWR as destination and looking at a random city (like IAD) and playing with dates is definitely the best way to.

How about this: https://goo.gl/flights/fQ3V

Or: https://goo.gl/flights/abUe

Or just leave the destination blank and set a max price

UA:$151 EWR-PBI G-fare
 

If you want to travel during the weekend, here's a possibility:

UA:$151 EWR-PBI G-fare GAA4AHEN
Sat 3 Jun
UA343 EWR-PBI 1044-1339 B738
UA1773 PBI-EWR 1430-1727 B738
-or-
UA608 EWR-PBI 1240-1554 B738
UA1504 PBI-EWR 1625-1923 B738

Link: https://goo.gl/flights/4Gdb