That would be 4 hits: BTR-CLT (West, east, new route), CLT-MLB (new route).

It doesn't matter how you book it just as long as your flight includes the segment.

well, i think the dividing line is roughly the MS river, so it would still only be 3, yes?

BTR is in the FAQ as a west city.

Also if you do MLB sign up for 1000 bonus miles.

my mistake, thanks!

I can find NO direct flights in September from PHX-MBJ. What am I missing here? This jump will be impossible if they require direct flights for this new route.

PHX-MBJ is a seasonal route.

Does anybody know when they post new e-saver fares? My fingers are crossed for a really good deal that will help us out in our quests for 4 points!

Need a little help!
 

I have read through pages and pages of comments and I am still not sure I understand this.

Flight outbound
DCA-CLT-SFO I think that is 2 hops(NA, east and NA, west)

what is my better option-- Can I get more hops if I return on one of these?
SFO-CLT-TLH
or
SFO-PHX-CLT-TLH

So do I just get 2 hops for all these flights or is there another way to add on?
Thanks

Hops are regions and each region only counts once, so if you go through east and west US, that's two hops. You have to leave the mainland US to get more.

You can get additional points via the skips (trips on the shuttle between DCA, LGA, and BOS), or the jumps (new routes).

Wednesday

Ok - I am currently CP with 102 segments this year and approx 75k miles. What exactly does this do for me? I guess as of now I am platinum for next year - so if I hit the 4 hops skips or jumps do I go up to Chairman without having to fly the full 120 segments or qualifying miles?

Or, in the immortal words of Southwest, IT'S ON!!!!

Yes you would be chairman for next year and can concentrate status on a different airline if you choose.

Cheapest 8 h/s/j segments in 1 week or less?
 

I wish I could get away with a week off to do this, but:
8/8 LGA-DCA-CLT (US) skip, na east
8/9 CLT-SJD (US) new route, central america
8/10 SJD-PVR (Mexicana) nadda
8/11 PVR-CLT-BTR (US) new route, new route, na west
8/12 BTR-CLT-MLB-CLT-EWR (US) new route
Total = $222 + 229 + 921 = $1,372 and 8 h/s/j segments (4 nights in hotel)

Can anyone beat this in time/flight cost?

Going from NYC for these...here's an interesting one:
8/10 amtrak to PBG ~$70
8/11 PBG-BOS-DCA-CLT-BTR-CLT na east, new, skip, new, na west
8/12 CLT-PHX-PVR central america
8/13 PVR-CLT-MLB-CLT-EWR new, new

Total = $535 + 585 + 70 = $1,190 and 8 h/s/j segments (3 nights)
8/14

edit: can you crash at night in PBG, CLT, or PVR?

BOS-PBG and PBG-BOS has a 25-35 minute turnaround on both sets of dailt flights, and .bomb won't sell it too me due to the illegal connection. Any chance in the world that it's not the exact same plane if I book it as two tickets?

Ah -I see it is limited to certain airports - blah

E Savers are up. Charlotte has an E Saver to Cabo (SJD). Anyone know if it is possible to do an out and back in one day?

I finally gave up and finally understand this plan. It is very costly for us midwesterners to try to put a plan together without spending a ton of money to get a hop, skip and a jump to get 4. I ended up talking with a supervisor today and she said that in order to receive a jump going to sjd or pvr it had to be the non stop flights. MBJ is seasonal so that is out. I decided to do the mci-clt-cun-clt-mci. That should give me 3. I guess the only thing left is to take a quick trip to Vegas before October. I for one am GLAD to have this figured out as it is quite a time consuming thing to put something together!

does anyone else not get e savers delivered by email any longer?

haven't received one in months and have checked email settings a few times (not in spam folder either)

i´m looking at 4 points for about 500.00 a.i. from mci. is that what you were getting??

I think this promo isn't that hot considering not all will qualify. Q2 was better with double miles. This one is far too limiting - none of the routes I fly on are included and i am not going out of my way to earn on this promotion. I could see doing it if you didn't have status but i am close to requalifying for next year already.

ESavers seem like a joke to me. I wonder if something is wrong with the emails I get. Esavers used to be great!! Now, ESavers seem higher than what I would expect to pay on an average day simply by booking any ole' fare. Are others haveing good luck with ESavers? Maybe its just me.

It's seems to be totally hit and miss as to whether the ESavers are any good or not. I would say the recent $99 ORD-PVR was a pretty good one, but they are usually no where near that good lately. I'd love to know the logic used (if any) on how the ESavers are priced. I agree that regular sale fares seem to often be better than the ESaver "deals".

By the way, is it me or are these new US routes not loaded into ITA? It seems to ignore them when I try to map things out.

Dont want to get the topic off track, but I agree. Would love to know what's happening. What happened to my old $250 r/t PHL-CDG or $175 r/t PHL-SJU?:cool: Good ole' eSaver days!

I don't think you do have it figured out, MCI-CLT-CUN-CLT-MCI plus a Vegas trip is 3 HSJ's, the Vegas trip gives you nothing new. MCI-PBG you can do in a weekend and get four HSJ's, just make sure to get a Shuttle Segment.
The "hotness" of this promotion is about being able to easily move up in status. Unless you're going to qualify for a higher status anyway, this promotion is quite lucrative for those who want to move up from their current status (or easily requalify for CP). In my case, a single trip to Mexico will secure me Gold status for 19 months, and I was not sure I would even make Silver again this year.
I booked MCI-PHX-PVR-CLT-ORD in the past week for $360 all-in on an ESaver ($250 before taxes), seemed like a good deal to me, and gets me 4 HSJ's.

Ditto. Being in PHX I had to spend a bit more than you did to book a 4 hit trip but still worth it - I'm in the same boat as you. May not even hit silver the traditional way this year. Actually, absent this status run I would just go over 25K with a trip to the Chicago seminar in October.

I'm not giving up hope for some lucky e-savers between now and Oct 10 to get me another 4 somehow. Problem is September is almost completely out for me as the wife and I will be in Spain or Portugal for several weeks. Always the first two weeks of October to find last minute deals. A cheap MR to FCO would be awesome. :)

1 long day to collect 5 points (east, west, shuttle, new-BTR, new-MLB)
$539 from BOS

1 US2021E 29JUL Q BOSDCA 600A 729A
2 US1851E 29JUL Q DCACLT 900A 1030A
3 US2580E 29JUL Q CLTMLB 1125A 100P
OPERATED BY US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES
4 US2580K 29JUL Q MLBCLT 140P 324P
OPERATED BY US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES
5 US2564K 29JUL Q CLTBTR 435P 547P
OPERATED BY US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES
6 US2565K 29JUL Q BTRCLT 615P 917P
OPERATED BY US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-PSA AIRLINES
7 US1538K 29JUL Q CLTBOS 1015P 1214A 30JUL F

subtract the last two segments and it's only $340 for same number of points -- can possibly go BTR to somewhere else for additional points

all work for me

it's also summer, so fares are higher, but UA is the same way right now. everything seems reversed, tho, i.e. TYS-WAS-TYS would be cheaper on UA but on US it's WAS-TYS-WAS. :(

(edited: I'd thought I had a plan worked out but it relied too heavily on the Shuttle flights).

I'm so glad that this promo came along and I can hopefully stop taking insane routings the entire year in the hopes of hitting CP again. I've read all of the thread up to this point and think I know what I need to do...but any help from other CLT based folks is appreciated.

I'm CP so I need 4 points/hits/whatever total. I have a trip planned to Denver so I think that count as two point: East to West, West to East. There doesn't seem to be any routing that would add more points for me.

Then I could throw in a quick trip to Baton Rouge; that gets me another point.

And then I'm stuck. I guess I'd probably look to do a Melbourne, Florida flight at some point for the final point.

I had been considering throwing away some time on my Denver trip to route CLT-SFO-PHX-DEN on the outbound and then something less stupid on the return. I wonder if I could spend the time piddling around on the east coast instead and do something like CLT-BOS (no point), BOS-DCA (1 point), DCA-CLT (no point), CLT-DEN (1 point) and then DEN-CLT (1 point) on the return. That gets me three of the four needed points in one trip that I have to make anyway...I just add a high level of risk and a lot more hours to it. Then I'd toss in a trip to Baton Rouge at a later date.

Any thoughts / tips? Any flaw in my counting of points?

For a day trip to Baton Rouge, is there any limit on how short my layover is? I can't imagine that there is but thought I'd toss it out there.

I'm not certain you've quite got it down. It's not going from region A to region B. Any flight to, from or within a region counts that region. If you route CLT-SFO-PHX-DEN: It's the CLT-SFO segment getting you both east and west on a single flight. SFO-PHX-DEN is nothing, nor would a DEN-CLT. Once you've got the region crossed off, you can't cross it off again.

A shuttle flight in any direction and a new route in any direction will get you the other two points. Or you could take a shuttle and then a hop to BDA or NAS to cross off the Caribbean, and that would also get you the two hits.

Maybe CLT-DCA-BOS-PBG-BOS-CLT will work for you. (2 points)

if i buy a United Airlines ticket that is operated by US Airways (like CLT - DEN) - does this count as one of the hops?

dingo, i'm in the same position. got the 2 points with a trip out west next week, but need the other 2. was looking at taking a short vacation to FCO to pick up the 2, but now there is an e-saver to Cabo, $483ai, so may change gears and take mrs ripvan to the heat instead.

As long as you use your US FF it should. You are eligible for upgrades so I don't see why this promo would not apply.

the promo doesn't apply to flights not operated by USAirways, Shuttle or regional carriers

Gotcha; thanks AG. I think I'm going to just bite the bullet and do my CLT - DEN, CLT - Baton Rouge and probably CLT - Melbourne. I can knock them all out quickly and not have to spend the rest of the year chasing miles or hoping for promos to get me over the hump.

In a sense, I'm not counting east and west regions as points when I consider a MR for this promo -- I will get those regions during my routine, scheduled flying, and I bet most of us do the same for at least either east or west if not both. If you plan to fly US in the USA between now and October, you get one point miimum for getting on a plane. So I think counting US region is "cheating" when considering efficiency of a MR. My 2 cents.

With that said, the way most in the threat are calculating it, the above routing is three points not two. One for shuttle, one for PBG, one for east region.