I received the following email yesterday offering a 25% discount on United Airlines MileagePlus award miles purchased today through 11:59pm CST on Friday, February 10, 2012.

The disclaimer reads, “Offer is available only if you link from this email,” and try as I might, I can’t figure out a way to share the link without my MileagePlus number pre-populating on the landing page. I also tried to find a non-targeted link to no avail.

While I generally don’t think purchasing miles is a good value, I have in the past just to top off my account for an immediate award I wanted to book.

Did anyone else receive this offer and/or have an untargeted link?

United Airlines ended up matching the fare posted by American and Delta in the Los Angeles to Kansas City market, so here’s another mileage run opportunity post for today. This one is what I consider a “book it without thinking about it” fare since the CPM comes in at 2.81cpm.

[Edited 2/8/12 7:00pm PST: United pulled this fare tonight, but AA & DL haven't yet... we'll see what tomorrow brings.]

I searched availability now through the end of May and found only two dates where you can do a zero-night turn, but there are other dates available for a 1-night stay, as shown below. United didn’t put an expiration on this fare, so there are likely more runs available beyond May.

Note the tight connection on that last segment SFO-LAX, but personally I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s at least two more flights if you were to misconnect.

Routing: Los Angeles to San Francisco to Cleveland to Kansas City roundtrip

Travel period: Now through end-of-schedule

Dates I found available: 5/1 & 5/2 (1-nighters are open 4/24, 5/1, 5/7, 5/8 and 5/15)

Number of nights stay: 0

Day of week restrictions: None

Fare basis: GA7KN, 7-day advance purchase

Fare: $188.80 all-in

Elite Qualifying Miles earned: 6,712 (assumes 500-mile minimums)

Cents-per-mile (CPM): 2.81

Example itinerary:

Happy running!

I haven’t been diligently checking mileage run opportunities lately given the FareCompare FlyerTalk tool is still down, but did take a look this morning at options using their map feature. Many of my readers emailed me with requests to search from their hometowns and now that I have a bit more time on my hands, I’ll be sure to start looking.

Both American and Delta have a fare out there in the Los Angeles to Kansas City market right now – actually since February 3 – that offers an easy day-trip run. Delta’s example is below and if you’re an American flyer and have residency in California or Illinois, you can do even better through March 31 flying a LAX-ORD-MCI round-trip with American’s DEQM promotion.

Routing: Los Angeles to Atlanta to Kansas City round-trip

Travel period: Now through September 28, 2012

Dates I found available: 2/19, 21, 22, 27, 28; 3/5, 6

Number of nights stay: 0

Day of week restrictions: None

Fare basis: TA07A0PA, 7-day advance purchase

Fare: $181.20 all-in

Medallion Qualifying Miles earned: 5,278

Cost-per-mile (CPM): 3.43

Example itinerary:

Flyertalk also has a thread with additional information, including the exact routing rules published by American and Delta. For me, it’s never too early in the year to pad my balance, especially when CPMs are in the low 3.0 range. Happy running!

Here’s an American Airlines Boeing 767-200 from 1987 for this installment of Vintage Airline Seat Maps. Seating a total of 184 passengers, First Class seated 14 people in a 2 x 1 x 2 configuration, Business Class offered 30 seats in the common 2 x 2 x 2 layout and economy sat 140 passengers in the typical 2 x 3 x 2 format.

The current version flying American’s premium routes today from JFK-LAX/SFO have a slightly different configuration for 168 passengers (10/30/128). A combination of a smaller First cabin and enhanced pitch of about 34” in economy account for the difference in seating capacity.

On the version appearing below, you’d find me in 3A in First, 9A or 9J in Business and 17A in coach.

Where would you sit?