I’m a creature of habit and when I find a tried and true method to book multi-segment mileage runs, I stick with it. Too much so that when it doesn’t work, I fluster around with it far longer than I need to.

Having recently moved from Los Angeles and accepted my fate that I’ll no longer see mileage runs in the ultra low cents-per-mile range below 4.0, I’ve only casually been on the hunt lately. But yesterday I found one sole run with one departure date available at 3.64 CPM from my new home airport, Reno.

It’s on United and I found the fare on ExpertFlyer using ITA Matrix’s Airfare Search Tool to find the sole itinerary with availability. [Here’s my updated guide on how to find mileage runs these days in the post-FareCompare tool world.]

After finding a valid itinerary on ITA, I’ve always had success in piecing it together directly on United.com using the multiple destination feature. And given this run was too good to pass up, I was determined to book it.

Try as I might, United.com would simply not display the 5^th of six flights I needed to get the fare. I knew it had availability and it wasn’t a married-segments issue, so I tried everything – modifying the time, adjusting the city codes and more. I almost think United was deliberately not showing me the flight, forcing my hand at purchasing a higher fare. That’s a subject for another post.

But then I remembered a post from Seth at Wandering Aramean about how Hipmunk uses ITA’s advanced syntax and with a simple click, it’ll dump you right into the airline’s booking engine ready to take your credit card. Definitely read through his post as it contains more specific details than my summary below.

Using Hipmunk for Faster Booking of Multi-Segment Mileage Runs

It’s really quite simple if you know ITA’s advanced routing language. You plug in the exact same search parameters in the from and to fields, followed by the exact departure and return dates you found on ITA.

Hipmunk Booking Engine

Then you’re presented with a time graph showing outbound flight itineraries and their respective prices. My particular itinerary/price combo immediately showed up at the top (the one below isn’t what I booked… that itinerary and fare is no longer available).

Hipmunk Search Results

You simply click the appropriate bar with your desired itinerary, then click the “select this leg” button and Hipmunk will show you the return options.

Hipmunk Search Results

Again select the appropriate bar with your desired itinerary and Hipmunk will then display a pop-up with a button reading, “Buy on United.”

Hipmunk Book Now

Clicking that button dumps you directly into United.com, ready for you to enter traveler information and proceed to purchase.

United.com Booking Page

It worked brilliantly for my itinerary – such a time saver. I haven’t experimented with other airlines yet.

Thanks, Seth, for your original post… I’m glad I remembered it. And yes, while I’m sure I could have called United to make the reservation, I generally prefer to abstain from booking these on the phone simply out of desire to avoid the mileage run conversation with the agent that usually ensues.

Related posts:

How to Find Mileage Runs – 2013 Edition

Finding Mileage Runs Without the FareCompare Tool

I’m Off on a Weeklong Mileage Run… In Style

It’s been exactly one year since the go-to method to find mileage runs died – the FareCompare Flyertalk tool. The folks at FareCompare claimed it would return and even had a “coming soon” notation earlier this year. That has since totally disappeared and repeated requests for information from them fell on silent ears. I have a feeling the airlines in some manner dissuaded them from bringing it back.

Readers ask me almost every week how I go about finding mileage runs these days and while I have no one method anymore, I’ll share my current list of resources.

• Flyertalk’s Mileage Run Deals: Sorta goes without saying that this forum should be on your daily reading list if you’re on the hunt for a mileage run. It’s often the first place spectacular runs appear in the 2.0-4.0 cents-per-mile (CPM) range. The only problem, of course, is the fact the city pairs posted may be nowhere near you. I’ll often consider a positioning flight to get to the origin if it’s really a killer deal.

• FareCompare’s Getaway Map: FareCompare left their map feature untouched (so far). It lists the lowest fares by month to worldwide destinations on a map with the “ability” to filter by airline. I say “ability” because it rarely works – the results often show fares from all airlines even if you only select one. Then, there’s the cumbersome task of zooming in and scrolling around the country (or world) to see the detail. I have found mileage run fares this way, though it annoys me.

• ITA Software’s Matrix Airfare Search: If you attended FTU, you learned Ben’s method using ITA’s Matrix Airfare Search. Basically, you plug in your origin, designate your carrier and number of connections, and type in some cities you want to check. Below I’ve plugged in Reno to various East Coast cities on United with two or more connections wanting to see a calendar of the lowest fares for a zero-night stay.

Be sure to uncheck the “Allow airport changes” box or you’ll wind up with flights into Miami and out of Columbus, for example. And which cities to search? Well, I end up trying about seven at a time where I’ve historically known good fares have hit. If you get aggressive and search too many cities at once, you’ll often get a timeout error. Once you press “Search,” it’ll take you to the calendar of lowest fares from which you can click in for more detail.

• ExpertFlyer’s Fare Information Search: Much along the lines of using ITA Software to check random cities, I use ExpertFlyer’s Fare Information Search to check all fares loaded for certain city pairs:

Again, I plug in cities that have historically had decent fares and also random “new” ones just for the hell of it. I typically pick major hubs or cities where Southwest has a presence, but I’ve come across decent fares in the past to cities you wouldn’t expect, such as Daytona Beach, Tucson and Saginaw. This method allows you to see the raw fare data and validity dates, sometimes not as obvious on ITA. Note: I subscribe to ExpertFlyer for $99/year, so I have unlimited queries for this purpose. It ends up being invaluable to me for access to each fare’s routing rules, not to mention EF’s other great features.

• Twitter: I’m pretty active on Twitter and follow many sources who post great fares, including @airfarewatchdog, @Expefarealert and @TheFlightDeal. Sometimes a fare might not seem that great, but if you dig deeper using ExpertFlyer’s routing rules, you’ll discover gems like this recent Seattle to Columbus example.

• Wandering Aramean’s Lowest Fare Finder: Seth reports his data stream isn’t populating live fare data at the moment, but it by far is/will be the easiest method to find mileage runs akin to the old FareCompare Flyertalk tool. A free account allows you to search and sort in very similar fashion to the old FC tool:

Keep your eye on this tool – he mentions it might be back up and running again with live fares next month (at the earliest).

Many readers have also asked for specific help with their preferred airlines and origins and I’ll do my best to post those mileage runs as I find them.

Do you have other methods that work for you?

Related posts:

Mileage Running 101: How I Construct a Mileage Run Part 1

Mileage Running 101: How I Construct a Mileage Run Part 2

Finding Mileage Runs Without the FareCompare Tool

There’s a dirt cheap airfare out there right now on United in the Ontario to Newark market. While it’s a roundtrip fare that requires a minimum night stay depending on the day of week you depart, someone might find it useful for an end-of-year mileage run/vacation combination.

The fare rules allow for two transfers and the routing rules offer some interesting options, though availability in the G-bucket is pretty slim for the example I provide below. But other more direct single-city connections have more availability, which increases the CPM of course. But it’s still a darn good fare!

I only looked at Ontario as the origin for my example below, but the fare is also valid originating in Newark. And you can even ride on a 787!

Routing: Ontario to San Francisco to Houston to Newark

Travel period: Now through January 24, 2013

Dates I found available: 12/4, 12/5, 1/8, 1/9, 1/16

Number of nights stay: 3 in the example below, otherwise here’s the restrictions on the fare: If you depart Sun-Wed, return no earlier than the 3^rd day after departure; Thu-Fri departures require a return no earlier than the first Saturday; Saturday departures simply require a 1-night stay.

Day of week restrictions: None

Fare basis: GE143FS, 14-day advance purchase

Fare: $167.30 all-in

Premier Qualifying Miles earned: 7,070 (assumes 500-mile minimums)

Cents-per-mile (CPM): 2.37

Example itinerary: Click for full view

Note the tight connection in Houston on the outbound, but there are plenty of more flights throughout the day on which United could book you if you mis-connect (and perhaps get more PQMs for a full Y rebooking).

Use the “Multiple Destinations” option on United’s website to piece this itinerary together.

(Tip of the hat to @airfarewatchdog)

Related posts:

Airfare Pricing Buckets and Airline Fare Basis Codes Explained

Finding Mileage Runs Without the FareCompare Flyertalk Tool

My Mileage Tracking Spreadsheet

It’s been months since I’ve searched for mileage runs and I came across this gem today. Coming in at 3.66 cpm, it’s pretty darn good in this age of struggling to find anything closer to 3.0.

Here are the details:

Routing: Seattle to San Francisco to Cleveland to Kansas City roundtrip

Travel period: Now through end-of-schedule

Dates I found available: 9/24, 10/2, 10/23, 10/29, 10/31, 11/6, 11/13, 11/27, 12/3, 12/4, 12/5, 12/10, 12/11

Number of nights stay: 0

Day of week restrictions: Travel only on M/T/W/Th/Sa

Fare basis: GAG7CN, 7-day advance purchase

Fare: $258.80

Premier Qualifying Miles earned: 7,068

Cents-per-mile (CPM): 3.66

Example itinerary: Click for full view

One issue I see with this itinerary is the 31-minute connection on the last leg back to Seattle. With United’s current usage of T1 and T3 at SFO, making a successful connection would be virtually impossible if a change of terminal is required. While United originally announced only intra-California (and a few other) flights would use T1, that’s not the case according to Flyertalk reports.

I was successfully able to piece this booking together for the $258.80 fare using the “Multiple Destinations” feature on United.com

Related posts:

Airfare Pricing Buckets & Airline Fare Basis Codes REVEALED!

My United Airlines Mileage Tracking Spreadsheet

Finding Mileage Runs Without the FareCompare Flyertalk Tool

I hate change. This week, two of my favorite airfare searching tools either went away or previous versions were disabled. I’m of course referring to the trusty FareCompare Flyertalk page being taken down and ITA Software’s Classic “Matrix 1” being totally removed. I feel sort of naked without them.

The FareCompare site was bar none the easiest and fastest way to find which markets had the cheapest fares from your origin city or region. The tabled list provided a quick snapshot of city pairs, (nearly) all-in fares and although often inaccurate, a cost per mile column. It was particularly useful to quickly see which markets had truly lowball fares ideal for mileage runs.

It’s still listed as a tool on the website, but with a “coming soon” disclaimer. Flyertalk user “gbryan84” received an email from FareCompare’s CEO Rick Seaney stating, “… we are in the midst of a massive rollout of new backend software to comply with new DOT regulations in January. Getting the FT app back up is on the list, but I don’t have an exact time yet.”

They left another feature active that displays fares from an origin on a global map called the Where-To-Go: Getaway Map that can be found here.

It, then, is probably the next best thing at the moment to not-so-quickly see what fares are out there in the markets presently. Kayak has a similar Explore map tool and it, too, requires manual manipulation of the map to view the fares and further details.

I found a potential mileage run fare for Los Angeles to Columbus on both the FareCompare and Kayak map, so made note of it and checked out the routing rules on ExpertFlyer.

Kayak Explore map

FareCompare Getaway map

United Airlines has pretty generous routing rules on their fare in the LAX-CMH market, so I went to ITA Software’s Matrix to check out availability. I’ve used the “new” tool previously and it does eventually get you to the same information, but it takes more click-throughs and I find it slower than the classic version. The routing I wanted was from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Washington Dulles to Columbus for a one-nighter and I plugged in the following:

A calendar appeared showing the fares available each day and the month of February looked to have plenty of availability for the cheapest fare. Once selecting a date, it will take you to a list of flights and their respective fares. Clicking through gets you the same detail as the classic version.

It’s not an efficient method to find mileage runs presently, but at least there’s still a way beyond just plugging in random markets to display available fares. This run, by the way, nets 6,838 EQMs (I can’t bring myself to call them Premier Qualifying Miles yet) at an all-in fare of $258.20, or 3.78 cpm.

My fingers are crossed the FareCompare tool comes back sooner rather than later. I know I’m not the only one truly missing it right now. Does anyone have other tools they’re using to find mileage runs?

[Coincidentally, Ben, too, wrote a similar post at the same time and his method uses ITA Software to find runs. Check out his method here.]

In this post, I will shed some light on how airlines assign fare basis codes to the various “buckets” of inventory available for sale on any given flight. If you’ve ever wondered what pricing “buckets” are, or just what your fare showing as WAGT14GS means, read on. My recent Mileage Run 101 posts (Part 1 and Part 2) got me to thinking about demystifying these rather unfriendly looking codes, and I draw upon my experience working in Inventory Management (IM) at United Airlines, as well as my personal fascination with codes and logic in general, for this tutorial. The middle “Fare Class” column below, as shown using the FlyerTalk tool of FareCompare, is what I’m referring to [Edited to add: Since this post was published, FareCompare took down the FlyerTalk tool, sadly]:

Image courtesy FareCompare

Since I’m most familiar with United’s fare basis structure, and some of the logic & sequencing hasn’t changed in decades for domestic fares, I’ll discuss those here. Keep in mind for now that other airlines have slight variations to their coding logic. To start, it’s important to first look at that leading letter of the “fare class.” The second line of the chart above shows a fare basis of GA14CS as the fare class for the $160 base price from Los Angeles to Nashville. G, then, is the “bucket” this fare falls into, a way the airlines categorize fares based on their yield potential. (That first fare to St. Thomas is out of scope for purely “domestic” fares, but I plan to decode international and other outliers in the future.)

There are presently almost two dozen revenue buckets at United, namely F & A (first class); J, C, D & Z (business class); and Y, B, E, M, U, H, Q, V, W, T, S, K, L & G (economy/coach class). Each represents a level of revenue contribution to the carrier, and all fare bases are not created equal. Basically meaning that you can’t arbitrarily assume the fare and/or yield of a ‘S’ fare, for example, carries the same weight across all routes.

Within each bucket, there exists a range of contribution levels depending on the origin & destination (O&D) of the ticket purchased. This simply means that a ‘S’ fare might generate a better yield to the airline if flown on a ticket purchased from Seattle to Chicago to Atlanta, versus a ‘S’ fare flown from just Chicago to Atlanta. Since the airline wants to maximize the higher earning buckets and overall yield, they may restrict S-class from being sold on that Chicago to Atlanta flight, but offer it on the Seattle to Chicago to Atlanta connection combination. For an excellent summary of this “married segment” concept, take a look at this current article by Ben Schlappig, an indefatigable mileage runner well beyond his years.

Now here’s where the airline yield management systems really come into play. Those systems, such as the one I worked with during my tenure in Inventory Management (IM) at United in the 1990s, optimize literally more than one hundred combinations of buckets across every O&D market to determine how many seats to allocate within each range and bucket. This process is constantly running in the background, but analysts in IM do go in to make adjustments, as I did for my assigned markets.

How to determine the amount of seats to authorize within each input area is highly proprietary, but the basics include using historical flight data, seasonality, market demand, and competitive considerations. So, the reason the lowest fares you’re searching for may already be sold out is because the airline thinks they’ll be able to sell those seats at a higher value & will assign them accordingly.

Okay, back to fare bases. Now that you know about buckets and why there are so many of them, let’s look again at the rest of the alphanumeric characters following that leading identifier. The second letter usually determines if it’s a one-way or roundtrip fare. Without exception, an ‘A’ domestic fare on United means it’s one-way, and an ‘E’ means roundtrip (excursion). Mileage runners like myself aim for those one-way fares since we know there aren’t any minimum stay requirements and can then turn right around and continue flying without a stopover. Using that L.A. to Nashville fare basis again (GA14CS), we know it’s a one-way fare since the second letter is an ‘A.’ Great, let’s move on.

Most of the time, the numbers contained within the sequence refer to the advance purchase requirement of the fare. Using the Nashville example again, GA14CS, the 14 here represents the advance purchase (AP) required to qualify for that fare. Pretty simple. However, there may be some other fare bases out there with more numbers.

For example, there was a fare out there yesterday from Los Angeles to Newark showing a fare basis of WEG143GS. We know it’s assigned to the W bucket, but what does the 143 mean? In this case by reading the fare rules (via ITA Software or ExpertFlyer), you’ll see the fare does have a 14-day AP, but also has a minimum stay requirement, generally requiring a three-night stay, hence the ‘3‘ attached directly to the end of ‘14.’ You can easily break out what might be the advance purchase by knowing the most frequent ones are 7, 14, and 21 days. I’ve also seen 0, 3 & 10-day APs out there, too, as of late.

The next letter in the Nashville fare (GA14CS), for example, is a C. Most of the time, but not always, it represents an internal pricing strategy the revenue management (RM) department wants to assign to the fare, and generally has no correlation to an element of the fare rule. But like I say, that’s not always the case, but I’ll come back to that after I shed some light on that last letter of ‘S.’

Also without exception and unchanged for years at United, if a ‘S’ or ‘N’ follows anywhere after the advance purchase & minimum stay numbers for a domestic fare, it means the fare is non-refundable. It is commonly the last character in the string, but may not be always, as in the case of the Los Angeles to Augusta fare of LA21N6K appearing in the list above. It’s my assumption that the -6K is also a unique RM identifier not correlating to a specific fare rule element.

So, we now know the GA14CS L.A. to Nashville fare is a one-way (‘A’), non refundable (‘S’) fare in the ‘G’ bucket requiring a 14-day advance purchase (14), while ignoring the ‘C‘ for our consumer-centric purposes. What about that WEG143GS fare from L.A. to Newark I mentioned above? We know it’s a roundtrip (‘E’), 14-day advance (14) fare with a minimum stay of 3 nights (3), is nonrefundable (‘S’) and the second ‘G’ is unimportant to us, but what about that first G?

Reading the fare rules, we know (via my IM experience) that ‘G‘ denotes the fare is valid only on nonstop flights. Sometimes United will use that same letter, or perhaps a two character combo, but I guarantee there is something specific in the fare rules that letter refers to. And it will always appear before the numeric portion of the fare basis. Another similar fare basis was out there yesterday from L.A. to New York (all airports) of WAG14GS. Again, this fare is valid on nonstop flights only as denoted by the G.

As you can see, there actually is logic to the rather cryptographic looking fare basis codes, and each airline has their own practice with which to assign codes. American has a totally different combo of letters and numbers, but with a little research into the rules, you’d be able to figure out a general sequencing as I’ve done above for United.

I actually have one more nuance to reveal. Assuming the fare stays live here for the next couple of days & the fare rules don’t change, I’m referring to the L.A. to Washington DC (all airports) fare basis of WAGT14GS with a base of $296. Anyone want to take a guess and decipher the ‘T’? Hint: The answer definitely lies within the fare rules, and it’s not simply a two character way of denoting the fare is valid on nonstops only. I’d enjoy it if one of my few readers commented with their answer, but if no one does, I’ll post the answer in a comment during the next couple of days.

As I mentioned in Part 1, I was asked recently about how I construct a mileage run, and although I provided a brief version back in January, I fully detail one of my methods in this two-part posting. Continuing from Part 1:

Now that I know the date range, days of week, and fare basis code, I want to know the routing rules for that $184 base fare from Los Angeles to Kansas City. Meaning, where and through which cities am I allowed to travel on that fare. Unfortunately, there isn’t a free method to get that information, but two popular services exist that are available to the general public. The service I use is ExpertFlyer, a web-based platform with a couple of subscription levels. To get fare information, the Premium Plan at $9.99/month is required, also available at a discounted rate of $99.99 for an annual membership. The other method is via the KVS Tool, although it isn’t Mac friendly and requires a Windows emulator should you sign up for one of its plans. The Diamond level is required to see routing rules ($75 annually, but add in the cost for an emulator if you’re running Mac OS X and don’t already have one).

I’ll skip the process within ExpertFlyer to view the routing rules for now making the assumption you might not have a subscription, or already know how to view them if you do. The same fare rules I found under booking details using the classic ITA Software Matrix Airfare Search can also be viewed in ExpertFlyer. Here are the results for that GAP14CS fare from Los Angeles (LAX) to Kansas City (MCI; MKC is shown in ExpertFlyer as city codes are used for routing rules in lieu of airport codes).

1. LAX-CHI/CLE/DEN/HOU-MKC
2. LAX-DEN/HOU/LAX/SFO-CHI/CLE/DEN/HOU-MKC

Reading line 1, this fare allows me to travel from LAX through Chicago, Cleveland, Denver or Houston to Kansas City. Line 2 is also a valid routing showing I can make two connections. For example, I can fly on this fare starting at LAX and make a connection in Denver (within the first set of slashed cities (‘/’), and make another one in Chicago (in the second set of slashed cities separated by a dash (‘-‘). Keep in mind only one airport within each “slashed city set” is allowed as a transit point.

Since the point of a mileage run is to maximize miles, and particularly elite qualifying miles to gain status, I’m looking for the routing that will give me the biggest mileage for the fare. In this case, using Line 2’s routing, I want to fly from LAX through Houston and Cleveland to get to Kansas City. Crazy way to get there for most everyone else except mileage runners, I know.

Awesome, I now know the best routing to generate the largest amount of miles, so I’m ready to return to the classic ITA Airfare Search and find some availability. Back using the month-long search feature, I plug in the following coding inside the FROM field: LAX::IAH CLE, and this in the TO field: MCI::CLE IAH. This strange looking code basically means I want to fly from LAX, connect at IAH and CLE to get to MCI, and back the same way. To become versed in this coding, check out the helpful section at ITA Route Language.

Sticking with September 1^st as the start date, and 1-night as the length of stay, I press Go to reveal several dates appearing for $245 (a slight increase due to additional taxes (PFCs) by flying through additional airports).  I’m going to pick Tuesday, September 13^th as my preferred departure and find a couple of options on Continental from which to choose.

Clicking into the first one, I find a full itinerary mapped out generating a fare of $245.20 all-in. Notice there are a couple of quick connections, and one more than 3 hours, but this is all part of a mileage runner’s life. When you calculate the mileage earned for each segment, it works out to a total of 6,330 for the roundtrip. Dividing the fare of $245.20 by 6,330 miles generates a CPM (cents per mile) of about 3.87. While I’ve had fantastic luck earlier in the year getting runs for less than 3 CPM, they’re harder to come by this time of year.

You can’t book flights directly with ITA Software (yet! Google now owns ITA, so we might see that capability in the future), so I print out the results and head over to Continental’s website set up the reservation. Here, I have to use the “Multiple Destinations” option when performing the Flight Search, which requires you to add each segment separately. Pretty easy since you have the ITA printout.

I was able to duplicate the exact flights & exact fare, so to complete the reservation I would simply enter my full traveler details, credit card information and purchase the ticket. Bam, I’m done.

While it can be a bit time consuming at first, it becomes second nature after doing it a few times. This method is definitely my favorite way to find the best mileage runs. Want to go global? Use the same methodology and select a region of the world in FareCompare other than North America. It’s that easy.

Want to learn more? One event is this weekend in NYC, although long sold out, called Frequent Traveler University. The other (where I will be in attendance) is at the Chicago Seminars 2011 at the end of October. I hope this tutorial has shed some light into what many find a mysterious (and crazy) hobby.

Happy travels!

Every mileage runner has a tried and true method for finding the best combination of fares, routings & flights when constructing a mileage run, and I’ll share my most frequently used process in the next two posts. I made a similar posting in January, but with less detail, and have been recently asked to expand on it.

[IMPORTANT UPDATE: Please note many of the sources below are no longer available due to changes in the third-party websites. Here's my updated post: How To Find Mileage Runs - 2013 Edition]

First, I start with a handy feature offered by FareCompare that lists the lowest fares from any departure city in the United States and Canada. It initially defaults the search from an airport nearest your recognized location, but you can change the city to your liking. The chart lists the lowest fares from the origin city to destination points you select, be it North America, Europe, etc. For domestic runs, I only check the North America box, and further filter them down to United Airlines, for example, under Carrier Filters in the left-hand column.

That first page of fares usually has some gems to work with, but there also might be some mileage run candidates on later pages, and today’s example is one of those. There’s a United Airlines/Continental fare that’s been out there for about a week now showing a base of $184 from Los Angeles to Kansas City (it’s on page 3 if you’re only showing United fares).

(Please note: If you’ve come across this post after my example fare is gone, the process continued here still applies, but you won’t be able to match my results. This fare seems to have stuck for the week, so I feel confident using it as my example as it should survive for a few days, at least).

Additional details used to be available by clicking the “More” link to the far right, but they’ve disabled those, as FareCompare is a free service. Also, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the “Distance” or “PPM (pennies per mile)” fields, as those are calculated as if you were going to fly nonstop.

Once I see a potentially attractive fare, I want to find out the fare rules. The free method to finding out the rules involves using ITA Software’s handy Matrix Airfare Search tool. I use the classic version, simply because that’s where I started a few years ago, but the same functionality can be used in their newer aesthetically attractive version here. If you don’t have an account for classic Matrix, you can log in as a guest to proceed to the search screen. [Edited 12/12/11: It appears the classic version of Matrix is no longer available.]

In the classic version, I will select the “Month-long search” radio button on top, and enter in the airport codes for Los Angeles (LAX) and Kansas City (MCI) in the from and to fields. I’ll leave the starting date as it appears, but change the “staying” entry to 0 or 1 night. For this example, I chose 1 night. You’ll get a calendar showing the lowest available fares each day once you press Go, and since I’m only interested in United/Continental, I uncheck the other airlines.

This reveals only one date as of this posting that has a fare showing for UA/CO for $239 on June 7^th. Not unusual since it’s the busy summer travel period, so let’s look in September instead. I’ll use my browser’s back button to return to the first search screen and change the date to begin as September 1^st and 30 days later, pressing Go once again. Ah, that’s better. Lots of dates appear showing $219 fares, but those are for Frontier and Delta, and I’m only wanting to see United/Continental, so again uncheck the other airlines.

Several dates now appear showing $239. Clicking into September 12^th, for example, I can then open up one the pre-selected itineraries with the $239 fare. I’m here at the moment just to find out the rules, so I’ll click into the first one & this example has a Continental itinerary showing. I’m not so worried about the flights at this point as I am about the fare & rules, so I’ll click on “Show booking details” near the upper left and scroll down to reveal the booking details which also displays the fare basis code (GAP14CS) and a link for the rules.

Clicking into the rules brings up a screen that many will find painful to read. Not to worry… we’re only looking for a couple of important tidbits and can quickly leave. Here I want to find out any “day/time restrictions” (permitted Monday to Saturday for this example), “advance reservations & ticketing” requirements (14 day advance purchase), and a bit further down the “blackout dates” (revealing this fare is good for travel starting on/after 6/6/2011, but the latest you can begin travel is 11/13/2011).

The rest of the rules fully detail change, cancellation, rerouting, and endless other ticketing items that can basically be summed up by the statement, “this ticket is nonrefundable & changes or cancellations will result in fees.”

So now I know the all-important date range and days of week this fare is valid, and can continue from there. Stay tuned for part 2, which I hope to post later today or first thing tomorrow. My fingers are crossed that this airfare lasts so you can duplicate the results above!

I’ve been scanning the fares for a couple of weeks now searching for good mileage runs coming in around 3 cents per mile (cpm), but haven’t found any gems lately like I did last year. One fare did pop up last night that looked sort-of attractive, so I thought I’d take you through my process for constructing a mileage run.

First, I hunt through airfares originating from my hometown, Los Angeles. In addition to LAX, I also look at Burbank, Ontario and Orange County airports since I’d be willing to drive to any of them if the price was right (maybe even San Diego, too). There are great websites out there like Farecompare and Kayak, which make this process pretty effortless and convenient. To maximize mileage on a purely domestic run, I typically zero in on the East coast cities, and see United Airlines filed a fare tonight from Burbank to Boston showing a base of $202 round-trip before taxes and fees.

United (actually United Express/Skywest Airlines) only flies to San Francisco and Denver from Burbank, but that actually helps me out. The goal is to maximize mileage, so flying to Denver is too direct for this purpose. By flying to San Francisco first, I’ll rack up the minimum 500 miles because I’m an elite, whereas non-elite flyers would only accrue the actual mileage of 326. This also positions me further away from Boston than from where I started.

Next, while United does have nonstops from SFO to Boston coming in at 2,704 miles, I can actually add one more stopover, or transit point, on this fare to increase the mileage even more. The best option here is to fly through Washington Dulles (IAD) airport, and then take another short hop up to Boston to earn the 500-mile minimum again. This routing beats the nonstop mileage by 215 miles.

I would route the return in the exact same fashion, giving me a total of 6,838 miles on an all-in fare (includes all taxes and segment fees) of $268.20. This yields a cpm of 3.92 (airfare divided by total mileage). While not the greatest cpm on a historical basis, it might become more standard this year given the rising price of oil, and the airlines’ overall fare increases of late.

The other piece to constructing a mileage run is understanding the airfares and corresponding rules. There are often day-of-week, transit point, seasonality, ticketing, and other restrictions that can make it difficult to actually find routings and dates like I did for the example above. I’ll devote a future post to deciphering the fare basis codes, and hopefully shed some light on the logic of them. Happy flying!