Gdorvs

I'm new to the whole MR thing. Been doing some research, trying to find some good MR flights, and I have found a couple that seem decent, but I'm curious...everyone seems to know exactly how many miles a 5 or 6 leg flight will earn you. How do you know exactly? Can you recommend a tool?

Also at what point do you say this trip is cheap, I gotta book it? 4 CPM...3 CPM...< 3 CPM?

Thanks in advance!

maradori

Welcome to FT

In general, for elites, each segment has a 500mi minimum. So now I have a warped view of the world as I think San Francisco to LA is 500mi (when it's what, 330 or so in real life?). This makes it really easy to pick up some free elite miles.

As I credit my flights to Air Canada, there is a pretty incomplete spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/a/midoshiro....c&hl=en#gid=17 which I use to get "exact" mileage.

In general, gcmap.com is reasonably accurate. Just type the airport codes, e.g. SFO-LAX-IAH-EWR-BOS-EWR-IAH-LAX-SFO

....

To answer your second question, it kind of all depends on the person. I've booked 6cpm MRs before but I think the generally accepted rule is try to get flights at or below 4cpm. Also, remember that it's cents per EQM. Occasionally someone posts a MR that is 4 cents per redeemable mile and they get boo'ed so hard ...

babe11

Welcome to FT!

I use this website calculator:

http://www.webflyer.com/travel/mileage_calculator/

If I need to do an MR, I just look at the miles I need and search for the best price. If I stay in the continental US, I keep the price $300 or less. That usually ends up around 4-5 CPM.

Other FT'ers can find much better/lower prices.

Travel Safe!

pixitha

I use a combination of things, but the best is ITA, with the CPM/milage built right in!

Check out this thread to enable that feature: ITA Features

Sometime when I just want a quick milage number I use MileCalc

Gdorvs

Thanks for the tips!

javabytes

As do I

yolie

Me too!

valor155

I've found ITA to be pretty accurate. It will display the incorrect earned miles if you have a "Stop" on a UA route. It is always best to double check with the airline's website. UA.com is very transparent in the miles earned for a route.

http://www.webflyer.com/travel/mileage_calculator/
I've used this site as well. Also Kayak shows the mileage.

As an example, I had ITA and Kayak for DEN-PHL-SJU as 6264 miles RT. The above Mileage Calculator URL had 6260. US Airways actually credited 6266. All are pretty close!

wh6cto

I use GCM to get exact mileage (or close as possible). Milecalc is convenient, especially to get cpm.

But for route planning purposes, I use ttjoseph's Route Maximizer, which calculates mileage for different routes simultaneously. For example, my next run's routing rule is is:

BWI-CLE/CHI/EWR/WAS-CHI/DEN/HOU-LAS*

So it identified the top mileage earning routes as:

BWI-EWR-HOU-LAS: 3146 miles.
BWI-DCA-HOU-LAS: 2953 miles.
BWI-CLE-HOU-LAS: 2842 miles.
BWI-ORD-HOU-LAS: 2801 miles.
BWI-EWR-DEN-LAS: 2733 miles.
BWI-EWR-ORD-LAS: 2733 miles.

(Note: BWI-DCA does not exist on UA.)

Very convenient!

BTW, all three of these tools allows you to set min mileage (i.e 500 mi); ITA only uses actual miles in CPM calculation.

yolie

Thanks!

dpspindler

Usually that adds a good 30% to the overall ticket price. Do people typically include those taxes and fees or not?

valor155

I'd say in general people do, YES. That's how I would post it, because that is how it is presented on ITA.

To me it is all one bucket I don't pay attention to if the airline or the govt gets the money, just the total amount and the CPM based on that total.

I hope I understood your question correctly.