I'm hoping to find a one day run out of PHL or EWR any time before the end of the year. The only requirements are that its all UA metal and that its entirely domestic US. I would consider a two day run if the value was very good. Any suggestions for a MR newbie would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

What have YOU found?

 

how many mi's do you need?....i would look at right coast to sfo or lax if you need 5k or so....also are you looking for rdm or eqm....good luck...

 

What about this MR that was posted on Aug 3?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=721657

Also, isn't PHL serviced primarily by US Airways? Might have to do a code share to get best fare possible.

Good luck.

 

Mostly looking at transcons to LAX (they've been cheapest over the past few months, but with WN dropping out of the market the prices seem to be climbing). I've found some transcons in the low $200's but they're all codeshares. To get UA metal I'm looking at $360+. Not so great IMO.

A transcon would be ideal, but a midcon (DEN?) for the right price would work too. However, DEN can be fairly pricey from PHL (go figure with 3 airlines competing...).

The UA metal transcons for Nov are all north of $400.

 

Consider driving down to BWI and getting in on the SEA fare going on out of there now.

 

This is a great suggestion. There are also equivalently cheap fares out of BWI to SAN right now, so you might be able to pick up some more miles that way. The cheap UA EWR-SFO fares appear to be gone now, but they might come back, so you could keep an eye on that. Also, you could hop over to PIT on the cheap tickets that are available PHL-PIT right now (or BWI-PIT), and still get in on the $122 (without taxes, $160 all in, fare basis LA14ON7) roundtrips PIT-SAN. I booked two of these with a one-day turnaround - 6500 miles for $169 and 5154 miles for $160 (my routings have US codeshares, but that's because I was looking for them).

In terms of searching for flights that fit your schedule, you might find my post #9 in this thread useful.

 

I'm not sure what you've checked already, but the first place I would look is PDX (there were a few MR posts on this in the last 2 months). At one point I found routings via SFO on UA metal (IME PHL-SFO is the best way to go ex-PHL, since it's the longest distance domestic flight) and there were even some options via BOS. In general, I've found connections via BOS promising. Even though it requires a US flight, you can get a BOS-SFO flight on UA and often add miles for little extra cost. There were some good PHL-SEA fares (again X:SFO), but those seem to have dried up. As mentioned before, LAX is a good bet, though often for fewer miles. At one point PDX or SEA could be found for approximately $200. But again, this all depends on how many miles you need.

 

I checked PDX and unfortunately while there are some reasonable prices, they all involve a redeye return flight. The non-redeyes are pricing at well over $300 so I'm still hunting.