Kansas City has been “on sale†for some time now out of LAX, but a $69 one-way base fare is also now available from SFO and SEA on both American and United. Delta has only filed a matching fare in the LAX-MCI market as of this posting. Travel must be completed by May 9, 2012.
Routing rules vary based on carrier with United offering the most generous mileage-maximizing opportunities. Still, though, there are many options with American and Delta at under 4.0cpm
Selfishly, as I’m primarily a United guy and LAX-based, here’s an example of a zero-nighter available on May 2 and May 7.
Routing: Los Angeles to San Francisco to Cleveland to Kansas City roundtrip
Travel period: Now through May 9, 2012
Dates I found available: 5/2 & 5/7
Number of nights stay: 0
Day of week restrictions: Mon/Tue/Wed/Thur/Sat
Fare basis: GAG7CS
Fare: $188.60 all-in
Elite Qualifying Miles earned: 6,712 (assumes 500-mile minimums)
Cost-per-mile (CPM): 2.81
Example itinerary:
I can’t get a 0-night out of SEA, but I can get a 1-night with a return (on ITA) of MCI-CLE-IAD-SFO-SEA (which violates the EF routing rules). Unfortunately, .bomb disappears up one of its orifices when I try to price it.
@Biggles209: Yup, I once was able to get ITA to price a completely violating connection thru EWR on this fare, but like you… United’s site said “oh hell no.”
Thanks for the heads up! I wasn’t able to route through CLE both ways (and still had to force it through CO.com leg by leg), but one way will do. Now I get to tick CLE off my list, and I’ll actually spend some time in Kansas City unlike my many MCI runs last year.
@Biggles209: Try SEA-SFO-CLE-MCI-IAH-SEA on 5/1-2. I just booked it in G and it said there were two tickets left available (I took one).
Thanks for the heads up on the liberal routing rules, that really makes this a deal! Booked SFO-LAX-IAH-MCI-CLE-IAH-SFO.
@Brittain: I love United’s Cleveland hub for nothing other than airfare routing rules. 😉
A rookie question: how did you book those tickets? I looked up on ITA, but the fare doesn’t show up on the united.com. Did you call them?
@morokcn: You have to use the “multi-city” option on either United.com or Continental.com to build each segment separately.
@Peter: No, the fare is still live as of right now.
Can’t find it, is this fare gone?
Does it work the other way around from MCI-LAX/SFO/SEA?
@Joel: Yes, the fare should be valid originating in MCI, too.
hmm… i’m seeing this fare on ITA with route options, but can’t find it on either co or ua using “Multiple Destinations” option
@moroken: The UA or CO site won’t actually present convoluted routings to you as you can build on ITA. You’ll need to mimic what ITA allows you to construct by building each segment separately on United.com (or CO.com) using the multi-destination option. In other words… on United.com for Segment 1: LAX to SFO, date 5/2, time 6am; Segment 2: SFO to CLE, date 5/2, time 12pm… and so on until you build all six segments for the LAX-SFO-CLE-MCI-CLE-SFO-LAX itinerary.
Is it possible to credit all segments to A3 for *A status?
@Idin: According to Aegean’s website, this itinerary booked in G-class would only earn 50% *A miles in your program, so yes, you can certainly credit this type of trip to your A3 account. It’s not a great value, though, given the 50% cut and the fact you need 16,000 more miles posted to your account within a year of hitting “Blue” status with A3 to achieve *Gold status if you’re starting fresh. That said… maybe this type of trip is all you need!
Thanks much Darren! That’s exactly what i did… does it mean the deal is dead?
http://oi43.tinypic.com/zu1fr9.jpg
@morokcn: As of this moment, the $69 base fares are still loaded in each market. My example itinerary may no longer be available & I know Scottrick (another commenter) mentioned he only saw two seats left in G-class on a particular itinerary he booked.
Got it, thank you so much Darren! I’ve been looking around trying to figure out how to do it. Your post helped a lot, appreciate it.
@Darren: What about the CLE-MCI segment since it is operated by ExpressJet? I’m not exactly sure if that is going to be credited to Aegean.
@Idin: Since it’s sold as a CO (UA) segment, it should still credit to Aegean at 50%. Operating carrier shouldn’t have an impact.
Awesome. Thanks Darren.
Yea the 50% cut is not appealing, but it is also the fastest way to earn *Gold.
So I am learning about this is it possible to start in Cle where I live and make do this RT?
@aznprzn: Sorry for the delay… your comment got held up in my spam folder. This fare is now gone, but if it were still live, you’d be able to get this fare originating in MCI/LAX/SFO/SEA, but not CLE. Some people do end up booking these tickets and making their way to the origin point on another ticket.