Status Credit Runs

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Dravid74

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Hi All. First post here

I've always had the travel bug but recently been infected by the frequent flyer virus. Trying to get my head around a lot of things through multiple resources and have been trawling through this forum the last few days, picking up lots of things.

I apologise for such a noob question but there's just some things I can't seem to understand at the moment. I understand the concept of status credit runs - getting from A to B by going through X Y Z first in order to traverse sectors and accumulate those all-important status credits to move up tiers. And obviously when they flights are purchased in J or F you get significantly more credits.

However surely such convoluted routes add SIGNIFICANT costs to your flights. Im soon to plan a trip to the US and may for once have the time to do such a convoluted route but when I do multi-trips into kayak things get crazy expensive (for me), and I am talking about buying economy fares here. Am I missing something here? or are people willing to pay 3 or 4+ times the cost in order to build up crazy amounts of status credits (and i'm sure there are people in this category who can and will)?

once again, apologies, as I'm this is such a basic things to most of you guys out here... please go easy on me haha!:shock:
 
Welcome to AFF.

Well, the idea of a status run is to find a cheap way of accumulating SCs. On Qantas maybe $3/SC or less is good. People will often book flight for the sole purpose of getting cheap SCs. If it is travel for work or holiday etc then you have a lot less flexibility. You can maximise your SC earn on a trip by flying indirect. Domestic and regional flight in the USA can be an excellent source. For your USA trip maybe look at flights departing from outside Australia, for instance Asia. Then find a cheap way to get to Asia - a positioning flight. Status runner may often avoid paying cash for positioning flights.

Only do all this if you want to spend the time, don't mind spending extra time in planes, and can afford to spend the money or get travel via work. It is cheapest not to chase status but to seek the cheapest fare of the day on any airline rather than tying yourself to just one airline or alliance.

I'm no expert but lots of people here are. Read through a bunch of the posts and info here and you'll get some good ideas.

Happy travels.
 
Plenty of people just tweak their itineraries to get more SCs. E.g. Why fly DXB-BNE when you can fly DXB-MEL-BNE for a handful of $$$ more.

Cheers skip
 
Welcome aboard!

To answer your question, last year I needed to get from ORD to the LA area, which was $350(USD) one way in Y, and $600+ in F. So I booked ORD- DFW-PHX-BUR in F for ~$400. Minimal extra spend, plenty of extra SCs. Not every route adds significant cost.
 
It seems Google flights and ITA matrix help. I haven't done this and would love to have someone explain it
For example if you want to fly BNE- SIN, then the Qantas website will offer you BNE-MEL-SIN which is better, but some people manage to get BNE- SYD - MEL - SIN which the Qantas website doesn't offer. It seems you can price this with Google flights and then call Qantas to book is that right?
 
Okay, so let me understand this.

I booked flights from BNE-LAX for august, it appears that for my date VA7 out of Brisbane was full and instead my ticket gave me BNE-SYD-LAX.
Would I receive the 10SC for the BNE-SYD leg? or only the 40 for the BNE-LAX?

in order to collect the extra status credits would I have had to book a multi city and routed the BNE-SYD manually?
 
Would I receive the 10SC for the BNE-SYD leg?
You will indeed!
Source : I did the same routing to LAS last year.
Plus, just Monday, I flew MIA-ATL-LAX-BNE. I was originally booked on MIA-LAX-BNE but Delta cancelled our direct flight and routed us via ATL instead.
So I got 20SC from MIA-ATL (I was only expecting this to be 10 so that was a nice bonus), 20 SC from ATL-LAX and then 40SC from LAX-BNE.

You get SC for each leg you fly.

PLUS if something happens and you had a booked fare which was (e.g.) 10SC+10SC+30SC and then for some operational reason on the day they change you to a direct flight which only nets you 40SC you can apply for "original routing credit" which will give you back the extra 10SC you missed out on due to THEIR change... that's a nice bonus - get swapped onto a direct flight but claim the SC for the long convoluted flight you had originally booked...
 
We are self funded holiday travellers and we are at a point in our lives that we are flying business class no matter what. A couple of short getaways per year and a big holiday somewhere new every year for the bucket list.

I recently booked a trip to Easter Island.

Qantas/LAN is approx. $6400pp SYD>AKL>SCL but we don't have any loyalty to Qantas so the status credits and points with them ultimately wouldn't amount to much as I haven't flown Qantas in almost 20yrs. Air NZ flies SYD>AKL>BCN>SCL for approx. $8Kpp, with an allowed stop over in Chile & Barcelona on the way back. I would get points and status credits for most of the flights but not all.

We do have Virgin status so by flying the long way and booking with Delta (SYD>LAX>ATL>SCL & return), we are able to get points and status credits and maintain WP (as our other flights for the year were VA booked) and I think I got a good deal at $5900pp for all J seats (I haven't been able to replicate this pricing, its now up to $7Kpp). Yes it takes approx. 16hrs longer but it also means we get to stop over in Chile, Nashville and Atlanta and we get to experience the new VA J seats (yeah). Edit: I note that a VA SYD>LAX>SYD J flight is running approx. $5-$6K these days.

Im sure smarter and more regular FFers could have done better but Im happy with the route and deal I was able to book.
 
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Welcome aboard!

To answer your question, last year I needed to get from ORD to the LA area, which was $350(USD) one way in Y, and $600+ in F. So I booked ORD- DFW-PHX-BUR in F for ~$400. Minimal extra spend, plenty of extra SCs. Not every route adds significant cost.

thanks for all the responses guys

So the trick is to play around with different 'multi-trips' on google flights?
So for example if on my US trip to get to san francisco I would be better off (status credit wise) to fly MEL-BNE-LAX-SFO/MEL-SYN-LAX-SFO. I guess where im struggling is getting these convoluted routes cheaper than a simple direct/one stop over flight.

So Tom, in that route above, how did you find such a route for cheaper than flying direct?
 
Perfect I love this, I am currently looking for a flight from YUL or YYZ to LAX on the 2 or 3rd of September.
I will try google flights and see how many SC I can manage out of it.

Cheers,
 
In that case I had put Chicago-Los Angeles (and nearby airports) into ita matrix and it spat out BUR as an alternative. I then just searched for ORD-BUR on AA.com and it gave it to me as a one-way.
 
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In that case I had put Chicago-Los Angeles (and nearby airports) into ita matrix and it spat out BUR as an alternative. I then just searched for ORD-BUR on AA.com and it gave it to me as a one-way.

how do you mean it just spat out BUR as an alternative? if i go to the ITA matrix and put chicago and LA, there's an options for several chicago airport but LA only has LAX... seems you have to know about BUR?
Again sorry for the dumb questions.
 
how do you mean it just spat out BUR as an alternative? if i go to the ITA matrix and put chicago and LA, there's an options for several chicago airport but LA only has LAX... seems you have to know about BUR?
Again sorry for the dumb questions.

It currently gives me the options of LGB, BUR, SNA, ONT, and SBA if I select LAX. Unfortunately the app isn't allowing me to post a screenshot of that.
 
how do you mean it just spat out BUR as an alternative? if i go to the ITA matrix and put chicago and LA, there's an options for several chicago airport but LA only has LAX... seems you have to know about BUR?
Again sorry for the dumb questions.

h
you can sepcify airports withing a certain distance and also allow cnage of airport...sorry for the mistakes here but I am suffering from the Firefox issue where backspacing to correct causes all sorts of issues
 
thanks for all the responses guys

So the trick is to play around with different 'multi-trips' on google flights?
So for example if on my US trip to get to san francisco I would be better off (status credit wise) to fly MEL-BNE-LAX-SFO/MEL-SYN-LAX-SFO. I guess where im struggling is getting these convoluted routes cheaper than a simple direct/one stop over flight.

So Tom, in that route above, how did you find such a route for cheaper than flying direct?

It is not usually cheaper to use QF flights for your run, the fare rules on AA are better for this. You might plan a day in LAX and fly to SFO via LAX-DFW-ORD-LAS-SFO.....for a bit of fun and profit.
 
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