Friday, January 9, 2009
Attempt at 1st MR - Advice please
3/11 MSP-STL (need to be in STL Friday night and Saturday night)
3/13 STL-LIT (can leave anytime Sunday, need to be in LIT Sunday evening)
3/16 LIT-MSP (leave Wed late afternoon, don't care when I get back to MSP)
Here are the rules & restrictions from Expedia
Segment 1
ROUTING 100 *** TRAVEL MUST BE NONSTOP ***
100 FROM-TO MSP-NW-STL*
Segment 2
ROUTING 204 FROM-TO STL-NW-MKE-NW-MEM/DFW/HOU-NW-
LIT*
FROM-TO STL-NW-HOU/DFW/MEM-NW-LIT*
Segment 3
ROUTING 207 FROM-TO MSP-NW-BNA/CHI/CVG/DTT/IND/
MKC/MKE/STL/SPI-NW-MEM/HOU/DFW-NW-
LIT*
FROM-TO MSP-NW-LIT*
I have entered these into Fare Metrics to get the route expander results, but I am not quite sure what the best way to book these. I can leave anytime on Friday from MSP as long as I am in STL Friday night and leave anytime Sunday from STL as long as I am in LIT by Sunday evening and need to leave after 3PM on Wed from LIT back to MSP, don't care when I get back. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated.
NW fare rules allow only nonstop flights to STL. You will pay through the nose if you try to do a 1+ stop trip to STL on NW.
Check out Delta. With no nonstops to STL, you have to fly through one of their hubs (usually CVG, MEM or ATL). The longest one-stop routing is through ATL; for about $40 more than NW you get 2812 miles for the round trip instead of 1000.
Delta fare rules are also rather loose and there are some strange routings that are allowed (e.g. MSP south to MEM, north to CVG and finally to STL). You can get up to ~1700 miles from MSP to STL this way. I've been able to get some of these 1600-1700 mile routings to come up on Expedia but the flight times and layovers haven't been really been compatible with the primary objective of visiting my mother while on family leave from work.
For the full range of "legal" possibilities try these parameters in http://beta.itasoftware.com:
From: MSP::DL DL DL
To: STL::DL DL DL
Note: the smiles above are supposed to be M-S-P-colon-colon-D ..., etc.
These 2800 mile trips are the major reason why GE will be a cinch for me this year and PE will be within reach.
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