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MMMondayMemo: How Wikipedia can be useful for routing

Ha Long Bay

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MMMondayMemo: How Wikipedia can be useful for routing

Wikipedia is an enormous asset that Miles and I use whenever we set out to plan a trip. Why? Wikipedia has a page for every airport I’ve ever thought of routing to, from, or through. How does this help? It lists the airlines that service that airport, and where they fly directly to/from. Let me show you how Wikipedia can be useful for routing when planning a trip. This will help you get creative in redeeming those valuable points of yours!

Wikipedia was enormously valuable when I planned my Southeast Asia trip last New Year’s Eve.

Because American Airlines allows you to change your award ticket as much as you want, so long as your origin and destination remain the same, we booked flights from Hanoi to Indianapolis with whatever routing was available at the time of booking. Now…this wasn’t the best routing, nor did it optimize time or cabin experience. It was just what was available.

As the trip drew nearer ( the day before we left) I used Wikipedia to derive our final routing: one that included 3 different lie-flats. 

I had originally thought we would fly from Hanoi to Tokyo to Chicago to Indy. In fact, that was my first choice because I wanted to fly Japan Airlines First Class. THE PROBLEM…no avail on the Hanoi to Tokyo leg. I kept trying to find another way around it, but wasn’t finding anything that would be desirable. UNTIL I rechecked Wikipedia and saw that Qatar flew to Bangkok from Hanoi.

Qatar is a partner of AA so that works. Japan Airlines flies from Bangkok to Tokyo so that works. And it would arrive in time to put on us on the flight we wanted…JAL First Class from Tokyo to Chicago. I checked the legs I wanted by using BritishAirways.com and sure enough, there were seats on every leg we needed. BINGO!

a screenshot of a computer

You can use Wikipedia in the same way we did to come up with ideas of how to route your trip by knowing which airlines service it and where they fly!

We ended up flying Qatar Business Class to Bangkok, then Japan Airlines Business Class to Tokyo, and finally…Japan Airlines First Class to Chicago.

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5 Comments

  • alan July 10, 2017

    isnt a common sense? also, are u saying u do doh bkk tyo chi in one aa award?

    bkk is a major airport. it doesnt take much brain power to figure out most major airlines fly there…. you are not talking about second tier cities in indonesia, etc…

    • Miles July 10, 2017

      Alan – Monday memos are for beginners so the content is geared for people who are looking for tips and just starting off

      Also, the routing was Han to bkk on Qatar, then bkk-nrt-ord on Jal on one ticket and required the rate desk pushing the award thru – as it required backtracking and making use of mpm

  • Gene July 10, 2017

    Just use AirlineRouteMapper. It is a free download.

    • Miles July 10, 2017

      Gene – I’ll have to check it out – does it construct for you or just give route maps? Thanks!

      • Gene July 10, 2017

        Try it, you’ll see. The link is here: http://arm.64hosts.com/. It’s been around for a long time. I love this tool, but as with you, I also find Wikipedia handy for seeing which airlines serve which airport, I use both.

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