Today I am making three posts on the use of ITA Matrix to search for flights. Many readers have found my posts useful, but they can be very abstract and some people have requested more real-life examples. I gave two examples during my presentation at the 2014 Chicago Seminars:
- How to find an itinerary that connect in two cities in order to add extra miles to my itinerary, but neither connection should be in Chicago.
- How to find the cheapest time to visit any of four European cities for a trip of 3-5 nights.
Collecting all these screenshots and organizing them is surprisingly time-consuming, but I will make it my top priority for the weekend. Meanwhile I will share in other posts today two other demos that I already completed:
- Fly a Star Alliance carrier booked with a United flight number to credit those miles to MileagePlus. (It’s necessary to book tickets with United and have 016… ticket stock in order to earn Premier Qualifying Dollars.)
- Book a W fare on a United-operated flight to use a Global Premier Upgrade.
If you find these demos useful, let me know and I will make more. Try to be specific about your request so I know what people are looking for.
In this post I share the PowerPoint itself. It includes some useful guidance for what you can and cannot expect to achieve when using ITA Matrix. It is not a booking tool; it only searches for flights. It’s designed to be very specific, while at the same time providing many options so you have a better idea what you can actually book. Learning to balance those extremes is key to your success. Even then there are some days when you find a perfect itinerary that you just can’t book online. It’s not magic.
Scott Mackenzie created Travel Codex to share his tricks for better travel.Over a dozen other bloggers have joined since 2012 to help uncover the secrets of travel loyalty programs.
