Thanks for watching! It's dull right up until the moment you wow your friends with how great a ticket you were able to snag at an impossibly low price!

I hope it helped!

You're very welcome. Hope it helped. Different colour screen these days but the guts are the same

Thanks - good luck!

Thanks! Enjoy!

You're more than welcome. Thanks for watching!

You're working your way through the back catalogue...

Thanks! It was my pleasure - glad you got something from it.

Thanks so much!

You are very welcome

Thanks - nice to learn I have a following amongst "relatively large ground squirrels". Indeed from their lord! Not a good year for tier point runs but things must be better next year? With a 6 month advanced purchase rule, its not a bad time to start looking for 2022...

Good luck and enjoy!!!

Thanks Gary - quite enjoyed making that one so I'm glad you enjoyed watching it!

Thanks Jamie

It's a great resource....

Also the penguin clearly knows what he is talking about :-)

The penguin is frequently the smartest person in the room....

Thanks! They say you should "pick a niche" when you start YouTubing and I certainly have done that with ITA Matrix - I'm surprised 70 people wanted to watch this, let alone 700+! But thanks for the kind words and if you wanted to tell your friends about me to get those views up, I won't complain!!!

Perhaps another question, how must the dialogue be structured over the phone when booking the flight with the airline? Do you recite the symbols under "Fare Construction" (@minute 18:32) or will you have to give sections of it? Thanks in advance here from South Africa!

Hello - thanks for the kind words. I've (almost) always been able to get the fare by just going through the flights - never needed the construction gobbledegook. Sometimes takes the agent a few goes to jiggle the right combination of codeshare flights but it is usually straightforward. If you go though an agent the construction codes are probably more helpful as they may not be as familiar with the airline codes as the airline agent is! I say "almost" as I've been working on one recently which just won't work and everyone (including the agents) are at a loss to explain why... But it should work with just the flights. The moment when the fare pops out and the agent is amazed at how low it is is always the highlight!

Thanks Alex - appreciate the watch. Glad there was something in there for you - would have been a long slog if there'd been nothing new!

Thanks - a labour of love this one! Tier Point run is late July, provided the US and Bulgaria let people in (and out again!). Looking at doing something the week after the travel restrictions are lifted, and don't really care where that is provided its warmer than here! Did contemplate dashing to Jersey this week, as that is now allowed, but a 40 minute flight makes for a fairly dull video!

@@MattsPlanet Sounds like Jersey's having some teething issues with recognising the testing results for some passengers (going by other posts i've been seeing), so you may have dodged a bullet by leaving that one for a week or so!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks Ian - possibly my favourite comment of the month! Matrix will make rainy afternoons fly past...

Thanks Brian. New look to Matrix too in the last week or so... I think its the same although the front end is now a little "flasher"...

Thanks Doug! There is no charge for watching it again! Probably best to have a session of Matrix open as you watch so you can test out the steps for real. It takes some effort, but its really helpful once you get the hang of it.

Been at this for a while now so there's quite a back catalogue.... You'd be more than welcome in Patreon - but I would say that wouldn't I???

Thanks Ed. They changed how it looks since I made this video but the guts of it are still the same!

@@MattsPlanet agreed looks to be the same functionality. I remember using it in the old incarnation about 8 years ago. Helped me identify a routing with US airways from Gotenburg via London to NYC on the BA babybus. Their computer system had coded the babybus as a one class economy service, and priced it accordingly. Unfortunately they didn’t honour the ticket and never got to fly on the A318 over the pond.

Thanks so much. I think I must have worked my way into the Kiwi KZfaq algorithm as I've had a couple of sign ups from NZ in the last week or two! See you in the WhatsApp chat???

@@MattsPlanethow do I get on to the WhatsApp chat?

Excellent work Jon - this kind of comment makes all the work involved in making these videos worthwhile! And at the end of your flight you're going to be in America's best City too!

Thanks Elaine. Not too hard and very useful when you get used to it!

@@MattsPlanet 👊👊👍

Enjoy!

Thanks - there's a sequel now too....

@@MattsPlanet Thanks will take a look.

Thanks for that - another few weeks and a small corner of the skies might be open!

Thanks for that - really appreciate the feedback. That's an interesting video idea but the challenge may be that things change so much. Generally booking 6 months in advance will produce the very best pricing, but last minute can also be attractive. I will take a look at whether there's a video here - I have had an idea to track a fare (or perhaps several) every week for 6+ months to see what prices do over time so there may be something to build on there... Thanks again

Thanks Swifty. Matrix looks a bit different these days, but its not sufficiently different I've felt the need to invest the time in remaking this video with the new interface... As with most things, practise helps!

I can now confirm that my black and white helper is the real fourth penguin...

Thanks Aiden - congrats and congrats also on getting the Missus to tag along! Not everyone manages that... I hope you have a great time and it sounds like you're looking on it as a holiday with a lot of flights which is the perfect attitude to adopt! First of many, I'm sure....

@@MattsPlanet I tried to convince her of the joys adding a Phenix stop could bring between LAX and JFk but she wasn't having it :D. I bought her a lounge pass at Manchester airport last month so has had a taste for airport lounges and would like more...a good trick for anyone there!

@@aidankerr1125 Quite a downgrade in aircraft from JFK-PHX versus JFK-LAX so I have to side with your wife on that one!!!

@@MattsPlanet I didn’t even think about that…I was thinking about the TPs from PHX to LAX 🤣. Can’t wait now! DUB-LHR-JFK-LAX-JFK-LHR-DUB all in business. The positioning flights to Dublin from GLA/EDI will bring me right back down to Earth 🤣

How was the journey. My wife and I are considering it!

Thanks - and Lufty's discounted P fares do earn into the scheme I believe which opens some options.... Heard that other day that M&M collectors often look at Amman....

@@MattsPlanet I've not yet decided if I will assign miles (called points since January) into M&M (assuming *A flights) or join another frequent flyer scheme. M&M Senator status is not realistically achievable for me as a family man. We might take one intercontinental business class flight a year, the rest being in Euro-Economy or LCC. I could cut my losses, assume status is not really achievable until the young lad is older and my wife and I are flying more often to farther flung places (in Business/First) and just bung the miles into M&M. Might scrape Frequent Traveller status the odd year but nothing higher. That grants LH only lounge access on LH group flights only. We live near Berlin and to be honest it's more of a LCC provincial airport. I'm Irish and it makes no sense to fly anything other than direct with FR or EI (much less so with EI as their flight times to DUB are not great with school kids). BER is better served by LCCs than any *A airline including LH Group. I am only really in the M&M scheme because it's the only one you can collect meaningful amounts of miles/points in for redemptions without flying and the points are protected from expiration by holding a M&M blue credit card. As an example I've collected ca. 170k points since mid December, all through on ground activities that I would have spent money on anyway (I tell a lie, we flew to MUC on LH and got a whopping 56 miles each way and 40 status points, out of the 650 you'd need to even get to silver status lol). That's enough to allow our family of 3 to fly to North America on a so called Meilenschnäppchen (miles deals), which cost 55k miles return to the US/Canada or 60k to Mexico in Business, including the business class connecting flight in D/A/CH (no free connecting flights to LOT flights out of Warsaw sadly). The surcharges are a hefty €600 on each return ticket and availability to the west coast is limited, but east coast and Toronto/Chicago availability is good, even in the school holidays. So we can fly in business for the price of economy. That's how I look at it. The only way to redeem M&M miles on return flights from Europe to somewhere intercontinental without hefty surcharges is to position to Warsaw and fly with LOT, but availabilty is much less compared to LH. That's a lot more than I wanted to say, sorry. The end result is that I can see myself just pushing the miles back into M&M for a few years but then looking at status through Aegean a little bit down the line. I've watched your video on that and it seems to be a fairly popular tactic even among Germans as the LH Senator status is very difficult to qualify for unless travelling long haul for work very regularly. I have also wondered to myself if it wouldn't make sense to forget about *A for the status and look at OneWorld. As I said, BER is not exactly a *A hub. I would be as well served on OneWorld perhaps. I would be concerned about expiration there though as we'd have to accumulate Avios purely through flying and that would likely take longer than 36 months, though from what I hear it's not as brutal as the M&M system.

Thanks Shaun - good to hear it helps! I toyed with a run a few months back but had my status extended (again) - August year ends got unexpectedly extended before I managed to book anything which meant I didn't need to do one... Will be looking again in a few months for my 2023 renewal.

Thanks - someone with no interest at all would last 15 seconds? 10???

Thanks - hope it was helpful! Still don't know why they use LX! Although a quick google suggests its a carry over from Crossair???

@@MattsPlanet Hello Matt, unfortunately I also have no idea. If I find out, I will let you know. Thanks again :-)

Thanks for watching and thanks for commenting. Extremely gratifying to know that someone will benefit from the work done!

Hope it helped

Matrix certainly lifts the veil.... And usually shows that the wonderful Lufthansa fare I'm looking at books into P class which earns 0 into my Aegean scheme!

@@MattsPlanet Bingo!!

Thanks Hendrik. The AA87 was a tad clumsy - I knew there was lots of direct AA connection options but viewers may not - was keen to show that you could filter by a specific flight number. Hopefully people will know what I meant!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks! I used an underscore to denote a space - vaguely recalled it was a convention used in computing as a space is otherwise invisible! Sorry if it was confusing...

@@MattsPlanet Some references (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character#Visible_space) suggest using the Bottom Square Bracket symbol ␣ but it is only slightly different from the underscore. Thanks again for a fascinating video.

Thanks Keith... Matrix has had a refresh since this video and the guts are the same even if it feels a little temperamental... ATL-SJC is >2000 miles if its a direct flight so should be good for 140 TPs... A more "traditional" route would be BUD-LHR-JFK (although I think ATL will work) - LAX-SJC which squeaks out another 40 TPs each way...

@@MattsPlanet Thanks - only just got back to looking at this after my trip. It turned out that there were no OneWorld direct flights ATL-SJC, although it appears in the BA Tier point calculator. So I ended up with ATL-DFW-SJC in each direction, so 80TPs each way. However, I also ended up with a stop in every other leg, mainly due to the short notice I guess. My final routing (on 3 tickets) was LHR-BUD-LHR-CLT-ATL-DFW-SJC-DFW-ATL-ORD-LHR-BUD-LHR 12 flights in 12 days! But at least I squeaked out 680 TPs, and 4 BA flights. My BAEC year reset about 10 days before I started, so straight back to Silver. Now to see if I can manage Gold, I've just booked a short haul plus trip with double TPs, I think I could do with one more this year while the offer's still going, as I don't see any long haul travel on my horizon at the moment.

Great timing! Haven't looked for a while - is Sofia still a good starting point?

@@MattsPlanet Yes it is. Its funny as the one i'm interested in is very close to your video thumbnail. SOF-LHR-JFK(not HEL)-LAX-LAS

Very good - I added HEL mainly as it was an interesting option even though it isn't the absolute optimal routing for TPs. Hopefully will make a good video! You may be able to squeeze MAD or BCN in out and/or back - I mention it in the videos in case you've not watched them...

@@MattsPlanet i think i've watched everyone one of your videos so far!! I have a few time constraints, so need to not have too many days off work :-), but might have a look once i get the money together to book. thanks for all the excellent advice and keep on doing it, not far from getting monetized and you deserve it.

Thanks Peter - really appreciate it. Started this as a distraction when locked down to see if I enjoyed it, and I seem to have found an audience. Monetisation wasn't the initial objective but it looks likely I'll get there. Thanks for the support, and if you've watched all the videos, watch them again!!! Tee hee - kidding. Thanks again.

Thanks! Even if it now looks a little different to when I made the video, the functionality is still there.

I agree! Tell your friends...

Next watching your tier point videos. I live in LA and looking to build an itinerary to reach gold status from scratch

@@MrPerfusionist That's a challenge! It's 12 (ish) flights between LA and London so getting it in one hit is tough. My tip would be to see if you can build something with a stop in London and look into the BA double tier point promotion. A holiday that qualifies has to start from the UK and last for at least 5 days so its not completely straightforward for a US resident but is currently the best way to boost collection

@@MattsPlanet thank you! That’s a great suggestion. Will certainly look into it

@@MattsPlanet Managed to find a booking in Sep. JER-LHR-JFK-SFO-JFK-LHR-JER with a car booking for 5 nights. Total is £3728.37 BA agent helped book this. This will give me a total of 1280 tier points.Considering I am not booking 6 months in advance, do you think this is decent? Any tweaks I can do to minimize the price or maximize the tier points to get to 1500? I paid a deposit of 200 pounds, but can cancel without any penalty within the first 24 hours.

No - thank you!

Carry on carrying on, Peter!

Will do Roy. Looking at my own plans for 2023 and will almost certainly make an updated matrix video in the process.... Thanks and stay tuned!

Thanks Jacky - chaos or otherwise! I've had a few plays with the "new" matrix and I didn't think that much has been stripped away? Some of it is a bit hidden but I think most of it is still there? I know you can't query by day part (morning / afternoon etc) although you can filter the results that way which I guess gets you to the same place... What have you noticed is missing?

Its very, very similar. I did notice a couple of trivial differences but not enough to invest the time in a complete new video... From memory, you can filter results by time of day but you used to be able to search by time of day - that sort of thing. Looks a little different but the guts are still very much the same.

The advantage for me is not having to speak to anyone!!! It is quicker to do it online and you do remove the (albeit slim) opportunity for human error. Otherwise calling gets the job done just as well.

I don't think Matrix changed so much that LHR is no longer a valid option! There's a lot of factors that could have inadvertently blocked that as a valid option and without seeing the screens its hard to guess what might have been the issue... Its a free resource so I don't think we can be too annoyed when the error trapping capabilities of the service are poor... All I can say is try tweaking dates or split the routing out into the multi-city tab to see if you can get it to catch. Cheers and good luck

It's very similar... There are a few very subtle differences that I've noticed but I haven't judged them important enough to make a video about... I will make one as and when I book my next tier point run though...

Call the airline with the fare details at the bottom of the results page. Or give that info to a travel agent

Very hard to say without any detail... Keep trying and also look at the Chrome Powertools add-in which pushes routings directly into booking engines....

You'd use Matrix to find the flights you want then call BA to book them - a double tier point qualifying trip needs to be booked through BAH (I assume that's what you're after!!!). Occasionally, the routing you want will be offered online through the Holidays website but if its in any way complicated, it probably won't so you'll need to call

@@MattsPlanet great thank Matt - love your videos!

Just looked for London to Singapore and Qatar was showing for me...

Me too. I think the chrome extension still works but the website does seem to be down... No idea why, I'm afraid!

The go-to guys for complex bookings are Propeller travel. I don't have an email to hand but they're easy to google. They understand the whole tier point thing and can access multiple points of sale to get things through. Either them or the prime airline would be where I would start if the online options don't work. Good luck!

@@MattsPlanet Does it cost money to fill in the 'Complex Air Booking' page from Propeller Travel? How does it work if you fill in the page and let them do the work?

@@anneverhoeven7260 I think they make money from earning commission on the booking - never needed to get that far with them myself. I'd ping an email and ask them!!!

Yes! In the extension codes box you need f bc=w|bc = e|bc = t to limit flights to those booking codes (those are the three for premium economy on BA). If you leave the other flight field blank it'll give PE one way and economy the other. The club codes are J, C, D, R and I. Clunky formats but its basically F (fare) BC (booking code) = C with the | symbol separating the various options. Enjoy!

@@MattsPlanet Thats great thanks mate :)

Yes! In the Extension codes adding "Aircraft t:787" should work - aircraft type... I believe you can be even more specific although it might take some trial and error to get the text right...

I'm not sure I understand your question... What do you mean by "tax for the company"?

@@MattsPlanet I saw a video of a guy saying there’s a code for paying only the amount of money really is required and it’s the cheapest thing. Using the powertools. Idk if it’s true though.

Actually, it does this automatically. It's just that those flights are normally more expensive and are rarely shown on the first page. Gotta dig a little bit to find them.

I think you've spotted the opportunity... When matrix converted to the current version (white to black you might say) I think it cut down on the number of processes it allowed you behind each query before giving you results... So some of the more exotic options aren't found in the time available. Hard to prove this and hard to explain.... Anyhoo, the way around it is to narrow the search criteria so there's a greater chance of finding everything before the timer runs out. You can do it within the basic search screen, but its easier to split the journey into legs through the connecting points then filter by "airlines = CX" (or whatever) to only show the multi-airline options. You need a good idea of who you'll be flying but it should work...

@@MattsPlanet As a software engineer, this makes sense as it's a n^2 problem. Thanks for the tip!

If that's the correct fare bucket, then yes. A quick search suggests that's an award code for business class, which may not show up in travel agents systems so may not show up on Matrix, but in principal that's what you'd do.

@@MattsPlanet Ya it's for AA saver biz space which never shows up anymore it seems.

Cheers Jojo. It's quite possible the bookwithmatrix site can't cope with the output from the new look matrix yet. The old matrix is still available (there's a link on the new matrix page) so perhaps try that and see if bwm will accept it?

@@MattsPlanet Thanks Matt.

HI there - I don't... My aim is to give people the tools to do this themselves... If I did offer something it would have to be at a significant cost, to make it worthwhile for me to spend time on that rather than something else and I don't think anyone would pay it...

@@MattsPlanet makes sense. I have started looking but find the cost is at least £2.50 per point in summer 2023. Dunno if its worth it nowadays!

Where did you see the $147?

Everybody loves 'em!

@@MattsPlanet Especially us Orcas!

If this sort of thing is your thing, I hope it worked for you!!!

Putting N in the routing code will limit results to just non stops...