FYI, the post has been updated. The colons and slashes DO still work for those who choose to use them, but only if they’re entered as part of a single line in the “Departing from” or “Destination” fields; ITA Matrix will reassign them as necessary.

You’re correct that the colons and slashes should be removed when entering commands directly in the new fields for routing and extension codes.

WebFlyer has a calculator that you could use. I do not know if it is still accurate and being maintained.

http://www.webflyer.com/travel/mileage_calculator/

Keep in mind that the number of miles you earn isn’t the only thing that matters. Some miles are worth more than others, so in some cases earning fewer miles is still better.

Thanks for the correction. I’ll make an effort to complete the updates later this week.

You may know this, but for the benefit of others, I’ll start by explaining what hidden city ticketing is. Typically a hidden city itinerary is used to visit the connecting airport. For example, you want to fly from Seattle to Denver, but you book a ticket from Seattle to Wichita. Denver is the “hidden city” because it is the real destination.

Because there are no non-stop flights from Seattle to Wichita (or at least, not as many), you are more likely to find a connecting itinerary that stops in Denver along the way. If you are lucky, the ticket to Wichita costs less than the flight to Denver even though you still have to fly to Denver first. Then you simply book a ticket to Wichita, fly to Denver, and leave the airport without continuing to Wichita.

In your case, you want an easy way to find “Wichita.” You don’t care which city it is because you’re not going there anyway. However, some airlines and cities are more likely than others. If Denver is your hidden city, then you are probably going to be flying United Airlines because that is their hub and they are likely to connect there.

The solution is to find a copy of United’s route map and choose airports that it flies to from Denver.

A less comprehensive solution is to use the nearby cities option, e.g., airports within 300 miles of DEN, but that will include a lot of airports you don’t want and miss a lot of airports you do want.

Sorry for not responding sooner, JVL. If you’re asking for the airline’s routing code, that is relatively simple. It’s an IATA code that is freely available. Try this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes

If you are asking for the fare codes that each airline uses to sell tickets, that’s difficult because they are used internally and can vary between airlines. You will want to find that information on the airline’s website (if available), use a service like ExpertFlyer (they’re all listed), or just search on Google again. I quite like CWSI’s database:

https://cwsi.net/alaska.htm

You can’t include or exclude a country. You can require alternate substitute airports or you can exclude likely American connecting airports. For example, if flying from Europe to Mexico, there are three or four Canadian airports that would make good connection points. There are maybe a dozen U.S. airports that handle most international connections.

You can perform a calendar search with a start of April 28 and a trip duration of 7-10 days.

Use “/f ~bc=b”. The tilde functions as negation.

There may be an inconsistency in the information available to ITA vs. Expedia. If you want to request a specific fare class you will need to contact a travel agent.