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Beta 3: Back in action!
Starting today, an all-new version of MileageBrain is available for beta testing at www.mileagebrain.com.
One thing you’ll notice right away: The new version requires you to create an account. This lays the groundwork for great new features that will allow you to personalize your MileageBrain experience, and helps us provide better support and troubleshooting as well. Your information is private to us, and us only. We won’t share your email address with anyone. Once we’ve had a chance to incorporate your feedback and solidify our product, the site will be moving to a paid model. This will ensure that the site can continue to operate, develop, and grow.
We’ve learned A LOT from building the first two versions of MileageBrain. We started out just thinking about technology and design, but along the way found an awesome community of mileage enthusiasts who generously offered a lot of time and feedback to our site. Interacting with all of you has been the most rewarding aspect of working on MileageBrain, and the reason we decided to give it another shot. We’re thankful that you’ve joined us for this ride.
Hearing about the trips you found on MileageBrain in 2011 was great, but like a gas-guzzling tri-jet, the old version ultimately proved too expensive to operate and we had to park it in the desert. We went back to the drawing board to invent our Dreamliner - but (just like the real thing) it was harder than we thought and took longer than expected. It’s far from finished, but this is the platform we want to build on moving forward, and it’s time for first flight.
Thank you all for your patience and support. We’ll be on Twitter, MilePoint, and our blog looking for your questions and feedback.Ben & Midori
The MileageBrain Crew -
Q: When are you going to be back "live"? I really loved your service when it was operating. I made 3 mileage runs based on the fares I found from Minneapolis on Mileage Brain.
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An all new version is in the works! Check out our progress here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPVbQE1lcME&list=UUDwjDH1HiIqMTEhaV-02S6w&index=1&feature=plcp
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Progress, progress, progress
…We’re pleased to say we’ve made some!
With a lot of engineering work (plus some additional resources from Amazon) we’ve been able to add another 100+ airports into service at MileageBrain! After announcing earlier this month that we had to take down everything except for the Top 25 due to costs, Ben has been racking his own brain with ways to reinstate all your favorite airports. We have indeed optimized quite a bit in the weeks since, and are committed to solidifying your experience.
Anyone who’s contacted us in the meantime should find their requested airport in this latest list - We sincerely appreciate the time you’ve taken to try MileageBrain out and contact us with your comments!
We really do love to hear from our users; Just as a reminder, we’re still looking for more insight on whether you’d all be interested in having a mobile MileageBrain app on your various devices. Get in touch with us directly here, on our official forum at MilePoint.com, at FlyerTalk, or on twitter.
Now, I’m sure you all just want to see the newest airports, so here they are! In alpha order, our new 156-strong list (I strongly recommend using Ctrl/Command-F):
ABE AGS AKL ALB AMS ANC ARN ATH ATL AUS BCN BDL BER BHM BHX BKK BLI BNA BOM BOS BRU BTV BUD BUF BUR BWI CAI CDG CGN CHA CHS CLE CLT CMH COS CPH CVG DAY DCA DEL DEN DFW DME DRS DTW DUB DUS EWR FAR FCO FLL FLO FNT FRA GFK GRR GRZ GVA HAJ HAM HEL HKG HNL HOU HPN IAD IAH ICN IND ISP IST JAX JFK KBP KUL LAS LAX LCY LED LEJ LGA LGB LGW LHR MAD MAN MCI MCO MDW MEL MEM MHT MIA MKE MNL MSN MSP MUC MXP NCE NRT NUE OAK OKC OMA ONT ORD ORF OSL PBI PDX PEK PHL PHX PIT PVD PVG RDU RIC RNO ROC RSW SAN SAT SEA SFO SIN SJC SJU SLC SMF SNA STL STR SVO SXF SYD SYR SZG TLL TPA TUL TUS TXL VIE VKO WAW YEG YHZ YOW YQR YUL YVR YWG YYC YYZ
Happy flying everyone!
Midori, Ben, and Adam
The MileageBrain Crew -
Another great video for explaining to your friends and family what it’s all about - a five minute Ignite talk thanks to rabble.
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An Announcement!
As a few of you have noticed, quite a few things have changed here at MileageBrain! Here’s what’s up:
Searches from our Top 25 (SFO, JFK, EWR, LAX, IAD, LGA, ORD, DCA, BOS, SEA, BWI, YYZ, ATL, PHL, SJC, LHR, FRA, IAH, DEN, OAK, MIA, YVR, MUC, YOW, YUL) are now as snappy, accurate, and hot as ever! Any searches from these airports offer super fresh results and now feature details such as routing and segments so you can make better mileage running decisions and immediately book exactly what you found.
Unfortunately, we’ve had to temporarily disable all other airports except the Top 25. We’re really sorry to not be able to offer everything like we used to, but we’ve had to take this path to both save money and better concentrate on developing the aforementioned user experience and more. We want to be able to sustainably roll features out for all the other airports and we’re hoping to slowly trickle out more airports as we get more efficient with our resources. We’re of course prioritizing which airports to reinstate from all the feedback we’ve been getting from you.
In the meanwhile, we’ll be letting users “Adopt an Airport” soon by donating a certain amount to have an airport of their choice fully crawled by our Brain and featured on our site ASAP along with the Top 25. We’ll make sure that everyone knows that their search was brought to you by said awesome person (or company!), and feature a bio of you with a link to your site, twitter, etc., if you wish. Who said internet fame wasn’t easy?
Our American Airline devotees can now find super accurate fare results for their airline again, and we also now redirect your bookings straight to AA.com.
The best way to keep in touch with us directly remains our contact button, but we now also have an official MileageBrain forum in the Concourse Z area of MilePoint.com! Come hang out with us and your fellow MileageBrainers, share tips and tricks, and suggest features, report bugs, etc. We’re seriously thinking about offering a mobile app for MileageBrain in the near future, so keep telling us what you want to see and what you think!
Happy traveling and hope to hear from you all soon,
Midori, Ben, and Adam
The MileageBrain Crew -
A wonderfully friendly CO F/O took our camera out onto the tarmac and is shooting photos of the gorgeous 737-900 we’re on today. It’s painted in commemorative Blue Skyways livery. Pictures coming soon!
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If you’re on UA or CO, don’t forget to sign the “Voices” page of the Hemispheres magazine to shout out to your fellow FlyerTalkers and MileageBrainers!
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This is only 30 seconds, so you should watch it until the end to see T-Pain talk about his Delta SkyMiles. Think he’ll use the MileageBrain iPhone app when it comes out?
“I gotta keep up with the SkyMiles, baby, you know what I’m sayin’ - Diamond Medallion right here, okayyyyy!”
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Beta 2: Features features features! (and stability)
As some of you may have noticed by now, we’ve released our second beta! It should look like this - If it doesn’t, hit your refresh button :)
You’ll notice a two new search conditions: CPM limits and Alliance Search! Your results come back in a new grid pattern as well.
As we continue to optimize MileageBrain, we’ll be adding more information for it to take into consideration and also work on speed and stability. As always, feel free to contact us or hit up our FlyerTalk thread!
