Set Your Home Airport

Overview

Your home airport tells MileIntel where you're based. This one setting shapes a surprising amount of the experience — from which award routes get surfaced in Search to how positioning legs are calculated for mileage runs. It takes five seconds to set and makes everything more relevant.

Steps

1. Go to Settings from the sidebar (gear icon).
2. Open the Travel Preferences tab.
3. Find the Home Airport field.
4. Start typing an airport code (e.g., "JFK", "LAX", "ORD") or a city name (e.g., "Chicago", "San Francisco"). The autocomplete will show matching airports.
5. Select your airport and the setting saves automatically.

Why It Matters

• Personalized search. When you search for award flights, MileIntel prioritizes routes from your home airport and flags connections that require a positioning leg.
• Positioning leg calculations. If a great business class deal exists from a nearby hub but not your home airport, MileIntel calculates whether a positioning flight makes the total trip worthwhile.
• Mileage run suggestions. Status-earning flight recommendations are based on round trips from your home airport.
• Lounge access context. MileIntel highlights lounges at your home airport since you'll pass through them most often.

Key Details

• Pick one. MileIntel currently supports a single home airport. If you split time between two cities, choose the one you depart from more frequently.
• Change anytime. Moving to a new city? Update your home airport in Settings and your recommendations adjust immediately.
• No wrong answer. If you're not sure, pick the airport you flew out of most in the last year.

Tips

1. If you live between two airports (e.g., DCA and IAD, or SFO and OAK), pick the one with more direct routes on your primary airline. That's the one MileIntel's search results will benefit from most.