What is your normal cruise height for Short Haul

[gazpodel]

What the subject says!
I'm having difficulty in settling on my ideal cruise height.
I know most airliners fly at 36,000ft aprox, but I seem to spend so much fuel getting there, I tend to settle for half that for any flight under 250nm.

Would this be an ideal & realistic cruise level?

[coke]

I know what you mean.

Flight sim is quite a bit unrealistic in these aspects though. FlightAware.com offers real-life, live trackings of aircraft altitudes and other flight information.

For the 400-nm flight between San Diego and San Jose, I usually take my B737 to a mere 27,000 feet.

According to Flightaware, Southwest Airlines flight 641 from Las Vegas to Phoenix flies a 300 mile journey at FL290.

Good luck!

JC

[fishinmission5369]

IF you use the ATC..they'll most likely direct you to around FL 180-190

[LH-B744]

I don't know so many flights which are really shorter than 250 nm and which for you can buy tickets, i.e. which is served by an airline...

There is a definition in Europe which says, a short haul flight is everything that is 810 nm (1500 km) or shorter. In this category, we know a lot of examples:
EDDL - LIRF
EDDL - LOWW
EDDL - LIMC
... . . . . .....

So, the case that you've described is the short haul amongst the short haul flights. And even in this category which I call "super short haul", there is a difference (concerning the alt that you should not exceed) between
EDDL - EBLG
[which is an example for "is not served by an airline"]
and
EDDL - EDDH
[which in fact IS served by an airline... ].

So, can you give an example? Which flight are you looking for?