Originally Posted by
Check Airman
I think some people are overthinking it. Set an altitude that you think is reasonable. If they give you something else, set that altitude. If your guess is wrong, you don’t lose any points.
The only time we had an issue with this was going into PHX, where the published miss had you going to 5000', while ATC would actually only climb you to 3000'. Guys with the local knowledge always set the alerter to 3000', but it eventually ended up in our company notes because so many were getting burned by setting it to the missed approach altitude and blowing through 3000' during the ensuing helmet fire.