MilesBuzz! - Thankful for Flyer Talk

Looking back on this travel year, all you've taught me, has in one way or another (usually miles), made trips to the caribbean, 11 major league ballparks, alaska, mexico, london, paris, dublin, and yes iceland possible. I'm thankful for the tips, tricks, coupons and advice you have given. As retirement continues, I hope I can help others as well. Happy Thanksgiving.

PS First Class is the way to go.

I agree!!!!! Thank you FlyerTalk!

Thanks, Randy and FTers everywhere.

...and yes iceland possible.

Really? With miles? How?

My wifes ticket to BWI was miles. Mine was denied boarding compensation voucher. Thanks again FT

I agree!!!!! Thank you FlyerTalk!

Me too! Am ultra new to this site, until now I thought I was the only freak (female, and that,) who talked flight plans and frequent flyer schemes to bored friends until they walked away, and who scheduled extra days at San Maarten, FWI on the way to Saint Barths just to spend time watching the planes come in (notably the 747s which land what seems like feet from your head and blow you into the air when they take off!) Now I feel like a complete idiot to have thought I was the only one, am much humbled by the knowledge of the subscribers, and am spending all my free time perusing this site. Am very happy. Thankyou, all, and Happy Thanksgiving!

This is definitely a sub-culture. But a gold mine of a sub-culture. Also thankful & appreciative to all the helpers here. Hope I can do likewise moreso in the coming year. :cool:

Really? With miles? How?

I believe the Iceland reference above pertains to the free tickets to Iceland many of us got this past summer when Cheaptickets.com was selling JFK-KEF RT for $0 plus taxes. FT played a big role is getting the word out on that.

thanks to flyertalk for pointing out the Discover "zero balance for life" deal. I bought $5000 worth of savings bonds which are still accruing interest at 4.5%, and I use the Discover at Starbucks twice a month for a small coffee.

After about 4 years of $100 payments, I'll have a nice $5000 pot of savings plus interest, and I am happy to have a nice rainy day fund.

COG31 Please let me welcome you to Flyertalk! It is a fabulous place full of great advice and terrific potential friends. I hope you enjoy your time here as much as I do.

user999991 Could you please provide a link to the Discover card thread. I did a search but could not find any info. Thanks!

I got my Discover offer in the mail. I'm going to shift the remainder of my home improvement loan onto it (after they've done their duty by generating miles, of course. :) ).

A couple of things to watch out for:

1. You have to make a purchase or cash advance twice every month.
2. If you are ever late, or otherwise run afoul of the T&C's, you lose the 0% and it can never be restored!

It's not clear whether they mean late with their card or late with any card. I'm pretty careful (I pay off the balances every month) but I can easily see me letting something slip through the cracks, and there goes the deal.

Wait a minute! 747s in St. Bart's?

We can all be thankful that there is a similar thread over in Community Buzz (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=374650). :)

Very thankful for FT and would be really thankful for a link to that Discover Card 0% for life offer. I have to buy an engagement ring pretty darn soon and I'm sure not going to be able to put it on my WorldPerks Visa at their interest rates. :rolleyes:

Please post the link! ^

peace,
~Ben~

I started with the FF game in 1997. Today was a red letter day, as I made Platinum Elite on Northwest for the first time ever. (I have almost no biz travel.) Thanks to all of the members of the Flyertalk Community for either:

A. Making me think I'm not totally nuts, or

B. Making me think that if I AM nuts, at least I have company!

It was fun meeting a few FT folks within the past year and hopefully more in the year to come. :D

I got the Discover deal when I called to cancel my card. They said no interest until July 05. No interest after that as long as I make 1 purchase a month. I plan on just donating a dollar to a charity online each month and leaving the cash in my investment account until it's paid from the min payment. They also bumped up my credit line iwhen I called. Gotta love it.

And so I'll stay on the topic, thank you flyer talk for the cheap fares, free miles, and great advice. I can't imagine what life would have been like if I hadn't learned about my *wood Amex on this board.

Here's to FlyerTalk!!

Without FT, I would not have close to 700,000 lifetime miles on AA (about 300,000 earned through goldpoints); 300,000 lifetime miles on US (many earned this year though 3 trips to Europe with the promos to Europe and the credit card deal); Hilton gold and about 200,000 lifetime HHonors points (many Hilton 50,000 point promos); or Hyatt Diamond (learning that it is (was) the best program for someone with a lot of priceline stays) and 60,000 points in the bank.

I know that the above balances are quite small compared to many here, but I would not have even 1/3 of this if it weren't for FT.

I would also not have gone to Europe 3 times last year on the BA $20 deals (and earn enough miles for a BA F trip to ATH) or gone to Iceland this past June.

I also have learned how to pick flights that might offer bump opportunities, as well as learn how to get cheap tickets by tossing out the last seg (like when it was $150 cheaped to fly DTW-DFW-DTW-TOL than just DTW-DFW-DTW).

In all, I've travelled a lot in over the past 2 years (when I really got serious about this) and have gone to Europe about 10 times since then. I probably would have only gone once if FT weren't around.

Thank you.

I have also become more of a "bumpee" after reading many of the tips on this site.

Because of FlyerTalk I have:

Increased my status on CO from Silver to Gold thanks to mileage runs.

Increased both the balance and value of my frequent flyer miles

Increased my Hilton status from Gold to Diamond.

Harvested 3 valueable VDBs.

Saved countless $$ for my business by learning routing/pricing tricks.

Met truly interesting fellow FTers from all over the world in: LAS, SJC, NYC, CHI, SMF, DTW.

I went 10 years of constant business travel with NO status. (lots of short trips and loyal only to the lowest price ticket)

I finally made AAGold with segments a few months ago almost by accident and found FT at about the same time. Thanks to FT, I signed up for the Plat challenge and will make it on my next trip leaving tomorrow. I needed 3500 more points to qualify and my trip would have netted 2000 points, leaving me with about one week left to pull off a milage run.

Thanks to what I have learned on this forum, I re-routed and re-coded this trip from a total of 4 short Eagle segments (including two 2.5 hour ATR flights...YUCK!) to a seven segment Y-UP trip netting me almost 8000 q-points for only $160 more...almost all on jets with upgrades. It does require an overnight layover, but discovered I had enough points in an old Marriott account to get me a nice room.

Without this forum, I would have continued on traveling with no status and been more and more frustrated with flying. Now, it is almost pleasurable....I get to avoid long lines, get plenty of upgrades and most importantly....I get treated more like a human and less like a bovine cargo unit.

Thanks FT for helping to restore my sanity. I shall mooo no more!

I too am grateful for Flyertalk. After several years at 2P I was able to make 1P this year on UA for the first time ever. This was done using normal travel, but taking advantage of non-standard routings that increased the number of segments. Something I would never have come up with on my own.