I just went back and checked my 1986 calendar book. (NOTE TO THE YOUNGER GENERATION: We used written, pen-and-paper calendar books before PDAs came along.) In 1986, I began a fifteen-year period of serious business travel, and on one business trip that year I ran from one ticket counter to another, gathering membership applications for all the frequent flyer programs. (NOTE TO THE YOUNGER GENERATION: This was before the Internet, when you had to get an application, fill it out, and send it through the mail -- or hand it to a gate agent who invariably lost it.) My Frequent Flyer calendar page shows that I was a member of every major domestic airline frequent flyer program EXCEPT Pan Am, which I declined because of their membership fee. There may have been other airlines in the WORLD that charged such fees, but among domestic airlines of that time Pan Am was unique.