Who: 45 Male, licensed US Customs broker. Work for an international freight forwarder, ironic, I work with cargo. Always been fascinated about flying, going to different places and seeing new cultures. I'm very close to hit lifetime GLD, should get it by Feb 2010 ^
When: GLD 2007, PLT 2008(Missed out on AADER
), decided on EXP for 2009 and got it on June/July thanks to the double miles. Will end year with 150k, 35k is due to DBEQM
How: All of my travel is leisure, NONE is business, and it is on my own dime. Most of our travel is on weekends only, we call ourselves the weekend warriors, departing Friday PM, returning Sunday PM. My spouse is very supportive on this "hobby" of mine, and we always travel together 99% of the time. She even attended her first MR seminar in PHX this year. On Feb we did our first true MR, MKE-ORD-DFW-LAX-SFO-DFW-ORD-MKE for $39 each way, spent about 12hrs on SFO. The next week I surprised her for a weekend in FRA on Valentines day, that was the start of her first international travels. All my flying has been AA, have not done OW yet, but will like to accumulate miles for a RTW. DBEQM/DBLEQ was very helpful, as I missed out on AADER on 2008 and could have made EXP then. Now, even w/out the double miles offer, I still traveled over 110k, This year I've decided to definitely take advantage of offers, aside from the double miles, but also BOS3X too. I will go the extra miles to maintain EXP status. Prior to 2009, my wife has never done any international travel at all, but that changed for her this year.
Where: I travel to SJU almost every month, my mom has Alzheimer and I visit her in her nursing home. Those trips alone are almost 40k of my travel, that is why I decided to add some international trips to get the extra 60k. LHR(for our 10year anniversary) FRA2x, DUB2x, SJU(more than 10X) SFO, SEA, LAX, MCO3x, PHX2x
Why: I used to be the frugal/cheap traveler, will only book my ticket with whoever had the lowest fare. I used to travel a lot with ATA to SJU (as mentioned in WHERE above) and became ELITE with them. This is when I started seeing the difference between no status VS status. Eventually switched my travel to AA. Traveling is very hectic, the lines, wait, etc, anything you can do to minimize and eliminate the obstacles is great for me, hence the status. I've been with AA since 98, perhaps longer. We do not use miles towards award travel, instead we are accumulating them for a RTW. We also use them to invite friends or family to visit us or travel with us.
What: For next year we will do same as this year. Already have 30k booked so far. Will like to go to MUC for Oktoberfest on my B-day. I also want to go AMS, before the red light district is a distant memory. Other than that, just take AAdvantage of any special offers/deals that we can accomodate on our schedule. Funny thing is that this year, we did not spent any weekends at home until middle of March.