I made 4 trips to Hawaii before I was 1 year old. Much of my childhood was spent between my home in CA, and Lahaina, Maui, where my family owns a small business. My grandmother moved to the islands in 1958 just before statehood to start a new life and the rest is well, family history.

I did my first "mileage run" when I was 13. Despite all that traveling to and from Hawaii from the west coast, I was still a few hundred miles short of making Premier with United that year, so my dad dropped me off at the airport in the morning and I got to fly to Phoenix and back via SFO and LAX. (Unaccompanied minor anyone? - those were the days) No worries, I was home in time for dinner.

Now, I still make at least 4 trips to Hawaii each year. I'm married with in-laws in India, so +1 trip a year there, and I'm just shy of 50,000 miles for Premier Exec. The stakes have changed but the game has not; if nothing else since making Premier Executive with United and finding out that I get double miles and a better shot at United's unlimited domestic upgrades for elites, I've gotten that much more serious about keeping my status.

Like many other flyertalkers out there, I found a way to fly for free in college- by getting kicked off the oversold Monday morning flight between Chicago and Detroit. I'd take a flight 1 hour later, still make it back to Ann Arbor in time for class, and use the certificate to book a flight home to California (returning on the red-eye via Chicago) the following weekend.

I discovered flyertalk about a year or so ago, after reading the Conde Naste Traveler about George Clooney's at-the-time-new movie Up In The Air, and the real life group that inspired it. I had no idea that there were others. I'd never even heard of a "mileage run" before despite having done so many.

I've always enjoyed traveling and especially flying and in this tough economy, I'm always looking for creative ways to fuel my passion of seeing the world. Before flyertalk, I never really appreciated all the miles I was earning; if I got a free ticket somewhere, I was like "that's cool" and I was happy with it, but now I know better- like a cheap ticket to Australia gets you the miles needed for an otherwise more expensive trip to Miami