I think I inherited my love of travel from my maternal grandfather. He and my grandma took my mom and her sisters all over the country. Most of their travel was in a camper but they did make a few airline flights (c. 1950s-1960s) even visiting Cuba around the time Castro was coming to power. My grandparents' goal was to visit all of the states (which were <50 when he made that goal!) They fell short by one state - never making it to Hawaii as Alzheimer's disease started to get the best of grandpa after they hit their 49th state (which happened to be Alaska).

Growing up, my family at one time went from Ohio to Florida every year, and occasionally to some other locales in the eastern US. Other than a few domestic short hops, though, little air travel. We did fly first class though - this was late 70s/early 80s. My dad's business kept him so busy and, at a certain point, became unprofitable, and we stopped having any vacations. The wanderlust in me hated that, but I understood.

My sophomore year in high school (1990) my parents sacrificed to come up with the cash to send me to Spain & France for a foreign language club trip. I'll never forget getting off the Pan Am 747 in MAD and from that moment until we got on the return flight from CDG I was on cloud nine! I was totally hooked and wanted to see the world from that point on.

When my parents helped me move to college, I remember dad signing up for the Drury Inn frequent guest program. I know FF programs had been around for about 10 years then, but that was the first I'd heard of any sort of loyalty program. I signed up for WN's Rapid Rewards program in college, and accrued many points making frequent trips STL-CMH to visit my then-girlfriend (now my wife). Had enough points to take us to MCO for our honeymoon.

After that we flew a couple of times over the next 10 years but couldn't afford much travel; and I stopped putting much effort into FF programs - not really sure why. Once I moved up a bit through the ranks and started to have work related travel, I was back in action! Though not very astute compared to now - I was thrilled at 25K miles from the UA Visa. My main goal was to take my wife and daughter to Hawaii. Which we did, in 2009.

Around that time, I stumbled upon FT! Happened upon it while searching for something (dont remember what). But I only checked in on the site a few times. The Dec 2009 Underwear Bomber incident made me look into FT more (initially because I thought FT'ers would have more accurate realtime info than the TV news). Then I saw the BA Visa 100K offer and since then it's been a heck of a ride - BA Visa, SPG, Citi AA for the wife and I both... trips to CDG and NRT thanks to all of that, with more yet to come! Finally I'm able to do the travel that I always wanted to, but didn't think I could afford to do!! It's not an exaggeration to say FT has changed our lifestyle tremendously and I love being able to give our daughter all these experiences!