1. Have a Strategy:
Decide in advance of the promo (like August) what you want to achieve. How many accounts are you going for and what is the goal for each account? I went for 40 and worked my spouse's account for 36. Done. Daughter? I never choose a goal and now I am dithering at the end as for what I can/should/have time to do. Knowing in advance that you are going for a certain number saves you money and time because you wont jump on the bandwagon for something just because everyone is talking about it on FT. Prioritize what you need to do.

2. Follow US on Twitter and know where your closest little league Ball Field is located. Kids are always practicing here in the South. Take a picture with kids playing ball and the GS/US air logo NOW. That hit for me and my spouse saved me a lot of $ this year.

3. Be nice. Don't spout off and be a jerk to anyone you touch in this promo. Be nice to your hard working FT volunteers, (Like Beltway), to new GS folks, to the Hertz guy. People will help you if you are nice to them and treat them decently. Being unpleasant or greedy doesn't help anyone including you. The Hertz guy told me that one person made 25 reservations and then called him and asked him to do them over the phone. He was not pleased (and he did only 4 of them) and it threw a bad light on the rest of us. Duh. Like that is going to happen. Don't be a greedy Jerk.

4. Read the Rules. If you just pay attention to doing what they tell you to do you will be fine. Reading the rules and understanding them is really KEY to this promo. I had a foul ball with Fairfield by Marriott. Why? Because I forgot you had to spend $100 to get enough points to have 250 points show up. I spent $96 and didn't get hit. Still kicking myself.

5. Plan a day off. Create your own special GS holiday. Call in sick if you need to. But don't choose Day one. Think day three or so. Any kinks or the danger of early posting of hits should be past. Spend the day doing all the PIA flower orders, do all the stupid shopping mall, sky mall, insurance quotes, etc. Just make a day of it and wipe as much out of the way as possible.

6. Be thoughtful and try to make it count. We sent flowers to every woman in our office with a note of appreciation for their efforts. Used all three florists on several different family members accounts. We earned not only the miles but lots of good morale from that. We saw Ira Glass in Charlotte (So cool!) instead of throwing away a child's ticket for a bad musical. I bought something almost useful from SkyMall ( a microwaveable heating pad thing). I am now drinking the last bottle of the white wine variety selection from Wine Insiders (it wasn't bad at all!). Instead of just buying miles for stupid stuff try to use this as an opportunity to do/buy/drink something useful. Ok, there is still Track it back (which is never really gonna be useful), but try to spend your money in a way that isn't just buying miles. I loved the fact that people on FT organized to donate tickets to performances and other stuff that they didn't want. Nice cirle of life kind of thing.

7. If you are going to do Car rentals: Go with just one agency and work it from the start. I went to two different agencies (Avis and Hertz) and wound up with 7 hits. Arrggghh.

8.Consider planning out your schedule for October. This is the prime GS working month. If you are gone on a lot of business or pleasure trips you may get good Hotel and Car rental hits. On the other hand It makes it much harder to get GS shopping related hits done because you probably either don't have time to do the hits or you don't want to shop from you hotel room with your credit card number out on the shared internet space. Plan for your schedule. (See #5 and plan a day off if you have a lot going on in October.)

9. Allow for GS fatigue. You will get sick of this promo no matter how much it keeps you awake at night in August. Plan accordingly and remember that reading about the promo on FT doesn't actually earn you any hits so be judicious with your time.

10. Keep your mouth shut. Don't call participating vendors to "check" on your hit. Extra true if your miles earning is a loop hole hit. Don't grumble when you have to wait 20 minutes for the Hertz guy to do all three of your counter rentals. Don't flame people trying to do good here on FT because you don't like or understand what they posted. Don't bad mouth US Air for tightening up the rules after we find the loop holes. Be grateful that they do this promo at all and stop whining! Just be nice and try to enjoy this!!

Beltway: You truly helped me make the top tier! With out your efforts I would have earned far fewer miles. Thank you so much!